Help Teaching A 10yr Old 1st Chords

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

Hey fretters , anyone know of a good beginner site for absolute beginners , i am going to teach my neice who's 10 her first chords , and hopefully get her started .. i was thinking of using some printouts of the basic chord diagrams and putting together a couple simple tunes ,, maybe greenday time of your life or something easy and slow paced .. anybody done this type of thing lately ... by the way i still remember my first teacher and the the first chords and song ... Frank Quinlan it was sometime after Christmas in 1967 i was 9 and had a ags acoustic with strings like barbed wire and action like a veg slicer , Frank was seeing one of my sisters and was a local musican in a popular local band ... he showed me how to play ,,House Of The Rising Sun , and wrote down the chord diagrams for me , i'll never forget it .. later in my late teens i actually played with him for an evening at a gig .. sorry for the nostalgic rant but it all just came back ... anyhooo any help would be appreciated especially since i have volunteered to do this this evening ...cheers 6S9L

[SuperSwede]

6s9l, here is a couple of modern songs..

http://guitar.about.com/library/bleasysongs00s.htm

[Tim]

All my 8 year old grandson wants to do is make noise. I have shown him several times the D, G & A chord progression. He does not have the patience to learn a chord then practice it. Good luck with your niece!

[Tone2TheBone]

I got my daughter used to fretting the strings by simply tuning the guitar to open G. One finger...one fret at a time...then showed her how to play 12 bar blues. One finger...3 positions. This gave her the gist of what it's supposed to sound like...feel like etc. Then I gave her a bunch of drawings of chords to practice in regular tuning after she mastered Smoke On The Water in open G and all she does now is talk on the phone 24 hours.

[tremoloman***]

I quit guitar in the beginning because I found it so boring and wasn't learning any cool stuff. I've got A.D.H.D. so unless I'm instantly rewarded for hard work I lose interest.

I like to give students exercises that will help them develop skill yet trick them into learning cool songs at the same time.

In addition to chords, I suggest the following:

To limber up her fingers, have her practice picking each of the 1st 4 frets and an open string like so:

______(1) (2) (3) (4) <---finger number
e| 0---1---2---3---4

then:

______(1) (2) (3) (4)
a| 0---1---2---3---4
______(1) (2) (3) (4)
d| 0---1---2---3---4
______(1) (2) (3) (4)
g| 0---1---2---3---4
______(1) (2) (3) (4)
b| 0---1---2---3---4
______(1) (2) (3) (4)
e| 0---1---2---3---4

Once they complete that exercise, have them reverse it:

__(4) (3) (2) (1)
e| 4---3---2---1---0
a| 4---3---2---1---0
d| 4---3---2---1---0 etc...

Instruct her to move up 1 fret and do the same exercise, then 2 frets, etc.

Also have her TAP HER FOOT in a steady rhythm. It will get her to learn time, coordination, picking skill, and develop her finger strength. I always tell people to go as slow as necessary to do it without making a mistake as speed will come in time. I learned the hard way that if you practice sloppy, you will play sloppy.

Have her do it for a week. If she's gotten good at it, have her play the pattern backwards on the 8th fret of the A string. She'll be playing 'Dazed and Confused'! Put the CD on and I'm sure she'll be smiling and be telling people “I can play Led Zeppelin!”, even if she isn't a Zep fan.

I always trick people into learning songs so they will build confidence, be fun, and stick with it eager to learn more.

a few of the songs I normally start people off when learning chords and fingering are:

AC/DC: TNT, Highway To Hell (or any of their basic stuff)
The Cure - Just Like Heaven
The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop, I Wanna Be Sedated (or any other song that's real easy for beginners)

You get the idea... it's worked for every person I've gotten started on the guitar anyway. I always tell anyone who wants to learn "You'll be playing REAL songs in a month if you practice every day". This promise pushes them to take the chance and give it a try.

This will help develop the fingering so when you show her a new song, the coordination, finger strength, and picking will already be there and not prevent her from moving forward. Trying to learn as musical instructors teach may work for some, but for A.D.D. people like me I felt like it was too overwhelming and quit. Learning guitar does take a lot of work to get started, so I believe in KISS (keep it simple stupid)

My 2¢

-tremoloman

P.S. Sorry for the crudeness... the auto-formatting kept screwing up my tab.

[Katastrophe]

I've been trying to teach my stepdaughter, who's 9, a few things now for a while. She has a REAL short attention span, and gets bored easily. So far, she can fret a G fairly easily, and is working on C and F. She likes country, so I taught her those chords so she can play a variety of country tunes. I think the key here is to not push it. If she wants to practice, we practice. When it's time to step away, she'll tell me and we'll move on to something else.

BTW, Wal-Mart, Hastings and some of the other chain music stores have posters with guitar chords on 'em. They are accurate, and pretty handy, too! I've used the one at our singers house on a number of occasions!

[Katastrophe]

Tremoloman, I just saw your post... The Ramones are AWESOME for beginners! Great idea...

[tremoloman***]

In addition, you can use freeware programs such as "Audacity" to rip songs from CDs and slow them down without losing pitch. I will rip songs people want to learn and slow them down to 25% slower, 50% slower, and 75% slower than the regular speed and burn them to CD so the student can practice playing along with the songs they are learning.

You can find more info on Audacity here:
Audacity Homepage

All you do use select the whole WAV or MP3 audio, select "Change Tempo" as shown here:



Just use the % change option... simple as pie!

I use this regularly for figuring out how to play fast & complicated licks in songs I cannot figure out at full speed.

[jpfeifer]

Hi 6S9L,

I started teaching guitar about 2 years ago and I found a great site with a lot of good teaching materials on it. You can find it here:
http://www.teachguitar.com/
This guy has a lot of great articles on the subject of teaching guitar and some great examples to use too.

It's harder to teach younger kids simply because of their physical contraints but more importantly is their ability to focus. What I've found to work best is to create little lessons that move them slowly through the process so that they can play something basic right away. If they can see a little progress early on then they're less likely to become frustrated and tune out altogether. If they can get a little confidence with a basic tune or some simeple chords then they're more likely to hang in there. (start very basic)

I usually start off by teaching students this song that you can find on the site above, called "Single String Boogie". It's really basic and sounds kind of like "Peter Gun". I play this song as a duet with them so that they're playing only the single notes and I'm backing them up with a rhythm part.

I start them out with some open-position chords after they have a few single-note songs down. The hardest part of their chord work is learning to change chords fast enough to keep the song moving along without stopping. The way I work with them on this part is to have them play only one chord at the beggining of each bar so that they have a long time to change to the next chord. Then I play the rhythm part and have them do their 1-chord-per-bar right along with me. This helps to build up their speed and confidence a little. You can even use the same "Single String Boogie" song as your chord progression.

I hope this helps, -- Jim

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

dudes, SUPER,TIM, TONE,TREM KATAND JIM ,thanks a heap, i appreciate the shit outta the responses to my plea...killer ideas there , tuning to an open chord will make the fun factor pop.. the ramones have a ton of 3 chord stuff ,but i dont know what will make the magic for her tune wise...maybe some neil young, his stuff is easy paced and repative...i guess i'll find out what she likes ..kinda feels good to pass on the craft, maybe one day she'll remember her first lesson and smile..thanks for helping make a memory for a future fretter.... 6S9L

[Robert****]

Just strumming an E chord can be fun too. You can sing 'happy birthday', 'Old McDonald' or something to it, it may be a lot of fun for a 10 year old.

[Tone2TheBone]

6 Strings - Newsflash. This evening when I got home from work my daughter comes into the bedroom with her Martin acoustic and says "hey daddy, can you teach me a song?". !!! Since she loves Green Day and they're super easy to play I'll teach her Good Riddance (Time of your Life). I encourage you in your endeavors to teach cause your students just might want to learn!

[SuperSwede]

Congrats Tone!! You must be really proud

[jpfeifer]

Yes, it really does feel good to pass on your music with younger players who are just starting out. In the end, you actually learn things from your students and it also helps you rediscover the same things that attracted you to the guitar in the first place.

I'll never forget how thrilled I was when I was in high school and an older player showed me how to play "Voodo Child" and "Funk #49". It inspired me for a long time after that.

-- Jim

[tremoloman***]

I suggest making a CD of songs that are easy to learn. Give it to her and ask "Are there any songs on that CD you would like to be able to play?"

That would be a sure fire way to find a song of inspiration for her.

I remember when I leared a G-chord I would just hit it 3x as done in the Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary".
"And the world... and the world drags me down..." ...G - G - G !!!

A few really easy songs to learn with basic major chords I can recall are:

The Cure
Just Like Heaven
(A, E, B, D) and (F#, G) for chorus

Guns N Roses
Used To Love Her
(D, A, G, A) over and over and over

AC/DC
Ride on
(C, F, B, and G) are the only chords she'll need to do rhythm

The Cult
Revolution
(G, F, E) is the main set of chords

HTH!

[SuperSwede]

"I used to love her, but I had to kill her" isnt exactly a good song for a 10 year old girl

Your idea to create a simple song CD is great.

[tremoloman***]

"I used to love her, but I had to kill her" isnt exactly a good song for a 10 year old girl

Your idea to create a simple song CD is great.

You'd be suprised... my girlfriend's 5 year old knew every word to "T.N.T." by AC/DC the 1st time I played it to him. Apparently the song is in one of Tony Hawk's skateboarding games.

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

That was fun , it worked out fairly well , she had a good attention span and good right hand dexterity ..so i showed her 3 chords...xx3 g , e minor, and d , easily found some familiar melody's to work with and we drew the chord diagrams together, i have to figure out a way to help her develop her ear when it comes to tuning and pitch ... i remember how long it took me to learn how to tune a guitar by ear , those pitch pipe tuners were terrible i bet they had pitch variance that was off the scale ... but she needs to learn that before any theory is broached ... thanks one and all for the help, strangely enough TONE, greenday's good riddance came up and is squarely in her sights as a tune she wants to learn , TREM your cd idea is great , i'm going to do it .... 6S9L

[t_ross33]

Maybe this isn't feasible, desireable, or possible, but I think it helped me out when I was getting started: try a 3/4 scale bass first. Easy (easier maybe) on tender fingers, primarily dealing with root notes vs. chords and develops a good sense of timing, pitch etc. You have to listen for the chord changes, little fills etc.

I'm now finding (25 years later) that those little fills I learned by ear relate directly to scales and can be applied to six string pickin'. Who knew?

Anyway, in my limited experience, I think learning (in my case teaching myself) bass was a good foundation for what was (and is) to come.