Santa saw fit to bring my hyperactive 6yo daughter an electric guitar for Christmas. In other words, if I don't post again anytime soon, I've been sectioned.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Merry Christmas, everyone!

As for your daughter, I cannot help with music but I wish you the best of luck! Do try to stay sane, we're nuts enough around here! XD

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

>Santa saw fit to bring my hyperactive 6yo daughter an electric guitar
>for Christmas. In other words, if I don't post again anytime soon,
>I've been sectioned.
>

Good luck. If you can find the budget, headphones may be a joyous investment.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

And if not, a large supply of earplugs!

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"

I do have some good headphones, but since I'm the primary child-minder I usually have to keep at least one ear open.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Can you get a thingummy that lets you plug the guitar straight into the headphones, and then the kid wears the headphones and nobody else has to listen to the guitar?

>Can you get a thingummy that lets you plug the guitar straight into
>the headphones, and then the kid wears the headphones and nobody else
>has to listen to the guitar?

Those exist now for wind instruments, which absolutely messes with my head. I understand intellectually how they must work, but still, my instincts demand, What witchcraft is this?!

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I can sort of see how that could work for a wind instrument (basically a mute with a microphone inside?) but for stringed instruments I'd think they'd have to be electric...

LAST EDITED ON Dec-29-24 AT 11:41 AM (EST)
 
>I can sort of see how that could work for a wind instrument
>(basically a mute with a microphone inside?)

It's more complicated than that--the sound of a wind instrument depends largely on coming out of the instrument, so to speak, so a mute with a simple mic in it would only pick up a weird muffled noise, if anything at all. These things have signal processing in them that synthesizes what it would sound like without the mute and pipes that to the player's headphones.

>but for stringed
>instruments I'd think they'd have to be electric...

There are practice mutes for resonating stringed instruments (such as violins), but I've no idea how they work. Probably just by damping the strings so they don't vibrate much. They wouldn't simulate the "free" practice sound.

Conversely, a headphone-only amp for an electric guitar wouldn't make it perfectly quiet--anyone else in the room would still be able to hear the jangly noise of an unamplified electric guitar. Kinda like playing a vinyl record without turning the amp on. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

We're currently doing the un-amped route until she at least gets the basic idea down. Besides, la creatura doesn't need any more knobs to twiddle until she learns to leave things in a reasonable range.

relatedly, I want her to go as Gigi next Halloween
"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

“This one goes to eleven”

>Can you get a thingummy that lets you plug the guitar straight into
>the headphones, and then the kid wears the headphones and nobody else
>has to listen to the guitar?

That's what I was trying to say. Thank you for translating my half-witted response into actual thought.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

So far, so good, though she hasn't figured out the correlation between "loosening the tuning pegs" and "the guitar stops making music", so we'll see how it goes if she actually keeps it together for 5 minutes.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."