A series of guitar lessons aimed at children aged around 6 years old designed to give them a sense of achievement from the very first session
Is Six Too Young To Learn Guitar?
Giving guitar lessons to a six year old child can be fun and rewarding but it also has it's challenges, You need to keep the child entertained and the resources on this page will help you to do just that. Children in this age bracket are (quite rightly) not prepared to willingly tolerate any activity that isn't fun NOW.
Teaching Kids To "Really" Play The Guitar
To delve a little deeper into the whole business of teaching guitar to younger kids explore our teaching children to play the guitar page which also gives you access to a whole range of free guitar teaching resources such as this guitar lesson plan suitable for a 6 year old to download that goes along with this kids first ever guitar lesson are designed with the youngest players in mind
Guitar Lessons For A Seven Year Old
Can a child begin to learn to play the guitar at the age of six or seven? The short (and qualified) answer to that question is yes but only if they think that it is a fun thing to do while they are doing it. Children of this age do not really get the concept of doing something repetitive and potentially boring as the trade off of developing a set of motor skills that will allow them to turn themselves into functioning musicians over a period of months and years.
If they are getting the chance to do childhood properly then their days (up until the time that they start school anyway) are filled with fun stuff to do. In the "down time" that they have away from the school that at around this age generally tends to provide something of a "shock to the system" by giving them their first encounter with formal and structured long term daily activities they need to be allowed to be kids again. If you can make guitar lessons fun then you can trick them into learning how to play guitar while they think they are just having a ball?
Parents and Grandparents
Parents (or Grandparents?) who play the guitar can be the perfect facilitators of this kind of experience. What is ideally required at this stage is that when children are playing with a guitar (rather than playing a guitar) they are being steered towards developing transferrable skills that will be of use to them should they become interested (or obsessed if they're lucky?) with guitar playing as they grow and develop.
What are reasonable and realistic targets for someone helping a younger child to play the guitar?
Well what about this? If after a few months of having fun a six or seven year old child can move between eight guitar chord shapes that will allow them to play the important parts of thousands (and possibly millions) of songs in time to music?
If you take a tour around this site you will see that the above objective is the same one that applies to older kids and adult learners. Anyone who takes up playing the guitar from a standing start would be pleased with having developed the ability to potentially play thousands of songs in time to a rhythm section in a relatively short period of time and a six year old child will be no exception. The desired end result (being able to move between guitar chords in time) is the same but how you approach this as a teacher when dealing with five, six and seven year old children is certainly different to the approach you would take with adult learners (or older children)
Guitar lessons for a six year old
Children of around six or seven years of age love to play games and I use (a lot!) a variation on the old favourite "Simon Says" in many of my guitar lessons
I replace the usual "Simon says hands on your head" stuff with "Simon says E minor" before giving the student/s a count of "1-2-3-4 (they strum the Em chord where "5" would be)
I use this guitar teaching game more than I would have thought possible, particularly when teaching guitar to groups of children and you can find a more detailed explanation of how this simple teaching technique can make your lessons very effective by following the link above. It is not unusual for me to turn up at a school for a guitar lesson with backing tracks etc all planned out and be faced with a group of children who just want to play "Simon Says" and since the game requires the kids to do exactly what they should be doing (moving from chord to chord in time to music or a count) then it is also not unusual to find that I am happy to abandon (or more likely to postpone) the lesson that I had planned to give and "go with the flow"
Is a six year old child old enough for guitar lessons?
Well I hate to answer the above question with a "cop out" but I'm sure you will understand if I say "it depends upon the kid in question. What I will say though is that I would shudder at the thought of teaching groups lessons with six year olds and the prospect of doing it would fill me such horror that I would rather have a "proper" job in an office or down a hole with a shovel or something (and if you knew me you would know how much the prospect of trading what I do for what other people regard as "gainful employment" scares me in ways that I just can't explain).
An individual child of six or seven may have reached a stage in their development where they can focus for a little while on gaining new skills but put a group of them together and the job would be more like lion taming than guitar teaching
The Best Part Of My Job
The schools that I work in have policies that dictate that group guitar tuition does not appear on the timetable until kids are around eight or nine years old and that suits me just fine. I get to work with them in that golden period of around four years after they have developed personalities and before they sacrifice their enthusiasm and open heartedness on the altar of "teenaged cool" and I love it. When you teach a younger child to do something (like play part of a song that they recognise) that they could not do a few minutes before they are quite likely to show an almost alarming level of enthusiasm. It is not uncommon to hear an almost animal roar followed by the screamed phrase "I DID IT!" and to see a face contorted in unselfconcious joy. Its the best bit of the job for me
The Dreaded "Teenaged Cool"
It is amusing to compare it to the experience of teaching teenagers who turn up for "one on one" lessons with their pointy black guitars and badly fitting "too cool for school" personas. You can give them what they regard as the "keys to the kingdom" (just plug a distortion pedal in and show them how to do hammer ons, pull offs and bends) Inwardly they will be doing cartwheels. Fireworks will be going off in the hormone soaked cabbage that was only a couple of years ago a fully functioning child's brain. Now that they can make "fierce" noises like whichever wild eyed loners at the gates of oblivion they have decided to (pretend) to like in order to be considered "cool" They know that it will only be a matter of time before the world recognises their genius and their days are taken up with getting up to all sorts of stuff that their mother would not like on a bed made of money. They (mistakenly) think that "thats just about all there is to it" and once they can do it a bit faster then they will undoubtedly "make it"
They think that their world has changed and they know that you have changed it. You are responsible for releasing their inner rock god and that with your help they have flung themselves through the door marked "Immortal Rock Legend" In gratitude they will (if you are particularly lucky) look at you and grunt a single word..."cool" through a stern and unsmiling mouth before getting back to the serious business of showing the world how much they do not care for it's petty morals and restrictions.
I know I'm being horribly unfair here and the business of growing up (which as I remember was quite hard enough) is now complicated by the fact that people on the other side of the world can poke their tiny knacker box and comment on the style of your shoes or the shape of your bottom from the comfort of their own cave but the fact remains that even though I get satisfaction (and money) from teaching older students I get more FUN! from teaching kids. Thats all I'm saying really
Tour the site to take a look at the resources that I use (and sell!) for teaching younger and older students alike or have a look at the first of a series of guitar lessons suitable for kids of six years and older. There are loads of free resources that you can download and use (even if you decide not to purchase the paid for materials)
Which brings us to.........
The Deluxe Package:
Download all of the resources on this website for just $25.00
The Kid's Guitar Teaching Package
Over forty sheets to download and use in your guitar teaching today. This material is designed to run alongside the "Backing Tracks and Handouts Package . All of the resources that you will need in order to teach kids to play guitar. Chord Charts, One finger (reduced) chord diagrams etc. An opportunity to start any young would be guitar player off the right way!
Our Backing Tracks and Handouts Package
20 Backing Tracks and 46 Handouts. An invaluable teaching aids designed to help you to teach both rhythm and lead guitar to younger and older students alike Great for helping to develop a good dense of timing
The Guitar Teacher's Toolkit
100 printable sheets dealing with Open Chords-Bar Chords-Scales- Modes- Blank Fretboard and Chord Grids Teaching Diary and Business Card Designs
Plus 100 Giant (letter sized) Chord Grids
laminate them in order to help you to teach group guitar lessons, distribute them to your students or just stick on your teaching studio wall? The "Coolest Wallpaper on the planet?"
And a freebie from us to you!
The Bass Guitar Teacher's Toolkit
Over 60 Handouts for anyone who already teaches (or who wishes to teach) bass guitar covering Scales, Chords, Fingering Exercises etc
Over 300 Sheets and 20 Backing tracks to Download and use TODAY!
Everything you need to start or improve a guitar teaching business! It's all there!
Only $25.00
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