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My daughter is turning 4, and really, really wants an electric guitar (and a guitar pedal, and an amp). I've got the pedal and amp part covered, but I cringe at the vast majority of shitty garbage guitars made for kids. She's small, so even a 1/2 size 19" scale is pushing it. But she's adamant, and has plenty of languishing musical talent. The best option I have been able to find is this:

Samick (Amazon)



So, there's that. However, I'm really interested in whatever other suggestions folks may have that come in under $200. Her birthday is February 6 so I don't have a lot of time. Thanks very much in advance!

I can't offer advice on anything smaller than the squier mini strats or ibanez mini gios. Both of those are good but as you said might be a bit big for a 4 year old. I have a couple 6 and 7 year olds that I teach with those and they do fine though. I have students with smaller electrics than that but they don't intonate at all or stay in tune. If you find one that will at least hold in tune, you should be able to get it to intonate well enough to sound good for open chords, but most guitars that small that I've seen have been sounded horrible as soon as you go above the 5th fret because of intonation.

Yup. I'm probably going to return it. I think a decent dulcimer or strumstick is a much better idea than *any* guitar at her size, but she's got me wrapped around her little finger, so we'll see how this one turns out.

At the age of 4 I can't imagine her being dead set on actually learning to play guitar just yet. She probably just wants to have one that she can fool around on. That guitar could definitely be fun for her, and could be good at sparking an interest in playing music so when she gets a little bigger you can get her a guitar that will intonate and stay in tune better.

I got my daughter a mini strat when she turned 5. It's perfect for her. $100 brand new but you can get em used cheaper.

Get her one of these

Yes, the mini strats (and some of small Dean guitars) are relatively good, but my daughter is pretty small so the 3/4 scale of those is just too big for her.

This 22 3/4" scale Dean almost looks pretty cool:

Stagg make a 18.4" scale strat. I have one that I use for a mini travel guitar.

link

Aww, that Stagg is coo. Totally wanna draw up some repro punk stickers with crayons for it.

Thanks! I really appreciate the first-hand recommendation!

westtexasred wrote:Get her one of these

...for her 14th birthday, start saving now. You'll be the best Dad ever! All I got was a MIM Strat. Which was still pretty good.

paul_ wrote:Aww, that Stagg is coo. Totally wanna draw up some repro punk stickers with crayons for it.

awesome idea.