Two boys here, the younger one keeps hogging the Syntakt, the older one is completely uninterested by now, but used to make high-speed footwork beats on TR-8 and Electribes when he was younger.
I don’t think it’s gender.
My 7 and 5 year olds love the Akai force. I just set up a few patches and they love messing around in the brightly coloured pads, no how to change instruments, and like the sound creation process. They can do it for hours, but it’s pretty unstructured. Occasionally they ask how I record things etc but for now I am more than happy that they are happy experimenting with sound
Inspiré surement du Roland rc 202
Pour la partie effet… Wao C’est juste incroyable et tellement rigolo les représentations liées aux fonctionnalités.
Belle trouvaille, je vais partager l’information/le lien.
Magnifique!
My wife is a professional harpist. So we have one nice room with harps and piano, then my grubby basement with guitars and gadgets. The weans can pick and choose or not. We do have them in lessons but not doing the exams. My wife has opinions on the whole exam scene and conservatoire hazing nonsense.
Let them come to it, with a gentle push!
Turn your speakers up hella loud.
Program a raunchy deep bassline on an analog synth.
Have them turn the Cutoff and Resonance knobs.
Maybe add a 4/4 909 kick underneath.
Job done!
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From experience I can say that trying too hard to get a kid interested in something (no matter how awesome it is) can have unwanted results.
I’ve found it’s best to expose them to as much cool stuff as you can and let them try as many things as possible.
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It’s not much, by my toddler likes to come into my office and button mash my beep-boops once in a while, a desk with four Elektrons and like $5k+ USD worth of gear. So far the Syntakt seems to be their favorite.
They do the same with their own little music makers, and every once in a while we have a jam session with an egg shaker and hedgehog accordion.
They also love when playgrounds have bells or other sound features, so I picked them up an small affordable tongue drum for Christmas that I think they’ll have some fun with.
Not putting them into lessons anytime soon, certainly not without more outward interest, but happy to expose them to music as much as possible, even if it’s just for fun.
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become a man you want your kids to be.
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If they don’t like electronic music machines, that doesn’t mean their not into music. I think these devices can be complicated for middle school aged kids, I work with that age group. Some kids in that age range simply haven’t reached the level of cognitive development for electronic music production to make sense- it’s not very fun to watch someone producing music on a computer or device. But a drum, guitar/bass, or saxophone are pretty good at inspiring the musicans in our children.
But music isn’t for everyone so it’s best not to force it.
Try telling them if they make some beats with the machines it would make a cool TIKK TOKK video…
You, right here, have spoken my mind. Sometimes I think the roar of a crowd at something I might’ve done on stage could grab them but oh boy have I got some work to do until then. Man up!!! Man the f__k up!!
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The original circuit was great for this when my son was 5. Now he just walks into my studio grabs a machine and fiddles. My dad was a strict first gen immigrant who made his livelihood playing jazz trumpet and he was always very adamant about my own practicing and schedule and even though I followed through on a music degree through college - making it work and enforcing it as a kid destroyed it for me. Now it’s my most important hobby but I’ve always found it very hard to meaningfully practice without feeling that “work”. I don’t want that for my kids so it’s always just been about having things around and available and both are now very into music on their own. Who knows. We can only keep them alive. Everything else is a bonus.
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My eldest is 13, takes piano, and is generally into music (he has introduced me to a ton of cool new stuff I would have never known about otherwise e.g. Death Grips). From my hardware he likes the OP-1 the best (this might be because of youtube and the cool factor though). He’s dabbled with my model:samples but hasn’t shown a ton of interest in other synths even when I hook them up to his piano 
His favorite “piece of gear” though is Ableton Live. I’m not sure why exactly but he’s been playing with that a lot lately. I’ve sort-of twisted his arm to play with my modular enough to understand how to wire a simple monosynth together. He goes along with it for a short while. Who knows what will become interesting later.
My middle is 10 and has a good sense of rhythm and pitch but hasn’t shown that much interest in playing music yet. Not sure how his story will end.
My youngest is 6 and she shows a very strong interest in music and has musical talent. She asks for it to be played all the time and sings along. She also will sit and play piano on her own despite not knowing how to play.
Each kid is different and, like others have said, you can’t (shouldn’t) force it. Play lots of music in the home, make lots of different instruments available, ask them if they want to play with you and be OK when they say “no”. A friend of mine keeps suggesting a family drum circle as that has worked for him. Good luck!
This.
For two days i tried to get my kids to “help” me in the studio for x amount of minutes to get x amount of watch time on youtube/tiktok or whatever. I noticed that they just did to have more time to do stuff they like and forgot about the whole thing.
I just got Korg Gadget and did one session together with my son. It was cool but whenever i asked him to do another one he declined.
Sometimes my daughter wants to learn a simple melody from Harry Potter or something on the keyboard but she’s not really into real practising. Both of my kids like to dance and sing even though they’re not super good at it (don’t tell em that!) 
And they enjoy listening to music a lot.
So i’m just happy that they love music and everything else is up to them. They have a musical dad around and if they like they can learn more about music production whenever they feel like it. And if not then they’ll find other things to enjoy in their life.
One of the most important things i learned as a parent is letting go.
Btw great thread!
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Let them get into what they want to get into.
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My neighborhood has a lot of “cool parents” I mean, they are visibly cool compared to my parents at any age. Many, seem to have really good relationships with their parents, I base this on many of them buying crap from me on the street to look good, often the mom and dad are into the same sort of clothes that the kids like. A few months ago one of the teens was wearing his father’s Angry Samoans t-shirt. I often wonder what it would be like to grow up with such parents, I personally would be sort of annoyed by it, in the same way I preferred being the only of a handful of kids in my middle and high school into skating and hardcore but they seem happy; but these are just superficial street level observations.
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I involved my two boys 11/13, by getting creative. Built a track from sampling body parts. Mouth plucks, chicken farts, etc. Some granulizer, pitch shifter, with them manipulating parameters and choosing sounds. Building their own tune. Also got some cover songs they liked. Both children were already playing drums and one beginning guitar. They ended up in bands, created their own music and recorded some cover songs too. They’re adults now and haven’t went anywhere with music production. Even when you get that kind of enthusiasm at a young age doesn’t always stick.
I can confirm this! Both my kids (9 and 7) enjoy using my music gear from time to time, but it was the OP-1 that attracted them most (especially the cow filter ). I guess it’s because of the awesome integration of visuals and sounds on it and it’s simple and intuitive approach.
They even liked it so much that when I sold it one day I had to recognize both my kids where really sad about not having one anymore…(damn, I really regret selling it!)
My advice in general would be: let them witness your joy while making music! And then just show them how to turn on the sound and allow them to use the instruments whenever they want…then wait what happens. Maybe they’ll try it, maybe not. You can’t force it!
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I really believe hardware and music production in general is something that arrives as a hobby or passion after one has achieved a certain worldliness or eclecticism toward the art of music. Generally, most humans under 20 years old have not gotten even close to hearing all the genres available thoroughly. They’re not even old enough to get into clubs yet here in the U.S. I do this(make techno/house) because I’ve felt the magic and positive energy of the dancefloor. I must understand that most (especially children) never understood or even experienced that feeling. Life is a dance. Hope my kids realize this sometime.
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Same here. The OP-1 was the only device that my daughter asked for after a while it was gone. Just because of these stupid kiddy cow and tombola animations! 
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