Customer Reviews

Melissa & Doug Deluxe Band Set

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

My mom bought this for my son at 18 months and he LOVES it. The entire set is excellent quality and comes in a nice wooden crate (we use the crate for arts & crafts). My son is now a very accomplished Harmonica & flute player (he's now only 19 months) - he can't get enough of these instruments. One thing to look out for though -- the tip of the stick that you use for the xlyphone came off and I found my son eating it - it is definitely a choking hazard - I just took the stick away and tossed it in the garbage and he uses one of the other thick wooden sticks to play the xylophone and he hasn't missed a beat!

****UPDATE**** 5/8/08
It is now almost 3 years later and my son still plays with all of the instruments in this set. Looking back at all the toys we bought or he received as gifts, this is still one of his favorites and has helped foster his interest in music. I STILL highly recommend this set!!

I bought this for my 4-year old daughter's birthday because she really wanted a xylophone and this is the only one that I could find! The xylophone is, by far, the worst instrument in the whole set. The notes are way off tune and the sound is muffled.
Her favorite piece is the harmonica, which is pretty nice. The rest of the instruments are okay, but avoid this product of you are looking for a nice xylophone.

Talk about bang for your buck! 17 high-quality instruments for only 30 dollars? It doesn't get much better than this!

Modern toys are often "noisy".... they beep, they buzz, they play stupid songs and they provide little educational value. This great instrument set will provide kids with the "noise-making" that they crave, but with the educational value of actually making the noise on real instruments!

Parents, too, will have a hard time resisting the allure of these super-fun instruments. Your kids will be dingin' away on the triangle while you shake your thing with the maracas.... it'll provide interactive and fun play for years! Get some good CDs to accompany this set, while you're at it. A fun African CD (like Amadou and Mariam's "Dimanche a Bamako") will do the trick nicely, as most of these instruments are rhythm instruments that will fit in nicely with that highly rhythmic music.

This musical set was originally intended as a Christmas purchase, but I could not resist giving this as an early present. When it arrived in the mail, we opened it immediatly. I was pleasantly surprised with both the quality and quantity represented in this set. We are already having such a great time using these instruments! The kazoo is a favorite! With so much variety to choose from, our little dancer may never stop playing. I love the quality workmanship and the cultural span of the various instruments. Our 2-year-old loves marching in "parades", dancing and singing to the beat of favorite songs. This colorful set inspires get-up-and-dance energy for both adult and child! I am one very satisfied customer.

My son suggested that I buy this for my 2 3/4 year old granddaughter for Christmas. I was very disappointed with it. The xylophone, which really ought to be the main music maker was awful. It should have been made of metal and should have been capable of playing a scale (the key of C Major). But then the recorder was terrible too. You can't play a tune on it either. The little plastic recorders for around $4 or $5 that the kids in elementary school use can at least make music. This can't. And the kazoo broke. The other parts were fine. Percussion is percussion. If it were my choice, I would return it. My son seems to think it's satisfactory - "good enough for a 2 year old." I don't agree. Had I seen it first, I wouldn't have bought it.

These instruments may be nice to look at, but that's all they're good for. The xylophone was the biggest let-down... all the notes sound very much the same. The kazoo doesn't make a sound at all. I couldn't distinguish between the notes on the recorder either. I won't even get into what I think of all the other pointless pieces of wood in this box. When I opened it, wood shavings were all over the instruments. Each instrument is tied down to the box with at least two wire things... so frustrating! If you want some random objects for your child to bang around, this is for you. IF YOUR CHILD IS ACTUALLY MUSICALLY INCLINED, he/she won't benefit from this is any way. I'm returning it immediately.

My 3 year old plays with every instrument in this set and starts up a marching band regularly when we have friends over to visit. He has a great time with this, and I highly recommend it. It has also taken quite a beating and has proven to be extremely durable.

I had several issues with this toy and wish I hadn't bought it. They are as follows, and these are the same problems many other people have had.
First of all, this toy was horribly made. The jingle sticks in particular were rough on the handles. Were these sanded down at all? I seriously doubt they were. I seriously feared splinters from them. I mean, wood chips were all over in the box when we opened it.
I know this is a toy, but the point should still be to foster a love of music in kids that play with it. That will not happen with these instruments. It is impossible to make any kind of real music with these. The xylophone is made of wood which is so soft that my child dented it the first day, and all the "notes" it plays sound the same. The notes on the recorder are the same way. They are just screeches with no distinction between the notes. The rest of the instruments are just random wooden things meant for banging, so you really can't mess them up.
There are some good toy instruments out there, but I really wouldn't want someone to think they had found them with this toy. This is definitely not worth even half as much as this costs.

Do NOT buy this product! It is SO cheaply made- I can't believe I had to spend $50 on it! The xylophone is essentially without tune completely; each "note" is just a dull thud, with several of them sounding exactly the same. The recorder is also completely out of tune and falls apart easily. My daughter has a wonderful recorder from Target that cost me $3 and is much better quality. Most of the other pieces don't require a tone, so I guess they're fine, although you can look at them and remark at how cheap they look. I'm going to try to return mine. Don't waste your money!!!!

We're a musical family so it seemed appropriate to buy this set early on. My biggest complaint is the actual usability of the instruments. The holes in the recorder are poorly drilled making it play out of tune. The xylophone is the same; the bars are inappropriately sized making it impossible to play even the simplest of tunes. Perhaps these are irrelevant details to some consumers but to us, they're deal breakers. If you intend to manufacture and market musical instruments they should be, well, musical.