Since I make most of my living teaching guitar (and selling guitar goodies), I’m certainly not going to dissuade you from getting your child guitar lessons. Hey, you gotta expose your young ones to new things, see if anything inspires them! That said, guitar is a challenging instrument that takes a lot of focused practice to really get a handle on. Not to say your kidlet will need to practice three hours a day, go on a special diet and such. But there’s something about it that takes more work than other instruments. I mean, that comment is debatable for sure, but I’m amazed at how the piano teachers in our store maintain rosters with 5-10 year-olds who continue to excel on the instrument. There’s something about piano that kids can start grasping at a young age. I have a few guitar students excelling in this age range too, but they’re the exception, not the rule.
This isn’t just my teaching ability either. The other guitar teachers are pretty much in the same boat, with the exception of a few teachers who specialize in dealing with young kids and promote themselves as such. Those teachers often do quite well…unless you get the ROCK STAR kid who would rather bang his head into a wall then practice Three Blind Mice on the guitar–he wants to play Green Day or whatever music his Dad listens to! So I often get students who have tried the “child-friendly” teachers who didn’t work out. The kid wants to learn what HE wants to learn, only he’s still a kid and might not know exactly what he wants to learn. Enter the rock guitar teacher–hopefully me–who ideally has good people skills and can help the student learn to rock properly.
The question I get from prospective parents is whether or not their child is ready for guitar lessons. The answer is that it depends. Has he really pestered you about wanting them? Is he using Dad’s golf club for an air guitar (like I did)? Is he turning on the radio in the car or on cable, or still watching the Baby Einstein DVDs on music? Those are obviously good signs, though not required. I doubt the violin virtuosos of today were highly motivated to practice violin when they were three…they had parents providing guidance. But it’s a great sign if they’re listening to music on their own. I remember wearing out KISS records when I was a kid. It would have been crazy of my parents to NOT put a guitar into my hands and see what happened.
Here’s where it gets tricky. I get so many parents dumping their kids with me, expecting to get them all fired up about music. And I CAN do that most of the time. I’m pretty good at interacting with the young ones, but then they go home and forget about the instrument because no one tells them to practice. Then s/he comes back the next week, we have a good time, laughing at my silly jokes and such…but there’s no progress. And even though I can push forward a little into other areas, eventually something needs to be practiced to properly condition the fingers for the harder stuff. I get parents saying, “Well, we don’t want to force him to practice…he needs to show us he’s interested.” And I can’t argue because I’m currently not a parent. But I can say hoping he’ll take to the instrument is sort of like hoping he’ll take to putting out the trash or other chores that help the family…unlikely to happen. You need to be prepared to push a little, find some way to encourage a commitment.
What do I expect out of a young student’s practice? I hope for maybe ten minutes a day, 4-5 days a week. I’m likely teaching Star Wars or Sponge Bob-type stuff and ten minutes is enough time to get the fingers moving on songs like that. As conditioning sets in I would push for something closer to twenty minutes a day. This is the average…a child who really takes off certainly deserves a bigger push, more complex music, more time devoted to practice.
The next problem I see is poor quality of the guitars that are brought in. PLEASE, for the love of God, DON’T:
–Use the guitar that’s been sitting in Grandma’s attic since the 40s. At least let the teacher check it out first for a professional opinion.
–Buy one of those toy guitars at Target or Walmart and expect it to work for serious guitar lessons. It takes me fifteen minutes to tune these junkers to pitch (it normally should take a minute or less), then I strum a basic chord and it sounds like I’m playing bizarre, avant-garde jazz that only a few houseplants could listen to. Go to a local music store, talk to the salesmen and let them test a few guitars on your child to see which one fits best. A decent starter guitar leans in the $150-200 range. Not ready to make that sort of financial commitment? No problem, as most Mom & Pop music stores have rental programs, which I’d definitely recommend to all beginners. Or if you’ve got money to spend I recommend a Les Paul Custom, which will only set you back around $3000 or so. But when your kid quits in a few months I’ll be happy to take the guitar off your hands for $500. 
–Get the right sized guitar to fit your child’s body and fingers. These parents buy their kids a full sized acoustic guitar for their eight-year-old daughter. The body is too big, the strings are too thick. We make annoying plunking sounds for a month because her fingers aren’t going to be able to press these strings firmly until sometime after college and I’M the one blamed for being a bad teacher??? I personally (and opinions vary) recommend starting with an electric guitar, as the strings are thinner, easier to fret and more common in the rock music. What’s that…you want your child to learn “proper” guitar, not the bad rock & roll he listens to? Then set the money on fire, because lessons with me will be the same thing. On second thought, don’t set it on fire…give it to me and I’ll teach your kid the stuff he wants, but give him some Mozart sheet music to hide his rock songs so you think he’s learning proper guitar!
–Oh, and stay away from guitars sold on home shopping channels. I don’t want to get sued for slander, so I can’t elaborate. But trust me!
This one might be obvious to some, but I wouldn’t mention it if I didn’t feel I had to. PARENTS–plan on sitting with your child in his lessons for at least the first month of teaching. You know how awkward it is for both me and the child to have him dropped off, a quick handshake, then you disappear to run errands? I’m good at relaxing them, but the shyness barrier makes for a rocky start. Besides, I want parents to know me as best they can, how I teach, my personality. It makes for a better teaching relationship and better progress.
Cool, you’re child has been taking lessons, you’re sitting down with him for those ten minutes most days (maybe even picking up a few things yourself) and…? Is it a struggle? Torture for both of you? Do you dread asking him to practice each day? Then it’s time to quit and move on. Congratulations for giving it a try. Or maybe you need to try a few tricks to get him motivated. Among the ideas:
–Play music EVERYWHERE! On the radio, CD player, iPod, Comcast Digital Cable, XM Radio, Internet radio (I love www.pandora.com for customized radio stations). In my experience, the students who don’t listen to music tend to be the hardest to motivate. The ones who come in able to name several favorite bands have a much better chance of succeeding because they want to sound like their favorite bands.
–Play with them. Either with a second guitar or another instrument if you can play it.
–Make a deal. For every ten minutes of guitar practice they get ten minutes of video game time…or whatever deal you want to try. Can’t say I’m thrilled with this idea, but I’ve seen it work.
Another issue could be the teacher. Some of them lack the skills to deal with young kids. Others simply lack the skills to teach at all. You don’t have to be a musician to tell when your teacher isn’t delivering the goods. Your child should be leaving the lesson with a gameplan as to what needs to be practiced. I put colored post-its with the date on each paper I hand out that week along with a quick list of the things we’re working on. No going home and saying, “Hey, I forgot what we did in our lesson, so I guess I’ll just goof off!” IMO, there should be something tangible on paper, easy to read and review. Any teacher expecting a kid to remember a song or chord shapes from memory the day after it’s taught is asking for trouble.
I’m going to revise this as more ideas or experiences arise, so feel free to ask questions in the comments section…:)
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Adjusting the strap to hold your guitar at the proper level may be very important in some cases but if you are really jamming out on your guitar, you may not even use a strap and just hold your guitar in your hands without any additional support. Problems like this will not present any major issues for most people in regards to their guitar playing but some bad habits are very difficult to overcome and create longer lasting side effects.
I have guardship of my grandson who is 4 will be 5 in March. He has a really good ear for music and just loves it.
Any ideas where to start and where to get lessons.
Thanks
Noelani
Five is pretty young to start guitar, which is usually harder than piano at this age, but it’s always worth a shot! I would call a local Mom & Pop music store that offers lessons and ask them to recommend a teacher who has skills (or specializes in) working with kids. It takes a bit of extra patience working with young ones like this, so you want to make sure the teacher is ready for it. From there, talk to the teacher, tell them the situation, ask if they’ve worked with kids, what kind of things they teach. What kind of music does your grandson like…modern rock songs or whatever you’re playing? If the teacher is good s/he’ll have ideas on how to structure the lessons–or know someone who does.
Very refreshing to read this post! My 7 year old daughter has been begging for guitar lessons for two years. Your post just confirmed that my child is ready for them!
This morning before school we had to wait so that she could write down the words to a song she’d made up so that she didn’t forget them. I bought her a “play” guitar two years ago when she first started asking. I didn’t think a “real” guitar should be her first one. She even uses a Barbie shoe has a pick!
This Christmas I would like to give her a guitar with case and accessories and find her a teacher in our area. However, my concern is that she is left handed. Do I make her play right handed? Do I buy her a guitar that is strung backwards?
She cuts, writes, brushes teeth, etc. left handed.
Thanks in advance.
A lefty, eh? I’m a lefty myself, but I play right handed guitar…always made more sense to me for some reason, having my good hand on the fretboard. Can you borrow a guitar from someone and let her try it? Then again, her fingers might be too small for a normal sized guitar, but the idea is to see what she naturally does when goofing around on it, not being told how to play.
Does the pretend guitar have six strings like a normal guitar? Watch how she plays it.
You can buy a guitar that is constructed for lefties, so no need to go Hendrix with the restringing. That said, I’d known many lefties who were made to play right and it didn’t destroy their interest…but at seven it would be nice to minimize frustration.