Yes, Your Child Can Play Uke Starting Today


As a parent who has raised teenagers, taught them the fundamentals of music, and placed an emphasis on strummed instruments of the lyre family, I have had my share of teaching kids how to pick up and strum a ukulele. I’ve tought more kids than I can remember how to find the C chord, and even today I’m beginning my daughter on her musical journey.

Although the ukulele seems like it may be a basic, small instrument and any child could pick it up, as a general rule: 7 years old is the best time to start learning ukulele, introducing chords and strumming and starting a basic ukulele course of instruction. Of course this skill can be learned and taught by people of all ages, there are specific reasons why you should wait until your child is about 7 before you start intentionally teaching them.

Is 7 Years Old Too Young To Learn ukulele?

As I decribed above, 7 years old is not too young to learn the ukulele. In fact, it might just be the perfect age, but really it depends on each kid.

I read through over 200 forum posts in response to this type of question, asking how young is too young for the ukulele, and I saw countless responses from parents, friends and teachers and I also saw the same recurring answer over and over: a child is only too young to learn an instrument if they have no interest in it.

If a child has interest, you can lead them down the path to learning through examples and basic easy lessons like strumming, and treating the instrument nicely.

I also saw another recurring theme that people continually mentioned the 6-8 year old range as the perfect age to begin ukulele instruction, and it was also for similar reasons.

A 7 year old has developed indpendent thought, desire to learn and perseverance skills to the point that they can implement these into their choice to begin learning.

I have a daugter that just turned 7. She is small for her age, but because we have so many musical instruments in the home, and there is music very routinely played, she’s been interested in learning how to play music for a while now.

She’s had some piano lessons, and I’ve taught her a couple ukulele chords.

Up until the last year, she didn’t have the patience or interested to pay attention to instruction and try to persevere through a painful learning process to get results.

My four year old kid shows me this every day that he touches the uke, he’s only interested for extremely short periods of time and the instrument can’t hold his attention enough for him to spend time working on the skill to play it.

Although you can defintely train children with programs younger than about 7, it would not be likely that they would choose to do this type of training on their own.

What Size Ukulele For A 7 Year Old?

I’ve seen many, many kids hold ukuleles and I’ve seen how they fit, how they feel and whether the kiddo can even sit with the instrument comfortably for even a short amount of time.

A soprano ukulele is the standard size to fit a 7 year old male or female student. There will be situations where a student is larger than average and can use a concert size ukulele, but it’s usually unneccessary to start with this size.

Many adult women and men are able to comfortably hold and play the soprano size uke, and the soprano may sound closest to what you would envision the traditional sound of the ukulele as.

Again my very small daughter is able to comfortably hold a soprano ukulele in her lap as she’s learning the fingering on basic chords, as well as strumming patterns.

Can A 6 Year Old Learn Ukulele?

Many children grow large as they come out of the toddler phase, they may get strong and tall, and at the same time show interest for the instrument. I’ve seen several kids grow to a size that can quite comfortably play a baritone uke or maybe a tenor guitar at 6 years old. A 6 year old can learn the ukulele if they’re interested in the instrument, and they’re big and strong enough to hold it well. 6 year olds will probably learn slower than a 7 year old first getting to know the uke.

The ukulele can be easy to pick up if the child has the determination to work with it, enjoys the sound, the fulfillment that it brings them while playing and I’ve seen many 6 year olds play very enjoyable music. The piano can also be a great helper to develop kid’s love of music.

Is Ukulele Easy For Kids?

Although ukulele is considered a very easy instrument to learn, with many songs requiring only a couple fingers to play the chords, learning any new skill takes dedication and commitment. Ukulele is the easiest instrument for most kids to learn for many different reasons, including, the size, the familiarity, the plentiful amount of fun music to play and many more.

Most kids will find that learning the ukulele is a rewarding investment of time – especially if they have a love for music. The ukulele is very dynamic, being able to be played in children’s songs, popular songs, religious music, and many more.

It’s popular and beautiful and contributes regularly to the global music scene. Your children can find amazing ukulele players who master iconic songs and begin to imitate them, or they might create original music that you’ll be sharing with your friends.

Kids make beautiful music and it’s amazing to share that journey with them. That’s one of the biggest reasons I’ve started this blog, to share my love with my family!

Which Ukulele Is Best For Beginners Kids?

If you’re reading this paragraph of this article it’s because you really enjoy my writing, or my story or my family, and for that I have to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. The search engines return pages and pages of lists of ads and buying guides of specific models of ukulele that you should purchase. But let’s talk about something else.

Although there are probably countless specific models and brands that I could recommend as a great ukulele to get for a beginner kid, I have to recommend some specific things.

As I said above, get a soprano size. You can stay with a soprano size uke for many many years, nearing into adulthood. You can transition to a concert size or tenor size as you grow if your child stays interested.

One of the great things about ukuleles is that they’re pretty inexpensive, you can get some decent ukes from amazon or your local music store for less than $100. But beware some of them are very badly made and not worth the price, they’re usually no-name brands.

Many great brands make great ukes at this price point. They make them long lasting, beautiful and for a great value. I’d recommend Kala or Makala for a beginner kid’s uke. We have had this Kala uke

as one of our first purchases for many many years and it’s served many kids very well – still going strong.

Recent Posts