Guitar lessons for a 6-year-old

dreadnut

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Reluctantly, I agreed to teach my friend's daughter some guitar. Turns out he bought her a Baby Taylor, I sanded down the saddle a bit because the action was so high, oiled the fretboard, and put on a new set of Martin Marquis Silk and Steels, now it's much easier for her to play.

I believe they should have a song to play after the first lesson so they can have some success and have fun with it. So I taught her "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on just the high "E" string. She was really proud of herself for learning it and practiced it last week, and played it for me last night at our 2nd lesson.

I taught her the two string "A7" chord last night, she'll be practicing that this week. I'm pleasantly surprised that she is so focused; she really pays attention and asks good questions. She did a great job of forming that A7 chord last night and she was even arching her fingers like I showed her, so she was close to playing a clean A7.

I suspect she might be the rare one that actually learns to play, because she really wants to.
 

Stuball48

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Great on you Dred. And love your idea about learning to play a song ASAP.
My first song was "Blues Stay Away From Me" with the Dred B7 chord. But loved the song so much I got better at B7. Ha
 

fronobulax

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love your idea about learning to play a song ASAP.

That's been around for at least a couple decades. My mother taught piano and after about 15 years, went back to school to get a Masters in Piano Pedagogy. (Don't you just love degree subjects that most people need a dictionary to know what was studied?) One of the things they taught her, that was new, was the motivational impact of making sure new students learned to play songs they already had heard, ASAP. The second thing she learned was that as much as possible, teach something from the style of music the student was most interested. So you can imagine intermediate students studying both Beethoven and Herbie Hancock.

It has been awhile but we have often discussed "barriers to entry" for new guitarists and instruments that were poorly set up and hard to play were always identified as a problem. So it is nice to hear that adjustments were made to accommodate the student.

Well done, dread. Let us know when you infect her with the Guild bug :)
 

The Guilds of Grot

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6 eh, I can understand the reluctance! Glad it sounds like it's working out.

Good job going with the Suzuki Method!
 

adorshki

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Reluctantly, I agreed to teach my friend's daughter some guitar. Turns out he bought her a Baby Taylor, I sanded down the saddle a bit because the action was so high, oiled the fretboard, and put on a new set of Martin Marquis Silk and Steels, now it's much easier for her to play.
'zackly what I did for my nephew about 3 years back except his was a Luna backpacker.


I taught her the two string "A7" chord last night, she'll be practicing that this week. I'm pleasantly surprised that she is so focused; she really pays attention and asks good questions. She did a great job of forming that A7 chord last night and she was even arching her fingers like I showed her, so she was close to playing a clean A7.
I suspect she might be the rare one that actually learns to play, because she really wants to.
Ease of playing is also HUGE and helps with quick learning, so might I also humbly suggest some pointers in ergonomics in terms of holding the guitar in classical position, along with the "thumb-on-back-of-neck not over the fingerboard" rule which enhances fretting precision, and helps prevent fretting fingers from muting adjacent open strings?
I've mentioned it a few times but if you missed it, my very first classical lesson was entirely dedicated to ergonomics and an explanation of how the design evolved to allow the best precision and dexterity for the hands when held properly. (including the one-fret-for-each-finger enabling playing the entire chromatic scale without break thing"
I'll leave to you to dumb it down for a 6-year-old's needs...main goal is to help her get real clean sound easily, which is also motivating.
:smile:
 

dreadnut

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If I'd had to learn musical notation or tablature in order to play guitar, I likely wouldn't be playing today. I wanted to play stuff I was hearing on the radio in the '60's, so once I learned 3 chords I was off and running. I still don't read music or tablature, but I have a pretty good understanding of chord structures, patterns and relationships, and scales. Actually, there are lots of accomplished musicians that don't read music; I'm sure many of you here on LTG fit into that category.
 

walrus

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Nice, dread! +1 on what others have said about learning songs!

walrus
 

dreadnut

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Whatever the setting - on the job, playing guitar, empowering someone to have success early on will provide them with self-motivation for a long time to come. I used to give my new employees assignments I knew they could be successful at in order to bolster their self-confidence. This approach paid great dividends.

It also helps to be encouraging. I told young Eva last night "You're really doing good! You must have been practicing, I can tell. You're playing those notes very clearly, keep up the good work!" This is like saying "Sic 'em" to a dog, LOL.

She'd even had her Mom trim her fingernails as I suggested!

Then I had her help me change the strings; I showed her how to properly orient the end pins with the slot toward the neck, then she inserted the new strings one at a time and pinned them, then I wound them up to pitch.

We spent over an hour together last night and she hung right in there with me. Unusually steady focus for a six-year-old. Well, somebody's gotta carry on the tradition!

"Tell me, and I'll retain 10%. Show me, and I'll retain 25%. Help me do it myself and I'll retain 100%."
 

dreadnut

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Well, considering Ricky Skaggs was only six years old when he debuted with Bill Monroe...
 
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