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Any shortscale parents have any recommendations for guitars for kids starting to learn? My eldest daughter is going to be 9 in August and wants a guitar for her birthday. Originally I was thinking something nylon string to make it easier to play, but not sure that will cut it. She likes the look of the new Fender California acoustics, the one I looked at was 24" scale and a small-ish neck so that might be an option.
Any advice on what is good/bad from your experience would be great. Cheers.

One of my pupils has one of those and it's nice, if unspectacular. It sounds alright, buy it's easy to play and looks cool, and those are probably more important.

I'd shy away from nylon stringed also. The size of the fretboard can make fretting difficult for small fingers and it's pretty much a different instrument.

I had a nylon string as my first guitar, aged 10. I wasn't keen and it kind of dulled some of my initial enthusiasm for playing. Like Paul says, it's almost a different instrument really.

Perfect, thanks guys. Paul - sounds ideal for what she wants. She likes the Malibu in Aqua so clearly gets her taste from me!

There's a small Yamaha JR1. A solid instrument that even your grandchildren might play

Another option might be one of the cheaper sigmas. If she's right handed she can borrow mine for a month or two to see how she gets on (I've broken my hand so don't really need it).

MY DRUMMER HAS THAT JR YAMAHA


ITS THE FIRST THING I PICK UP AND PLAY WHEN I WALK IN THE DOOR EVERY TIME I GO OVER THERE. ITS FUNNNNN

Bacchus wrote:Another option might be one of the cheaper sigmas. If she's right handed she can borrow mine for a month or two to see how she gets on (I've broken my hand so don't really need it).

Thanks Paul, appreciate it. I think your first comment was important, and that's the look of the guitar. I think the colours of the Fender series make them more appealing to a 9 year old and maybe more likely to play it/stick with it. I think I saw some in Mansons the other week so will go check them out.
Sorry to hear you broke your hand!

Definitely don't overlook a proper set-up and manageable strings; I don't think I would have ever stuck with it if I'd started out on some of the low-end acoustics I've played over the years.

Fortunately, those one-string Iron Maiden riffs sounded amazing on my mum's classical guitar

Thom wrote:

Bacchus wrote:Another option might be one of the cheaper sigmas. If she's right handed she can borrow mine for a month or two to see how she gets on (I've broken my hand so don't really need it).

Thanks Paul, appreciate it. I think your first comment was important, and that's the look of the guitar. I think the colours of the Fender series make them more appealing to a 9 year old and maybe more likely to play it/stick with it. I think I saw some in Mansons the other week so will go check them out.
Sorry to hear you broke your hand!

There's also a lot of value in it being her own guitar that she can cherish.

Doog wrote:Fortunately, those one-string Iron Maiden riffs sounded amazing on my mum's classical guitar

How about a Ibanez or Gretsch parlour guitar? Nice and good sounding guitars with a shorter scale. But watch out not all parlour guitars have shorter scales.

Take a look at this, this guitar costs about 180 euro new in Europe.

Yeah, the Gretsch Jim Dandy parlour ain't bad, but all 3 that I've played needed the action brought down; at that price point, most shops just sling them on the shelves straight from the box.

This is why I love the guitar so much though....


Every time I pick one up at a shop I'm like this feels like I set this up, people are going to hate it. But it's for me