Top musical instruments for babies and children

At Kids Music Beat – the home of Boppin’ Babies – we actively engage children in music making each week. We are passionate about you and your child experiencing the joy that is making music together. To do this, we use our voices, bodies, props and a range of quality instruments.

As a professional musician, music therapist and music teacher, I am keen to ensure the very best sound quality from the children’s instruments. This can be tricky as most children’s musical instruments are mass produced nowadays.

Parents are always asking me where I source our instruments from and why I choose certain brands over others.

We only use the highest quality instruments because we think your children are worth it.

We also believe that we are nurturing a lifelong love of music and making little musicians. How can we do this without good quality voices, staff training and instruments?

So in response to parent request here are a few of my favourite instrument brands that we use at Kids Music Beat. All of these are sourced through our Kids Music Beat online shop. They have a large range of instruments and prices in addition to these below.

Remo drums are the best!

The Remo brand is well known and respected in the music industry. These drums are extremely durable and make a beautiful sound.

These are the lollipop drums, sound shapes, tom tom and gathering drums you see at music.

Remo lollipop drums not only sound good, they look good and feel good too. They are built to a very high standard and have a great timbre.

The price of Remo drums reflect their very high quality. They are not cheap, rather they are an investment for those wanting to provide excellent musical experiences.

If you are looking for a cheaper alternative for home, you can get drums that look like lollipop drums but these are not from the Remo factory.

These have a black stripe on them and no Remo branding; they also make a different sound with a different timbre.

While we don’t use these at our groups, they can be a good affordable option for home, but just remember the durability is likely to be different.

Bambino animal bells, castanets and tambourines

These gorgeous animal bells, castanets and tambourines are very safe, durable and easy to clean.

This is important when working with bubs especially, because they will mouth the instruments.

For this reason, it is really important for parents to check the quality of the bells they use at home.

We LOVE ukuleles at Kids Music Beat!

Our little people explore playing ukes in age appropriate ways with their loved ones and our big Pre-Prep Rockstars learn to play them all on their own.

We use Mahalo Ukuleles as they make a good sound for a reasonable price. They can also be tuned which is really important if you want to teach children about pitch.

Shake, shake, shake. Shake along with me

I know you all know the words! Every week we shake at Kids Music Beat because we know that this is really important for early childhood development and musical development.

It is also so much fun!

You can make your own shakers or buy an enormous range of shakers of varying quality.

Egg shakers are a great starting point, as they are easy to hold for all ages including bubs, but they do not age as such – egg shakers can be played by children (and adults) of all ages.

At Kids Music Beat we use both the metallic egg shakers and the fluorescent one. The metallic shakers have a beautiful timbre and a very durable, while the fluorescent eggs provide great visual stimulation, a bright tonality and a more affordable price point for parents wanting to purchase for home use.

This is just a few of the instruments we use at our children’s music groups. Next time I will talk about our props.

Watch this space for updates about how we use props and carefully choose these to increase multi-modal stimulation without overstimulating little boppers. We also use them to increase physical skills, and integrate and encourage imaginary play in fun and active ways.

Check out some stock here to see the full range of instruments, educational toys and ever popular Bop Along Buddies available via our online shop.