What to teach first on guitar
What You Should Teach First On Guitar
This is what professional guitar teachers have been doing for decades
They don't do it in order to follow some guru's "patent guitar teaching method" They do it because it works!
Professional Guitar Teachers are a diverse and independent minded bunch but the best (most successful and established!) ones tend to follow the same set of basic guidelines when it comes to how to teach beginners guitar
They know enough about playing and teaching the guitar to understand that there are a bunch of open chords that a beginner will find comparatively easy to form and strum that will allow them to play the most music effectively
To find out why this should be so you could go to our Guitar Music Theory page but if you don't want to do that then you could just trust me when I tell you that....
The best guitar chords for a beginner are C, A, G, E, D, Am, Dm and Em
By Learning To Move Between Those Chords In Time To Music a guitar student will become able to operate in some of the most useful and "guitar friendly" keys
They will also prepare themselves for the next (intermediate) stage of playing guitar where they are ready to move on to teaching guitar power chords and bar chords as well as to develop capabilities themed around single note passages and solos
Below is a framework for effectively teaching guitar to beginners
It is not The First Five Beginners Guitar Lesson Plans (follow the link for that) but rather it offers an overview of which areas of guitar playing a teacher might focus on during the early weeks, months (and sometimes years!) of a guitar students journey from absolute beginner to strong intermediate level player
1: Learn to move between the Eight Best Beginners Chords in time to music
2: Work On a few single note riffs and phrases
3: Introduce Power Chords and Basic Music Theory
4: Introduce Bar Chords and solo lines that use The Pentatonic Minor Scale
5: More advanced chords and further develop music theory capabilities
How to teach chords on guitar
Moving between the best eight beginners guitar chords in time to music
Why are the chords above considered to be the "best" ones for a beginner to learn?
They allow a novice to play the most important chords in a few "guitar friendly" keys which means that by learning to move between them in time to music results in the most possible options with regard to how many songs they will be able to play
By choosing this selection of chords guitar teachers are also able to ensure that their students are not asked to work on common chords that are not too difficult for them (such as the F chord) which can lead to frustration and (even worse) to someone giving up the instrument because they believe that it is "too difficult"
Single Note Lines and Riffs For Beginner Guitar Players
A very crude and broad brush approach allows us to divide guitar playing into two categories "Rhythm Guitar" where chords are played in order to accompany the vocals in a song and "Lead Guitar" which relies on single note passages As teachers we may very well know that its not that simple but beginners can find the distinction useful Our Blank Guitar Necks and Tab Sheets allow a guitar teacher to develop a whole range of single string and solo resources that they can scan/copy and print as many times as they need to
If you take a look at the you will see that the introduction of single note riffs, phrases ans solos does not feature anywhere This is because experienced guitar teachers tend to introduce this kind of content on an informal "as required" (or when the opportunity presents itself) kind of basis
The truth is that at this stage you dont want to be taking up a whole lot of lesson (and practice) time up when the more important goal is to have your students develop the ability to move between chords and strum effectively Single note stuff is good but at this stage it is the "icing on the cake" rather than being the cake itself
The list of potential riffs and figures is endless (I cant sell them, quite rightly for copyright reasons) but favourites for beginners include
(which uses every note of the blues scale)
There are more than thirty blank chord and neck diagrams with loads of useful combinations of chord grids, guitar necks and tab sheets to ensure that as a teacher you always have the resources on hand to help you to get your message across
Download EVERYTHING! you see on this site for only $25.00
35 backing tracks and the chord charts and teaching aids that go along with them. Over 400 Sheets to Download and use in your guitar teaching business TODAY!
Power Chords and First Steps in Music Theory
Whilst students are learning to move between the eight chords that all beginners should learn first they have no real use for Guitar Music Theory
This changes when they are ready to play power chords (and soon after, bar) chords At this stage they need to know what notes are called and where they can find them on (the lowest two strings of) the guitar in order to identify where they canplay the chord that they require
A quick look at the graphic above will let you see the handouts explaining what power chords are the sheet on the right is a "root finder" which allows the student to work out (and then remember) where moveable chord shapes can be based on the neck of the guitar
Two, and then three note power chords are the ideal "gateway drug" into helping a guitar student become capable of playing the "full" bar chords featured in the next section
Bar Chords and Pentatonic Minor Scales
I'm a guitar teacher and my definition (others may differ) of the end of the beginner stage for a student is when they are able to move on from changing between the eight chords that any novice should learn first in time to music and are able to cope with finding root notes for power and bar chords and moving those shapes around the neck of the guitar in time to music
It is the point where scales and improvising can be introduced and there is no better place to start that the pentatonic minor scale
Widely used in Rock,Pop, Blues and Country music the download contains a whole load of More Advanced Backing Tracks and the Handouts to go with them that are simple to use and are invaluable when developing single note and improvisational skills
Teaching Chords On Guitar
Teaching the right chords from the beginning is very important and the chords that you do teach should be the easiest to form and the most useful to know for your students
The eight best beginners guitar chords referenced on this site are easy to play (as they use lots of open strings and do not requre a student to press down more than one string with a single finger)
Once a learner has the ability to move comfortably between them they can play all but one (Bm)of the chords commonly found in the key of G (G, Am, C D and Em) which means they are equipped to play thousands of pop, blues folk and country songs in the key of G
They will also be ready to play blues and rock and roll songs in the key of A (using the A D and E chords)
It is a good idea for a guitar teacher to spend time making sure that students are familiar with moving between the eight "best" chords in a variety of styles before moving on to more advanced material
