Best gifts for teenage musicians

Buy them a way to practice silently. That is the whole page, and it is the thing nearly every gift list for teenage musicians gets wrong. A teenager who plays already owns an instrument. What they do not own is permission to use it at half past eleven on a Tuesday in a house with other people in it, and that — not a shortage of equipment — is the constraint that actually limits how much they play. A headphone amp#ad and a pair of closed-back headphones#ad convert unusable hours into practice hours, which is a better gift than it sounds.

Every pick states its Starter Path band, and we have not tested any of them — the method is on how we pick. Nothing on this page is an instrument, on purpose.

Why the constraint is the house, not the instrument

It is worth laying out the actual problem, because it explains all four picks.

Teenage practice is late, loud and repetitive. It happens after homework, which means after everyone else has settled; it involves playing the same eight bars forty times, which is specifically the kind of noise other people find hardest to ignore; and it happens in a bedroom with a wall shared with somebody who has work in the morning.

The result is a negotiation that the teenager loses. Practice gets displaced into the narrow window when the house is empty, which is rarely when they feel like playing, and the amount of playing collapses. None of that is a motivation problem and none of it is solved by better gear.

Anything that removes the volume removes the negotiation. That is why a thirty-dollar object can be a better gift here than a two-hundred-dollar one, and it is also why this page overlaps our pages on instruments for small apartments and setting up a home practice space rather than our teen instrument pages.

The picks

The Vox amPlug 3 AC30#ad is the pick if they play electric guitar or bass, and it is the most direct solution to the problem above: it plugs into the instrument’s output jack, headphones plug into it, and there is no amplifier and no cable run at all. It fits in a pocket, which also makes it the thing they take to a friend’s house. Buy this if there is an electric guitar or bass and the amp is the reason practice is restricted. Skip it if they already own a headphone amp, or their amp has a headphone socket they are already using — this is a duplicate risk worth checking.

The Audio-Technica ATH-M20x#ad is the pick that works regardless of instrument, and the reason it is here rather than a cheaper pair is the closed-back design. Closed-back headphones seal against the head so sound does not escape into the room; open-back models leak on purpose. For silent practice that is not a preference, it is the requirement. They also work for recording, for electronic drums and for a digital piano, so they outlive whatever the teenager is currently into. Buy these if they do not already own over-ear closed-back headphones — and most teenagers own earbuds, which are not the same thing. Skip them if there is already a pair in the house.

Alpine MusicSafe Pro#ad earplugs are the gift in the “they will never buy this themselves” category, and the argument for them is uncomfortable and correct. Hearing damage from loud music is cumulative and permanent, it produces no symptoms a teenager would notice, and rehearsing in a small room with a drum kit is genuinely loud. Filtered musicians’ earplugs are not foam plugs: they reduce level across the frequency range reasonably evenly, so the music still sounds like music instead of like it is behind a wall, which is the only reason anybody wears them twice. Buy these if they play in a band, play drums, or go to gigs. Skip them if nothing — this is the safe pick on the page. Our hearing protection page covers the filtered-against-foam distinction in more detail.

The Enya Nova U Mini#ad is the pick if you want to give an actual instrument without the problems of giving an actual instrument. It is a small carbon-fiber soprano travel ukulele: it goes in a backpack, it does not care about being knocked about or left in a cold car, and it is quiet enough to play on a sofa at night. Because it is a second instrument rather than a replacement for the one they chose, it dodges the opinion problem entirely. Buy this if they travel, share a room, or would find a second instrument fun. Skip it if they would read it as a suggestion that their real instrument is too loud — that is a judgment about the person, and you are better placed to make it than we are.

What not to buy, and why

An instrument, as a surprise. The single most expensive mistake on this page. A teenage player has views about brand, finish and what their friends use, and the gap between “a guitar” and “the guitar they wanted” is the whole gift. Go together, or put the money toward the one they pick. The same applies to an upgrade: a player a year or two in usually knows exactly which single thing they want next, and it is rarely what an onlooker would guess.

Lesson books, unprompted. A teenager with a teacher already has the book that teacher assigned, and a teenager without one has usually chosen YouTube deliberately. A book they did not ask for reads as homework.

Anything requiring a measurement you do not have. Straps for an instrument with one strap button, cases sized to a body shape, drum thrones, keyboard benches. Our guitar gift page goes through the fit traps in detail; the short version is that if the gift has a size, you need the size.

Practice aids that imply a criticism. A metronome is a useful object and, given to a teenager unasked, a comment on their timing. Our metronome page exists for players buying their own.

A pedal, unless they named it. Effects pedals are the most personal purchase in music and the most frequently wrong gift. If a teenager wants a particular overdrive, they will have mentioned it eleven times.

If the budget is larger

Two things are worth more than another object.

Lessons. Unfashionable as a gift and consistently the highest-value spend at this age, particularly for anybody self-teaching from videos, who will have developed two or three habits that are quietly limiting them and that nobody has mentioned.

Contributing to the thing they have chosen. A teenager saving for a specific instrument or amplifier does not want a different one bought for them; they want to get there sooner. It is a less photogenic gift and a better one.