My violin teacher called it practicing without ambition. Every time you practice, you’re supposed to criticize yourself and constantly compare yourself to better players so that you can strive to master a specific part of playing. In a healthy way, of course. Otherwise, you can “practice” for fifty years and still never learn anything.

There’s a reason they start on the recorder. There are instruments that are far and away harder to learn than others, but there are also skills that are universal, or at least applicable to most instruments. Fine motor skills, breath control, learning to read music. If you try to jump right into a difficult instruments, especially if you try to self-guide your learning it can become something almost insurmountable.

With the Internet, though, now we have access to no limit of teaching and learning material. I’ve recently started picking up the ocarina, years separated from my time on the clarinet and the sax, and while parts of it are foreign there’s also a lot familiar, like riding a new style of bicycle.

If you’re still experiencing it, I would say try recommending they learn the basics on a more basic instrument, or seek out videos that teach the instrument they are interested in. Learning on your own is great, but all of our skills are built on the foundation of those that came before, so there’s no shame learning from someone more experienced