Instrument Selection

Every three years, NAMM hires Gallop to conduct a telephone survey of American households. I can't find the 2006 survey online, but the 2003 survey concluded that

1. 64% of instrumental music-makers started studying music when they were 5-11 years old; 18% starting 12-14; 7% 15-18; and 6% after 18.


2. 75% chose for themselves the instrument that they learned to play, with 15% making the decision jointly with parents and 10% having the choice of instrument made by the parent alone.


3. 30% took lessons at school, 26% took private lessons, and 22% taught themselves. The “taught themselves” percentage has risen over time (and may be rising much faster now due to the Internet). Boys teach themselves three times as often as girls do.

It is illuminating to make a chart of the ages at which music-makers started studying music (below).


The chart shows the percentage of instrumental music-makers who started learning music at each given age (in red) and the culumative total up to that age (in green).

The ages 5-11 are clearly critical. 69% of people who will ever learn to play an instrument have started learning by the end of their 11th year, and 87% by the end of their 14th year. Clearly, if I want to sell a lot of Thummers, I need to *eventually* meet the needs of very young students (although it may not be efficient to target them first).

NAMM’s surveys don’t ask what instrument is played, or why that particular instrument was chosen. There is little research into the factors which affect musical instrument choice among beginners, and that limited research tends to constrain the available options to band & orchestra instruments. A better understanding the factors affecting instrument-selection could suggest opportunities for improving the Thummer such that it would consistently win this selectrion process.

NAMM's survey data suggest that

• Ensuring that the Thummer meets the needs of beginners aged 5-11 is critical to its long-term success;


• We can emphasize self-teaching (online) initially, but will need to penetrate the private lesson and school-based lesson channels, also, to maximize Thummer sales;


• The ability of a given instrument to help a teenage boy “get chicks” is not sufficient, in itself, to maximize Thummer sales, as (i) it doesn’t help sell instruments to girls, and (ii) more than 80% of music-makers have already selected their instrument before their mid-teens, leaving at most 20% to be affected by this benefit.

People usually mention the "get chicks" factor with regard to the guitar -- but history suggests that jazz instrumentalists did pretty well in that regard, too, so there appears to be more to that benefit than just instrument choice.