A fact that amazes me: I can teach any child with normal learning capacity to sing a middle C on cue, as if they have perfect pitch! I have been teaching music for years, and I cannot do this as accurately as a preschooler that I have worked with for a month! A young child's developing brain has the capacity to process the information, and remember pitch unlike an adult's brain.
The downside: Music lessons with young children can sometimes seem like a waste of time, what is really happening? Am I paying for an expensive sing-a-long? The thing is, more is happening than you think. Children are processing more than they show. Also, a child that enjoys singing benefits from watching a singer that sings correctly. Children mimic adults in their life and if they only listen to music and hear adults sing incorrectly, they will develop bad singing habits as well. (Many popular singers that children listen to don't help this situation, unfortunately.) Children benefit most from piano lessons at a young age. Piano lessons will allow them to move into playing any instrument and singing with a greater sense of pitch and rhythm.
What if it is too much of a financial commitment, especially when my four year old has a temper tantrum and wastes the whole lesson?
Involve your child in music classes, and expose them to different types of music. Get them a little keyboard and have them play and match the pitch of the keys. Have them clap to the rhythm, and hear music from different cultures. It will add to their sensory environment that expands their young mind. Also, remember that a preschooler can learn in a month of lessons what some teenagers take a year to learn (matching pitch, timing, correct technique.) So, it may not be a waste of time at all. With my students, I keep the lesson moving quickly so that a four or five year old stays interested and can keep learning. I don't have my students necessarily sit still the whole time. Find a teacher that specializes in teaching young children. I combine singing, piano, clapping rhythms, pitch exercises, etc. I teach all of these things within a half hour to keep it moving and keep the child interested.
Final Word: No one has to be tone deaf. People who are tone deaf were not exposed to music training as young children. Every child of normal learning capacity can learn to sing proficiently.
The cutoff ages? I don't have any scientific backing for this, but I find that students who study music prior to five or six years of age open up their mind for amazing potential. Prior to ten or eleven, any child can match pitch, and hold pitch with consistent piano and singing lessons and practice. Once a child has passed puberty, if they cannot match or hold pitch, it may take a year to gain proficiency, or more, depending on the child. It may take an adult or mature teen years to match or hold pitch correctly if they did not learn as a child.
I love Music Together CD's, Putumayo also has some great ethnic music for children to expand their mind.
If you can't do much, just do the basics, sing, play melodies on a little instrument, listen to different types of music. Anything is better than nothing!
