The easy answer is, “The one they like the sound of.” But, that’s not the right answer in reality. The choice boils down to a finely seasoned stew of the kid’s personality, patience, work ethic, talent and physiology. Since the general public’s knowledge of music is exceeded in horror only by their lack of patience talking about it, I usually cut my opinions way short. However, the general public loves to talk about sports, take their kids to sporting events, team practices and games several times a week. Parents would probably benefit by realizing that learning an instrument and playing a sport are THE SAME DAMN THING. (Exception being the fitness aspect, which judging by the fitness of many parents, is not really a priority. Zing.)
Piano is Soccer.
And so it goes with soccer. Every child should play soccer for at least a year. It is the undisputed King of all Sports. Anyone can play it. Just kick. Even toddlers understand it. And yet…like the piano it’s a bitch to master, and really easy to be bad at.
ONE OBJECT: SCORE. Ball----> Net. Yay! Repeat. The net is HUGE, and it’s right there, on the grass.
ONE RULE: don’t use your hands. That’s it…go play. As a beginning soccer kid, there are no special super hard skills or techniques like skating or dribbling a basketball or hitting a baseball to slow the process down. It’s a great beginner’s sport; Instant success. YET…like the piano, mastery is evasive. There are advanced dribbling moves and strategy, and a few more rules, just like piano, but in order to get out there and play as a kid, you need not know these things. That is the beauty of it. Easy to learn, hard to perfect. Knowing this, it comes as no surprise that soccer is the most popular sport on earth.