My First Student

[Pappy P]

My daughter asked me to teach her to play guitar this week-end.

 

I just hope she didn't expect me to show her how to play in just one week-end.

 

I know they have a million DVDs that offer that.

 

She's only eight, but I could tell she was being serious. So we sat down and got to it.

 

I've never had a student before and I had no idea where to start.

 

We spent about 15 min, I didn't want to push too hard, so I let her set the pace.

 

I had her use a pick to pluck the strings.

 

Also I had her fret some notes. That was really hard for her on the crappy little First Act acoustic we had bought her as a toy a long time ago. I could tune it and the intonation was ok, but it was very hard for her to fret.

 

She could actually fret ok on my Yamaha acoustic, and it was even easier on my Squire strat.

 

I just kept focusing on pressing firmly with the fingers to get a tone with out muting or fret buzz.

 

I know I should definately get her a better guitar.

 

Now I have questions.

 

I feel I should focus on proper left hand technique and build up her hand strength.

 

But, what can I do to make if fun and interesting for her?

 

 

I think it would be better for her to learn on a acoustic before I let her play electric.

 

I think this would give her more hand strenght and a better techique. Do you agree or disagree?

 

Give me all your opinions, I trust you guys.

[A String]

First of all, great news! You must be really happy right now!

 

If she has trouble with acoustic, she can learn on electric. Some girls don't have enough strength for acoustic in the beginning and you don't want it to frustrate her.

 

At her age, note might bore her so you may want to consider keeping the note learning to a minimum (Still do it, but just less of it) and teach her chords so she can "hum and strum". This way it's fun right away and will keep her interested.

 

Find some simple G, D, C, Am etc. type songs and have her do one or two, down strokes, per chord. If she knows the song, she can even sing along as she plays.

 

Best of luck Pappy! I love teaching and I can't wait until I get the chance to teach my own Daughter. Must be great!

[Hardtail]

Yes. Teach her some open chords to strum.

 

As far as whether she should learn on electric or acoustic: as long as you have both around for her to play, let her make that choice. Whatever one she likes that keeps her interested and practicing is all that matters.

[The Big G]

Yip open chords,

but that is great news.

Keep us informed oh what you are doing and how she is coping etc...

nice one pappy

[fantasticsound]

Congratulations. I'm at a point where I don't think Lilly will ever have that drive to learn an instrument... and I'm not sure I'd be the best teacher, too.

 

I think you need to encourage her to play both, but if she wants to play songs asap I think acoustic would be better for a few reasons. (Assuming she isn't struggling with the basics because of the strength necessary to fret chords.)

 

First, she can pick up an acoustic and practice anywhere, anytime and hear her progress. Practicing on electric without an amp is useful, but for a beginner it will really help to hear the good, bad & ugly. Wouldn't want her to get into bad habits that are masked by practice sans an amp on electric guitar.

 

Second, you can go to Wal*Mart and buy a small, First Act acoustic she can take anywhere that plays relatively well for $25 - $35. When she plays on your good acoustic, of course, it will inspire her further because of the better sound. But I've been playing one of these guitars my parents bought for Lilly and everyone who's played it looks at the darned thing with their jaw dropped. It won't win any awards, but for the money, it's an invaluable practice tool and another voice for recording. (It has a great acoustic blues vibe. )

 

The only reasons I'd concentrate on electric first would be if she has too much difficulty fretting the acoustic or, perhaps more importantly, if all the songs she wants to learn are pop songs using distortion, etc. that don't translate well to acoustic in the hands of a novice.

 

Good luck, PappyP!

[Dr. Ellwood]

Pappy if you get her an acoustic you could tune it down for her to get better action untill her hands get stronger..just an idea.

[phil_harmonic]

I started out on a steel stringed acoustic and had a hard time of it, as an adult male. I think it would be okay for a young girl to start on an electric or perhaps a nylon stringed acoustic. What ever keeps her motivated to keep playing is the key.

 

My teenage niece wanted a guitar so I got her a Squire. As I suspected, she played it some (took a few lessons) and then she was on to the next thing. Don't think she has picked it up in several months now. Sure glad I didn't buy her anything more expensive LOL.

[musicalhair]

My oldest is eight and she don't really touch her guitar. But I've thought about how to approach it with her, here is what I think. A short scale nylon string classical is easy enough on the fingers to avoid our "bleeding blisters" rite of passage. I think hand strength is not really common with eight year old girls so when she did pick up the guitar I showed her single note melodies and scale patterns. She has a great ear so she could figure out melodies she was playing on the piano and play them on guitar with just a little bit of me showing her basic "this finger here for this note" type stuff. We didn't really get into the bass strings at all (E A D). I did have her sit right and play pretty "correctly".

 

She spends a lot of time on the piano, and she is still not really playing chords there so I don't think guitar chords should be stressed yet. I think in like six months my kid will be playing three note chords as regular parts of her pieces instead of just the "C G E G, G (octave down) G E G" patterns in her left hand on the piano. But my kid's been playing for years, but chords are not really critical to her development yet.

 

What I used to do a lot and should get back to is actively doing ear training with the kids. We used to play a note and she'd name it. If it were in the range of piano she's always in then she'd normally nail it, and the more we did it, the more she'd get right.

 

What I did that I'm just amazed at how it has worked is taught her Fixed Do Solfegio. I mentioned this in another thread. Basically my wife was taugh by people that didn't call an A an A but a "La". Ab and A# were still La but my wife has perfect pitch and hears the differences but didn't have a word other than La. The Do-Re Me stuff is easier to sing than C D E, so for that reason and to communicate with my wife about the music I adopted the Solfegio. We went fixed Do because Lenine just took to it pretty easy and doing movable Do was ... well pointless after a while. Anyway when she sight sings a melody she's reading she'll do it in "Solfegio" which is like "do do do re mi re do me re re do" which is the first phrase of "Au Clare De La Luna" which is a common children's melody (not the DeBussey thing) like "Twinkle Twinkle".

 

Well after singing her melodies to help learn them for piano she can rip through songs in solfegio. The advantage is that the ear hears the word and associates it with a pitch so she hears right and wrong notes pretty easy. She can learn her tunes faster than if she didn't have this skill. She is still memorizing tunes rather than "sight reading" them, but her reading and sight singing is steadily improving, and sight reading for the instrument will follow as those develop. I can sight sing "better" than her, and I'm not exactly good at it, but once she has it memorized: man, it is off to the races.

 

Reading and clapping rhythms is something I haven't done enough of with her. We're enrolling her with a piano teacher at a "local" music school (Westminster Choir College) and a class basically about piano culture. From there we'll see what to do, but we've taken her about as far as we can alone (my wife, my mother-in-law, and me).

 

I think if you do it "right" and keep her interested you'll be able to go a couple of years just teaching her yourself. I'd go classical, but that is sort of what I learned in college and really liked and my wife and her family are solidly in the classical music thing. My wife has a very close cousin, and her kid is like a finalist in some young composer's competition in England. They're from Long Beach CA, but are entering as many "big" competitions they can, and the kid is like 10 maybe 11.

 

I think the singing and the Sofegio and ear training can be fun and a game. She'll want to quiz you too I imagine, mine did. Fun for her now seems to be showing off at the piano in music stores and belting out Solfegio versions of Mozart's piano music just to see our jaws drop.

 

Oh, my kid kicks ass; and when the younger one is doing this stuff, she'll kick ass without even trying. She sings the sofegio stuff just imatating her big sister, and picks out stuff on her own.

 

Oh, and we worked out Solfegion names for just about every # and b there is. Eb major scale is "Me Fa So Le Te Do Re Me" and regular E major is "Mi Fi Si La Ti Di Ri Me". I think this is worth learning for everyone that plays music, for the benefits to the ear and for the sight singing avenues it opens up when learning new music.