Musical Toys – A Delight for Children!

Musical toys are a special delight for children.  For small children especially, the ability to produce novel sounds and musical tones is immensely thrilling.  More than any other category of toy, musical toys allow the child to be both interactive with his toys and creative with them as well.  Recent research shows that music making, even at the infantile level, enhances brain development.  Playing with these toys can also plant the seeds that may later in life lead to the child’s wanting to learn a musical instrument, a skill that will be a source of joy for him for the rest of his life!

Most musical toys are simplified musical instruments that have been adapted and reduced in size for use by small children.  They include, for example, bells, horns, whistles, toy drums, xylophones, and for larger children, toy pianos, guitars, and banjos.  There are some musical toys that are not musically interactive, but which enchant the child nonetheless, such as music boxes and musical pump tops.  These toys still provide physical interaction in that they must be either wound up or pumped up and down to produce their magical effects.

The first category of musical toys beloved by children is the percussion family.  These toys include drums, gongs, and later, xylophones.  Even a baby’s first toy—the rattle—is technically a percussion instrument.  (The success rate for rattles with babies is approximately one hundred percent!).  Percussion toys depend on motions of the arms and hands rather than the mouth to produce their sounds.  Thus they are excellent for developing the child’s manual dexterity as well as his hand-to-ear coordination.  Both wind and percussion toys are suitable for children of a very young age.  It is a mistake to be too finicky about timing the giving of any one toy to a child.  Even if one is a bit early in buying a certain toy, in a month or two it will probably be just right.

The next category of musical toys beloved by small children everywhere are toys of the wind family, such as whistles, horns, pipes, and, little later, harmonicas.  Young children especially are still at a very oral stage of their existence and are stimulated by being able to do something novel and creative with their mouths as well as with their lungs.  The sound created by these toys also imbues them with a much-needed sense of power!  (Rare is the child who does not enjoy getting a rise out his parents now and then with an especially loud blast or toot on his whistle or horn!).  

The most advanced musical toys are those of the string and keyboard family, which require more differentiation and finger dexterity.  These toys include small guitars, banjos, pianos, and the like.  With luck, once the child is familiar with these toys, it may be only a matter of a few very short years before the child is asking to be introduced to the real thing.

More than any other category of toy (except perhaps dolls for girls!), musical toys have stood the test of time and never fail to excite children from one generation to the next.  For this reason caring parents should not fail to try out at least some of these toys—and preferably all of them at various stages—on their own children.