Teaching your kids - tips wanted!

scalino65

Hi, I have just given my son a mini strat for his 6th birthday and he is keen to get playing! Watching him struggle reminded me of just how frustrating it was to start trying to get your fingers in the right places for chords and trying to get the strings to actually ring out! I'm putting little dot stickers on the fretboard so he can find his basic chords but I wondered if anyone had any little tips for little fingers to get them going?
Many thanks
Wlil

paul_c2

Tune it to an open tuning so he can have some fun. 6 yrs old, he's not going to have the patience to learn chords or scales etc and will probably smash it.

Danny1969

One of my students is 7, you can simplify some chords, easy G being third fret on top E and the B G and D strings open for example.

Already at 7 she can find any note on the fretboard (using the easy to remember "All notes have sharps except elephants and buffalo's"  and she can finger pick arpeggios .... young kids can really impress you with how quick they can learn  

mburekenge

The speed the wee ones learn is just staggering (and sickening) lol

viz

Melody before harmony IMO. Ours started with tunes like happy birthday, Frere Jacques etc, then moved to chords later. A uke is much easoer for chords early on btw. 

Teetonetal

viz said:

Melody before harmony IMO. Ours started with tunes like happy birthday, Frere Jacques etc, then moved to chords later. A uke is much easoer for chords early on btw. 

100% agree - simple melodies is the way forward. I used to teach from a series of books, it was classical based I suppose, but the tunes were easy and everything was in notes rather than tab.  Notes introduced one at a time. Then double stops, then triads etc.

By then end of book 4 kids were playing and reading music in various positions all over the neck.

Sure it's not a rock method, but IMO is much better to teach kids that way. The really, really hard part is getting them to stick at it. 

robgilmo

Any tips on keeping them interested? I'm going to try to teach my six year old daughter soon and I really don't have a clue how I'm going to go about it.

Lestratcaster

6 years old is too young for me as well, I don't take on any learners younger than 10 normally.

Don't do chords though, their hands are not physically developed to hold multiple strings. Single note melodies (pref on the same string are good). Easy nursery rhymes are also a great way to start developing aural skills.

aord43

If you must do chords, try power chords.  Only 2 strings.

Perhaps put it aside for a Ukulele?

Vibetronic

I'm teaching a 6-year-old at the moment and would go with what others have said. Small/simplified chords, and simple, well-known tunes ( @viz - Happy Birthday was the first one!) that can be picked out easily. I've started doing a couple of simplified songs as well...stuff that everyone (even at that age) will have heard at some point - just done 'Stand by Me'  - just the bassline picked out, which worked well. At that age it's keeping them interested and making it fun more than anything else. I did try some basic reading, but I think I may leave that for a bit longer. 

DLM

My OH teaches cello from 3 years up. Pianner from 5ish.[1] With the right approach it works. And it's incredibly cute. She once had three-year-old twins and got them to play simple cello duets. You could break the hit-counter on YouTube with that stuff these days.

The stickers on the fingerboard is something she does, too.

I'd show children others of a similar age getting stuck in:

Because those two have been at it long enough, you can also see their progression.

But I reckon the most important thing is that the kid "knows how it goes". Then their ears can do the work. They'll build dexterity scarily quickly anyway. The musicality is more important.

Obviously, my OH is teaching classical, which does indeed mean reading from the start. That works too, but you do have to stick with it and build to get anywhere.

[1] Finger independence and strength are the reasons for the age difference. In early cello lessons, it's a lot of bowing and open strings. The little kids have to use their whole fingerboard hand to hold one note and move it about as a unit when they start. Tots don't have the strength in their paws to handle proper weighted piano keys.

scalino65

What I've been struck with by my 6 yr old son is his memory for finger positioning and chords. I think what the guitar really has in its favour compared to say piano is that you can get chords going essentially by memory or pattern and can move them up or dpwn the frets without having to change them.. Even if my son has not picked the instrument up for ages he seems to instantly know were his fingers go for his chords. The speed with which he can change chords is great too. But the key thing, I feel, is to work with his enthusiasm for as long as it lasts and to try to keep that going in a fun way. e.g. After watching some acdc on youtube, he likes to spin around on the floor like angus young and he sits on my shoulders..err...like angus young on Bon's shoulders...He is very keen on ACDC!

Danji

That is brilliant! I like! 

xpia98jf

Do it Zappa style and punish every mistake. When they're older they'll appreciate it was character building.

DLM

Oh, and kids love gear. Especially pedals and stuff. When my OH ran residential classical courses for kids I used to take a little amp and some stuff along to pervert their little brains with my dirty rock'n'roll. Everyone loves the wah wah! I've had kids as young as two and a bit put together a signal chain for me and fiddle with pots and switches. I stole the idea from Paul Gilbert, who went to a primary school and discovered that little kids didn't want to hear him shred, but loved Chuck Berry licks. @Scalino65 is not that far away from that with AC/DC.

Legionreturns

My friends little girl loves the idea of playing guitar, but is tiny and doesn't have the coordination yet. I sit her on my lap and get her to strum a particular pattern while I do the cord shapes for her. Then we swap and I help her left hand while I do the strumming. She can't wait to get bigger! She's 4...she now getting a small guitar for her birthday. 

camoflamingo

pia98jf said:

Do it Zappa style and punish every mistake. When they're older they'll appreciate it was character building.

Wires attached to the  bridge to deliver an electric shock to punish mistakes and insufficient attention. Not wired directly into mains though.

Seriously though, lots of encouragement and letting them enjoy it, that's obvious but lots of teachers leave that out.