My kids age 8 and 9 want to start a family band. By family band, they just mean that we play songs together, not in front of an audience or anything, as that would be way too embarrassing for them to play with their parents lol.
8yo is just finishing first book of Bastien piano. He takes to it quite well. He's the most impatient of the bunch though. We already have an old Casio 88-key keyboard, which he loves.
9yo has been playing guitar for a few months. With practice, she can get most chords. She's been having fun looking up songs on line and just strumming less often (it takes awhile to transition still), sometimes only strumming once when the chord changes. She has a 3/4 size acoustic guitar which she loves. She also wrote her first melody last week and really likes plucking it over and over. She has the patience to keep practicing until she gets better at stuff.
Dad (me) has been learning the ukulele for past 6 months. I have a soprano uke. Certainly not a master, but I can strum most chords pretty well, and I have been helping both kids learn songs on their instruments, so I'm starting to understand the notes and a few scales. I played drums in middle school, but we don't have any drums.
Mom is a great singer. A neighbor just offered to give us their electric bass and amp, so we are thinking Mom could play bass. Mom played clarinet in middle school. :-)
Any ideas for how we can play music together with our limited experience and ages? I feel like melodies could be played on the keyboard, chords on the guitar and uke, but I have no idea how to make a bass line, and I don't really know how to make everything fit together? Both kids like to "jam," but it has worked better as solo jamming in practice, vs. when I try to play with them.
Submitted March 07, 2024 at 07:21PM by megaman45 https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/1b97avx/kids_want_to_start_a_family_band/?utm_source=ifttt