The Most Costly Mistake Beginners Make…
If you’ve ever tried to learn a new skill, you know how frustrating and discouraging it can be to make mistakes! You’ve watched the step-by-step YouTube video several times, and even paused the video on the exact frame where the guy started going way too fast and had the worst camera angle possible. After spending a half hour watching a five minute video, you finally gather up the courage to give it a try, and BAM! Your Nintendo Switch is broken even worse than before!
Making mistakes is uncomfortable, especially if it’s in front of someone else (like your music teacher). We want to be good at everything we do as quickly as possible, and music is no different. But very few students are already experts when they come to me. They come to learn, and that means learning from their mistakes in class and during practice outside of class to really understand their instrument. I love encouraging my students that mistakes are okay, and to enjoy the growth that comes with them. Making mistakes is part of the process of becoming a good musician! However, there is one mistake that many students make that is almost impossible for me to help them with, because they’ve already made it before our first lesson. The most costly mistake beginners make is buying the cheapest instrument they can find!
It’s understandable why people choose to do this. Why spend a bunch of money on an instrument if there is a chance you won’t like playing it, and you’ll quit in a month? Wouldn’t it be better to play it safe and buy a $50 guitar from Walmart, rather than break the bank and risk wasting all of that money? Or for a child, you think, “My kid’s interests might change! If they can prove to me that they actually want to learn music, then I’ll get them a nicer instrument!” These are valid concerns - they come from a good place - but the reality is, you’re most likely setting yourself (or your child) up for failure.
Here are some of the problems you might run into if you choose to buy a cheap instrument:
To start with, most of these instruments just don’t sound very good. One of the main reasons people want to play music is because they like the sound of the instrument, and they want to replicate that. But on a cheap instrument, you can sound bad or mediocre even when you’ve technically played everything right, which is frustrating. It can be hard to correct mistakes if you’re not sure whether the problem is you or the instrument. That can be discouraging, and you may lose interest in practicing regularly.
Furthermore, many of these cheap “beginner” instruments are actually much harder to play than a moderately priced one. I can’t tell you how many students I’ve watched struggle with something difficult on guitar (I’m looking at you, F chord!) until I let them try the same thing on my guitar. Suddenly it’s not so hard, and they can do it! When you’re first starting out, you have so much to think about already, so many new challenges to face. Dealing with a hard-to-play instrument shouldn’t be one of them.
Another thing to consider is the motivation factor. When you buy a cheap instrument so there’s “not much to lose,” you are thereby increasing the chances of losing. See, the easiest thing for anyone to do when things get hard is to give up. And even if you’re naturally talented at your instrument, you will hit a wall at some point. Sadly, a lot of aspiring musicians choose to quit when this happens. And that’s no big deal if you only spent $50 on the instrument! By investing a bit more into your instrument, you might feel greater motivation to stick it out through the rough patch… and reach higher levels of musical success.
Finally, even if you do manage to overcome all of the challenges that come with a cheap instrument, and get to buy that awesome instrument you’ve always wanted, you may have some new problems to work through! Let’s say you’re learning piano… it turns out the 48-key keyboard you used to learn on had much smaller keys than the full-sized one you just bought. Now you’re struggling to reach an octave, when it used to be so easy. You suddenly have to push down much further than before to accommodate the fully weighted keys, and it’s causing you to play way slower as you adjust. Also, dynamics are possible to play now, and you just discovered you’ve been hitting the keys way too softly since your last keyboard had no touch sensitivity; now everything sounds way too quiet. Higher quality instruments are made differently, and it takes time to adjust to the feel of the new instrument.
So how much should you spend on an instrument for a beginner? I believe a good price point is around $300. This could be a bit more or less depending on the instrument (a lot less for a ukulele). But this price range will get you something that sounds good, plays reasonably well, and doesn’t break the bank, but costs enough to hold most people accountable. The first piano I bought was a $300 full-sized keyboard with fully weighted keys, and I used it for over ten years. I understand this is a lot of money for some people, but the investment is worth it. I would even suggest that it’s worth waiting to get an instrument at all until you can afford to buy one that you’ll enjoy playing; you’ll thank yourself in the long run and have a much higher chance of sticking with it!