The best percussion instruments for kids

The order a teacher would buy in

A child says they want to play drums and the household pictures a kit. A percussion teacher pictures a rubber pad and a pair of sticks, because that is where the first six months happen: the strokes, the grip, the rudiments and the timekeeping all develop on a surface the size of a dinner plate.

That is not a way of talking a family out of a kit. It is the order that produces a drummer. A child who spends three months on a pad arrives at a kit able to play it; a child who starts on a kit spends three months hitting things and learns the grip wrong, which is the habit that is hardest to fix later.

Sticks are sized, and most children get the wrong ones

Drumsticks come in gauges, and the number on the stick is not decorative. A 5A is the standard adult stick. A 7A is thinner and lighter in the same line. For a small child, a lighter stick is the difference between a relaxed grip and a white-knuckled one — and grip is the single habit a teacher spends the longest undoing.

Buy more than one pair. Sticks break, they get lost, and a child without sticks does not practice. Our stick sizing page covers 7A against 5A against 5B properly, including when to move up.

Bells, if school is in the picture

School percussion is not just drums. A beginning percussionist in a band program is expected to read pitched music, and the instrument that teaches it is a bell kit — a small glockenspiel on a stand, usually sold with a practice pad attached to the same frame.

The specification to check is the note count. School bell parts are written across 32 notes, typically F5 to C8. A kit with fewer cannot play them, and the toy xylophones that dominate a search for “bells for kids” have about half that. Both bell kits here have the full 32; one publishes its range and bar material and the other does not, which is exactly why we rank them in that order. The school bell kit page covers the approved-brand question that decides a program purchase.

The kit, when it is time

When the interest has survived a pad and a book, an electronic kit with mesh pads is the right first kit for almost every household. Mesh produces a soft thud rather than the sharp knock of rubber, the output goes to headphones, and the whole thing takes up a corner rather than a room. The budget pick in that category arrives with a throne, two pedals, headphones and sticks for less than most kits cost bare.

Two things to know before it arrives. The kick pedal still transmits vibration into the floor structure regardless of headphones, so an apartment needs a riser or a mat — the apartment drums page covers that properly. And a child playing on headphones will set the volume higher than you would; hearing protection for young musicians is a real purchase, not a precaution.

What this costs, end to end

A pad and sticks is under $90 and will occupy a child for months. A bell kit adds $95 to $166 depending on whether you need the documented one. An electronic kit is $230 and up. Done in that order, the household spends about $90 to find out whether this is real, rather than $400 — and if the answer turns out to be yes, nothing bought at step one becomes redundant. Drummers keep their pads forever.

Every price on this page is read from the live listing by our daily price check, and the date it was read is printed under each buy button. Prices move, and a page that quotes a number without saying when it was true is not worth reading — so if a pick has drifted over the cap since the last check, the button will tell you before you click it.