Teaching a 6 year old to shred

Manfred-Klose

haha, viccy's gonna love this. ?

Recently i started teaching my niece how to play guitar(had one lesson so far and it turned out to be a failure).

For the main reason, is that i didn't know how learn someone to understand music that is of such a young age, you know the age where you play with bugs in the garden and have a wild imagination.

I have taught many people to play guitar, from sweeping threory and fast licks to metal heads, and the odd love song to a stoner that wants to play it to his girlfriend. been there done that.
But teaching a 6 year has proved to be the most difficult task i ever had to take on.

soon i realised, that at the age of 6, its easier to absorb information if there is some colour involved, and its needs to be very very clear!!!!!

so i went looking for some stuff, and the most straight forward website i found was this:

http://www.1stpersonguitar.com/learn-how-to-play-guitar-chords.html

it shows a picture with a diagrams of the chord, and also shows a video of the chord.

i asked her mother to print out the chords on an A4 , each of them. and also to download the vids, and put it on the kids PC.

does anyone else have any other ideas i could use to make it look like a bit more fun ?

guitarboy2828

I've taught a few young people, I think the youngest was 7 though. But, what I did was teach them songs they know, mary had a little lamb, the itsy bitsy spider, london bridge is falling down, etc.

For one girl I used a star chart, only ever did it once, but worked well for her. Gave a her star each week for every chord she could remember from the previous week. When she got 10 starts, I'd buy her a chocolate.

Tonedef

Bah, 6year-olds are child's play to teach (no pun intended). Try getting anything into MY thick skull. ☹

Norman86

Tonedef wrote: Bah, 6year-olds are child's play to teach (no pun intended). Try getting anything into MY thick skull. ☹

Get taught like a 6year old! the only difference is that you have 20 something years experience of being 6 ?

Seriously! you gotta make your lessons fun! Somewhere, teachers have to realise this!

Demon-Dave

I taught at the American school, elementary level (8-11) and you know what works surprisingly, is bribery!!! I’ll teach you anything you want if you learn Greensleeves, the school song, and your chords! You’d be so surprised, all the girls wanted to learn Mamma Mia and a few of the boys really surprised the hell out of me. Here were a few of their choices, I had nothing to do with any of their suggestions, please bare in mind that the average age of these kids is 10!

The songs I taught:
Misfits – Astro Zombies
Ted Nugent – Cat Scratch Fever
Joan Jett – I Love Rock N’ Roll
AC/DC – Back In Black

Demigod

Well, Im not used to teaching someone so young, but I teach people the way i was taught. CHROMATIC SCALES BABY!
On a serious not, i really believe chromatic scale just to get them comfortable with the synchronization is best at first. (The type where you go 1234 1234 1234 1234....then up 5432 5432 5432...yeah that one ^^)

BluJu

I taught a few youngins when I was in school. The youngest students that I took were 7.
I focused more on teaching music appreciation so that they could fall in love with the guitar and want to play it.
Expose them to lots of different music. I found the Beatles to be of particular use. Trying to teach a 6 year old full chords is a nightmare
and they are not going to practice them. Just try dumb down some of the songs that they like. They might respond quicker to the vocal melody in the song before they
can hear the guitar work.

Demigod

Yeah and I dont think they would like to learn twinkle twinkle little star. Personally, if someone showed menthe scale shapes i would have practiced more. Call my odd but ever since i was small i loved playing scales. Dont dumb it down too much too. That really pissed my off. You want the kid to stay attent and mentally present. Everyone likes a challange! ?

BluJu

Agreed. Obviously one would need to adjust to the talents and preference of the student. Some might be very keen to hear you shred some scales away.
This is what may inspire them. Some might not be too impressed with your skill and wonder when they can go back to the lego. In the latter case this doesn't mean it's hopeless.
It just provides more of a challenge. Everyone wants to play guitar. It's awesome. ?

Demigod

Exactly as you said. I loved it to be impressed, and only my guitar teacher that could actually blow my mind with playing inspired me to practice. (Mind you, me practising made it snow occasionally ?)