Is anyone teaching their child to play any percussion instruments? What are you using?
We have a mini-drum kit (base, snare, tom? & cymbal). My son is “allowed” to play it after we do a few other learning activities. (It’s a sneaky reward system!)
It’s not formal, but my brother-in-law, who is a drummer, gives my son a little lesson whenever we see him and “assigns” something for us to work on. Mostly keeping the beat on a four count - first just with one drum for all 4, then swapping a different one on the 3 count.
We just got it a few months ago and promptly purchased headphones for both him and myself!
We are currently using a Remo Kids Pre-Tuned Floor Tom and hohner kids ocean wave drum. The kids lollipop drum and pre-tuned bongos will given to him on his first birthday.
http://www.westmusic.com/1002405-kids/k5020-kids-drums
I really like the quality of the different musical instruments west music offers.
I thought it was important to try to teach rhythm, but I don’t know much about drums. I bought a simple (and relatively cheap) hand-drum and we are using a DVD to teach some simple rhythms. We both have a hand drum (DD’s is more of a ‘drumborine’) and if she continues to enjoy it then I might invest in a few more DVDs and some better drums. The djembes are pretty cool. And it is something that is fun to play together. At the moment, she tends to just bash away but I’m hoping she’s learning while listening to me playing along with the DVD.
We also sometimes watch the Stomp DVD, which is a great stage show with lots of different rhythms using a whole range of different and unusual percussion instruments (using brooms on the floor, clapping, tapping etc).
lzp11, you’ve been around here long enough to know that you can’t just mention “A” dvd and expect it to go unnoticed 
WHAT dvd do you use??? You know that many of us are dvd junkies lol So, please, tell us what you use 
Hi Kizudo
I must admit that even as I was writing the post I was thinking I should give more details, but I was in a bit of a hurry, and feeling tired, so I didn’t quite manage all the details - so thanks for the prompt
The hand drum DVD that we’ve been using is called Gentle Djembe for beginners - you can see more details here (although I bought mine cheaper on Amazon) http://www.dancinghands.com/gentle_djembe.html
It is not aimed at children at all, so it lacks a little bit of the ‘fun factor’, but I find it very straightforward and easy to use. It is broken down into seven lessons, each focussing on a different rhythm, so it is easy to do a short 5-10 minute lesson before DD loses concentration. I like the way it shows what you are doing with your hands first of all, and then you carry on playing the rhythm with a group of other drummers on the DVD, a bit like being part of a drum circle. I find the rhythms on this DVD quite easy and have no problem picking them up almost straight away. As I mentioned in the previous post, DD does not at the moment want to try to follow the rhythms herself, but I hope that it is still very good for her to hear different patterns of sound and listen as I join in the group. We enjoy this and I would definitely consider buying the next two level DVDs.
In the same series, there is a book called ‘Slap Happy’ which is aimed at children - teaching rhythm and tapping games to play with your hands - but this seemed a little too advanced for us at the moment, but could be great for slightly older children.
If anyone else can recommend any other hand drum teaching DVDs that would also be great. I could get quite hooked myself! I don’t really want to move onto more complex drum kits at the moment although I think we may have to invest in better drums eventually (probably small to medium sized djembes) - the one we are using is not really designed for this type of drumming, but it is still a good enough start to see if it’s something we will continue.
Finally, the Stomp DVD I mentioned is just stage show, but is fun to watch sometimes and shows lots of ways to tap out rhythms using pans, brooms, and all kinds of other household implements. It’s not for teaching but is fun to watch clips. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stomp-Live-DVD/dp/B001NGGBAS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306095356&sr=8-1
HTH
Thank you for the tips (and details)!
As I was reading I remembered a youtube site my son and I treat ourselves to every so often - more so about 6 months ago. I’m forgetting the musician’s name at the moment, but we discovered his channel because we wanted to see a cabasa being played…and then…well, what we found enthralled us both He features many, many, many different and unique percussion instruments. He also has a few drum circle classes to watch. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
http://www.youtube.com/user/KalaniMusic#p/u click on “most viewed” for the easiest list to find “how to/all about” percussion videos.