It's noisy (Tesco Instrument Set)

Member Name: arleek

Product:	Tesco Instrument Set
Date:	11/06/09 (63 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Entertaining

Disadvantages: It's noisy

My daughter received this on her first birthday. I think it is aimed at 18months and above so perhaps she was a little bit young at first, but it didn't stop her from making loud clattering noises with the instruments whenever I got them out for her (what child doesn't like banging things and making a racket?!)

The set comprises of a plastic drum within which the instruments are contained (the lid screws off). The instruments you get are the drum, two drum sticks, a xylophone, tambourine, maracas, and castanets - all very noisy!

While I think the idea is a good one, to get kids into music early on...this set doesn't actually provide any musical talent, even from the most skilled of musicians. Don't get me wrong, the instruments are really well made and have withstood my daughter (plus various older cousins) hammering the life out of the drum, bashing the living daylights out of the xylophone and shaking the beans out of the maracas and castanets for the last year and a half, so they can clearly stand the tests of time...but I don't know, I just find it irritating...probably the noise more than anything.

The xylophone is pretty pointless; it's very small, as you would imagine when all instruments come contained within the drum! It only has 3 notes on it, which are obviously tiny and therefore you do not actually get much of a sound from these...more like the sound of plastic on plastic, not very tuneful at all.

Then there's the tambourine, oh how this has been a lonely instrument...it does not make the lovely jangly sound that a tambourine should...it only has two 'bells' on it and these kind of just make a light tinny rattling sound...my daughter never has got to grips with the point of it and thus it is often left in the bottom of the drum.

The maracas are ace, I have even been known to dance around the room shaking them in time to whatever drivel is on TV...usually something on Cbeebies. They are red and plastic and easy for a young child to hold and shake. The noise is much like the noise I remember from school. These get the thumbs up from me. My daughter also likes them.

The castanets are also very good, they are yellow and shaped like a spoon, with a red and green bit either side, that when shaken give a lovely loud clacking sound. These are pretty noisy but they do what they are meant to do and my daughter loves to shake them, and she often used to have the maracas in one hand and these in the other. Creating a lot of noise, but also having a lot of fun at the same time.

The drum sticks are pretty standard (yellow sticks of plastic) and obviously you have to replace the lid on the drum to use the drum part of this toy. It works just like a drum, the centre of the lid has a clear plastic layer of drum material (????) across the top which is where you bash your drum sticks. This is often not where my daughter bashes the sticks; she usually likes to bash them on anything but the drum! But her cousins (aged from 4 to 11) actually enjoy this part of the toy, I mean come on, every kid likes to think they can play the drums don't they?

I think this a pretty good toy for kids; I just don't like it much. It's a really good idea that all the instruments come within the drum because then when the kids have finished playing, everything can be put away ready for the next time and things don't usually get lost...having said that I can't find the tambourine.

What is difficult though is getting the lid on and off, I haven't met a child yet who can do this themselves, which I don't suppose is too much of a problem as I am usually around all the time anyway, but if my hands are in washing up water and my daughter wants to play with this NOW, well that's annoying.

The instruments also have to be packed in a certain way to make sure they all fit snugly within the drum. Again this isn't too much of a problem, but if my daughter (helpful little soul that she is), is helping me tidy away and she finds she can't fit everything in properly, she gets very annoyed and shouts 'I CAN NOT DO IT MUMMY!' Which is actually more amusing than annoying I suppose.

These are just minor gripes and I am just picking fault because I'm not keen on the toy myself, but it has provided entertainment for the kids in my life and is still going strong now and I suspect it will do for years to come (I'm really looking forward to when my younger daughter gets a hold of it...)

Oh yeah and as I said the xylophone is rubbish, and so is the tambourine so I'm marking it down because of that, not because I don't like it.

Summary: It's noisy