September has well and truly arrived, bringing an end to the summer holidays and the start of a new school year! Over the next few weeks, we’ll be showcasing our top choices for instruments and products to help your young musician navigate their new musical adventures across our social media channels. We’ve gathered all of these posts (plus some top tips!) right here.

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Digital Pianos

Orchestral Strings

Woodwind and Brass

Guitars

Percussion

Gifts and Novelties

Instruments for Group Learning

An important part of the Primary School Curriculum for music lessons involves group learning of instruments, these days it’s usually recorder or ukulele. Luckily for you, we stock both!

We have the Yamaha YRS20 range of descant recorders which are available in the traditional brown, pink, red, blue, and green. They are easy to play with a rich, full sound, and with their colourful look they make even routine practice fun! They include a small case to help keep them clean and are an ideal starter instrument at £11.99.

Find them on our website here

Our recommendation for ukuleles is equally as colourful. These Mahalo soprano ukuleles are available in every colour of rainbow and come with a handy carry case, a bargain at only £30.

Find them on our website here

Woodwind and Brass Recommendations

If your child is just starting out with a brass or woodwind instrument, you may find that you rent or borrow one before purchasing your own for your child. If that’s the case, then we have a range of accessories to help make this instrument feel like their own.

We can definitely recommend purchasing a new mouthpiece for use on a woodwind or brass instruments, we stock a range of Yamaha mouthpieces that are ideal for beginners. If you aren’t sure what you’re looking for then give our Instrument Department a call on 0161 834 3281 ext. 4 for some advice and they’ll be happy to help you find the perfect mouthpiece for your needs!

If your child is playing a woodwind instrument, then they’ll need reeds! We are always happy to advise on the type of reed you need. Reeds are available individually so your child can try out different brands, or if they know what they like, then you get 10% off when buying a full box.

Finally, Stagg have a lovely range of cleaning kits for brass and woodwind instruments. These kits contain a variety of cloths, brushes, oils, and sprays that are perfect for getting your instrument into top playing shape. They are also ideal for students who are borrowing an instrument from school and want to ensure its kept in a perfect condition! See the clarinet cleaning kit here, you can find the rest of these kits at the bottom of that webpage

String Recommendations

We love the Stentor range of orchestral string instruments. These are affordable and great sounding instruments that are perfect for getting your child started on their string instrument journey. All our string instruments are set up in house before being sold to you, so you know they’re ready to go! See our other blog on how we set these up here

We also offer a buy back scheme on some of our instruments. This is particularly useful on violins, so when it’s time to upgrade to the next size of violin, we can take the old one off your hands and you get some money off the new violin too! For more details about this see here

Piano Recommendations

If your child is starting piano lessons this year, then we have a lovely selection of keyboards and digital pianos that are ideal for beginners.

We love Yamaha’s P-45, it’s a fantastic entry level digital piano from Yamaha for the absolute beginner to intermediate level. Featuring a weighted action and high-quality Yamaha sampling. See more information on this piano here.

If you’re after a piano that looks more like an acoustic piano, then look no further! We can recommend Yamaha’s Arius YDP-145 and Kawai’s KDP-120. Both are excellent beginner pianos and are a bargain at under £800 for an acoustic looking digital!

Guitar Recommendations

There are three different types of guitars to choose, which can be daunting when you’re choosing your first one!

Classical guitars are traditionally strung with nylon strings and have a differently shaped neck to steel strung and electric guitars. This makes them perfect for children starting to learn guitar, as the strings are softer on little fingers. We love the Admira Alba range that comes in a selection of sizes, so they’re ideal for a young person who wants to play guitar.

For steel strung acoustic guitars, we can recommend the brand Tanglewood. Their Crossroad series are excellent as first guitars: they're well made, the finish work on the frets is great so we can tweak them to play with a low easy action and the silky satin darkburst finish is a classy alternative to the cheap looking gloss lacquers that adorns many sub-£100 guitars. See our range of Tanglewoods, including the Crossroads, here.

Last but not least are electric guitars! We have a great range of reasonably priced but great sounding electric guitars that are ideal for beginners. For example, the Cort G110 range is a really great beginners electric, or a step up from a basic model. With an HSS pickup configuration for extra tonal variety, a super thin body for younger folk and a bevelled bolt on neck for ease of playability.

Or if you’re looking for something a little smaller there’s the Aria STG Mini ¾ size electric guitar, which is perfect for your budding young Rockstar!

Percussion Recommendations

The Stagg Maple Drum Sticks are perfect for a beginner drummer. They’re only £5 and are available in a variety of weights.

Gifts and Novelties

No back to school list would be complete without stationery, and we can help out with music theme stationery galore! We have pencils, pens, notebooks, diaries, pencil cases, and more to help your student stay organised this school year!

We also have these gorgeous music bags, ideal for keeping all the music books your child needs for their lessons together.

And finally, although the school year is just beginning, we have to mention exams! It’s never too early to get your child the right grade book for their upcoming exam. We have a wide range of exam piece books from ABRSM and Trinity College London. If you can’t find what you need on our website then give our sheet music department a ring on 0161 834 3281 ext. 1 and they’ll be able to assist you!

See the 2023 ABRSM Brass Syllabus here

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