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How Do You Teach a Kid to Play the Guitar?

By James Emery Vigh of profbruno.com

My business -- what I do, that is, what I'm trying hard to do is to create a guitar method course tailored towards kids.

My desire is to expand this to other instruments as well, such as the bass guitar, the keyboards,and the drums. Maybe, perhaps later, I could delve into classical instruments as well (such as the violin).

But how am I supposed to accomplish this?

I've been a guitar instructor off and on my entire adult life, but in my earlier years I was still trying to find my way as en effective teacher.

I remember one student I had long ago. She must have been around 7 or 8 years old. Her father had just bought her this shiny new guitar. She was then assigned to me at the music store that I was working out of.

I was teaching in the "traditional method". This method subscribes to the theory that one should teach everyone to read music right from the beginning. It was the "right" way to teach.

Now, I suppose what was about to happen was more about my personal teaching style than about the method, but a beginning student almost always reaches a "wall" that he or she needs help climbing out of.

What I mean by "the wall", is that things can seem pretty easy for a while, but eventually things start to seem harder.

Learning an instrument is generally about surmounting these walls as they come up. As in life.

Well this beautiful little girl hit her first "wall" on the guitar. Instead of helping her climb out of it by encouraging her, and praising her obvious efforts, I demanded more out of her in the way of practice.

The average 7-8 year old girl has other things on her mind than practicing the guitar.

I reduced this little girl to tears because she didn't live up to my expectations. She never came back.

I vowed to myself that I would never, never let this happen again.

My teaching style has suffered occasional setbacks since then, but I've always remembered that little girl.

Now here I am in the present day doing research on how best to author and produce a concept that would not only teach kids, but also hopefully appeal to them.

There are a lot of on-line courses out there. There are also numerous books, CDs, and DVDs all advertising how great of a kid's course they are.

I came across an on-line course that featured short teaching videos on various subjects. I played a preview of one of these.

The instructor was sitting on one of those 3-legged stools with his guitar. His student, a young boy perhaps 10 or 11, was sitting to the left with his guitar.

The instructor, who was a male, was making some kind of point about something or other. But what I noticed was the look on the kid's face.

It was your classic "dear in the headlights" look.

To be fair to the owner of this course, not all kids are photogenic, and not all kids respond well to being on camera.

But it just didn't seem like fun to me.

Why can't we make it fun? -- Or at least try to without being sappy about it.

As teachers, we still have an obligation to teach, but why can't we make learning fun for kids at their level?

Do you remember a film by the name of "Mrs. Doubtfire", starring Robin Williams?

He ended up having to work at a local studio as a "gopher". During his duties, he stopped to watch this old guy filming a bit for kids on dinosaurs and was horrified by the approach taken. The old guy was talking "down" to the kids.

I suppose that the interpretation of the phrase "talking down" can be varied, but seemingly there has to be a better way.

There just has to be.

I don't know if I'm going to end up finding that something or not, but I'm going to try.

Great image. I think you are on the right track. I never talked down to kids, but I did not go "down" to their level, either, except on the physical plane, to get eye to eye with them, which I think is important. Nobody wants to get a kink in the neck looking up at a teacher.

In demeanor, I always acted pretty much as though I thought they were pretty mature and able to deal with subjects in an intelligent way, and most of them were. They liked being treated like people instead of like kids

Kids are a LOT more observant than most adults and it is easy to forget that, especially if they are teenagers going through the "I only grunt" stage. Appearance aside, they are ALWAYS watching us, and they respect us most when we are able to just be ourselves.

Thanks Janet. I appreciate it.

In my business as author, producer and director, I sometimes forget about the audience I am targeting and think like a book or movie critic.

Focus, focus, focus...

As you can imagine, With my huge family I have been involved with small children for most of my active life.

I have always taught children up to twelve years old by the simple means of a question:-
"Right. We've got about an hour (or whatever time there was) what do you want to learn today?"

One of my daughters wanted to learn angling and asked if I would give her lessons. My formula worked brilliantly. The very first thing she wanted to learn was how to handle gentles in the freezing weather. Instead of being 'freaked' out by the fact that anglers keep a few in their mouth, she was delighted to learn this and the reasons for it. I don't think my wife was so happy, though.
She asked many intelligent questions and although there was no structure to the way the teaching progressed, we covered all aspects of angling in far greater depth than any formal training manual.

There is no right way to teach. Some kids love the didactic approach while others are like butterflies, flittering from aspect to aspect.

Allow to 'learn' - they are not out of the 'everything is fun' stage of their lives yet.

Thanks Arthur for your support. That is very good advice you gave. I shall do my best.

A well written intel, Jim and I'm sure that you will find the answers to becoming an effective teacher. Just don't show the children the image in your intel, there's too much punk already. It's an age thing!!
Best to you.
Frederick

Ha! It's funny you should say that about the "kid" picture. I did not - wayyyyyy to scary....

I bet your a great teacher just by all your intel I read. Your right on track with your thinking here. I picked up my first guitar at the age of 13 and my teacher would take it like a sin against him if I didnt understand so I quit. I thought it was suppose to be fun not stressfull,
Talking down to kids surely isnt the answer.Neither is talking at them. At the age of 48 I picked up the guitar again. Most teachers want to teach without seeing the person they are teaching if that makes sense. Kids are people just as teachers are people.I know I say some dumb things sometimes but the fact is we treat people the way we want to be treated.Base your search on what you would have wanted in a teacher when you were a kid.

Thanks a bunch. I really appreciate your well-considered remarks.

You're dealing with one of the most difficult jobs in the world here (teaching) - in my opinion. But as anything else, teaching and learning is supposed to be fun (for teacher and student) and one-on-one teaching has one big advantage: You can use individual approach with every student. Excellent intel, you're doing great!! :) And - I like the image also. Seems very cheerful and with a lot of character to me...

Thanks Daria. I appreciate your kind words and your support.

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