Guitar Instruction for 7 year old?

Hey all.  So things might be picking up, I've taken on a student that starts tonight....also, side note, I have an audition in Chicago on Thursday with a southern rock/metal band. 

Anyway, I've been emailing with mom, turns out the little girl has had 1 1/2 years instruction in classical and can play 'ode to joy' and 'amazing grace'  I'm going to have to do some major brushing up on my classical guitar, as it's been like 20 years.  I believe I have a slight break, tho, because mom said they got their daughter a electric for xmas.

The question.....what's a good book for this girl to use to teach out of?  Oh and I'll need it by, say, 5pm tonight.

Hi Steve and welcome to the forums. My suggestion is Pumping Nylon by Scott Tennant. Published by Alfred. I'd be happy to help any way I can. I'll give you my e-mail address. I have quit an extensive teaching and performing background Pumping Nylon

I hope this helped.

UbiquitousBubba


Buy yourself some time.  Spend tonight's lesson teaching her to pose.  If she's really good, teach her how to show up late for rehearsals, cop an attitude at all times, and solo over Everything. 

Disclaimer, IANAGSMPICI (I Am Not A Guitarist, So My Post Is Completely Irrelevant)

OMG----you MUST already know me????

Good luck.  Remember, she's probably more scared of you than you are of her. 

I'm not sure if she sings or not.  Tonight will be a good 'tell' of what she knows and can do.  I appreciate the assistance and support.   My agenda was to practice all day, too, but I just got a call for a little drywall job, so I'm off to take care of that, first.  Reminder to self---shower before lesson!

Jonbouy

Guitar Instruction for 7 year old?

Bapu needs lessons?

Not on the Am note, no!

There's three notes?

Mamma told me there'd be days like this.

If this is your first lesson with her.... see what she knows already.... let her play from her existing stuff.... then you'll have a better idea of what direction the lessons need to go.

No need to buy the Mel Bay Guitar Book 1 if she's a prodigy and already on Book 4. Time on the instrument is not the defining factor. I knew a guy who had played for 22 months and could play circles around me and I'd been playing for over 10 years at the time. He taught himself Segovia's music!

Beagle

UbiquitousBubba


Mamma told me not to come.

that ain't the way that it's done.

Noh. Noh. Noh. Noooo-uh.

Okay---sorry it took me a bit for the update, I had a drywall job yesterday afternoon and met friends for dinner, and I didn't get home until late.  So here's the report.........

She's got chops!  She played 'Ode to Joy' and a couple other songs excellent.  Her left hand dexterity is very very strong.  Right hand fingerstyle was limited to pretty much the index finger, and her chord knowledge was rather weak.  She has been learning out of Hal Leonard's beginner book.  She is just a wonderful little girl, I'm so excited to have this opportunity.  She practices for 15 minutes a night, and I think she would have no problem doing 20 minutes.

I chatted with her dad at first, for a bit, seems the family is not a big 'musical' family.  She seemed to like her classical guitar and using her fingers the best.  I asked her to play what she knew for me, and she did that very well, seemed almost bored to be playing these pieces.  I asked her what her favorite song was, and it was 'Ode' so I decided to start work on that.  I had her play the melody line, and I played along with her doing the chords.  It's always been my thought that it's important to realize, as a student, you have to look at playing with others and making music.  We had some slight tempo problems, but she seemed to enjoy.

Next I worked on the chord progression with her.  She already knew the G and C chords, sort of knew the E and the A, and the F chord was new to her.  I explained 'why' I was teaching her this stuff, so she could play the chords and melody line all together and make it sound really cool.  I'm glad she had written the notes in her book, so I was able to roll though the first few measures and show her what I meant.

She surprised me by saying 'hey, wanna see A chromatic scale?'  and she played it perfectly.  I then took the time to show her the chromatic exercise up and down the neck to help develop more dexterity.  She thought it was cool.  Then back to the song 'Ode'.  We went through the whole song, working on the chords.  I felt that she was comfortable with it, and hopefully with a week of practice she will have it down fairly well and we can work on the next step.

Dad seemed happy, impressed.  He said the previous instructor would stay on one song for months and months, ugh!

So far, my plan of attack will be getting her comfortable playing chords and melody lines, plus working on her right hand technique, fingerstyle.  I need to roll though the 'Pumping Nylon' book and determine if that's going to be book or not.  Having me teach her fingerstlye is going to be interesting, as I pretty much suck at that, so I've got to practice my 20 minutes a day, ha ha.

For homework, I gave her the chord progression to 'Ode' to work on, plus I asked her to work on the 'chromatic' scale pattern.  Maybe I threw too much on the table for her, dunno, but I really enjoyed the lesson.  I've never taught guitar to someone that young, and honestly during the lesson I found myself forgetting her age, and focusing on her skill.  I don't have a ton of experience teaching guitar, but rather I spent 5 years teaching golf.  I kinda fell into the 'zone' and got in my old golf teaching skills.

So yeah.....I can't thank everyone in this forum enough.  You helped me go into the lesson with comfort and confidence, and knowing you guys have my back is a courtesy that I am honored to have.

You learn more from teaching than you do from being taught.

Guitarhacker


You learn more from teaching than you do from being taught.

+2.

Fun times.  Sounds like an interesting challenge as well.  (the best ones always are)

What I wonderful experience!  My sole expedition into teaching guitar convinced me that I needed to avoid it - a mom who "just knew" that her kids wanted to play guitar because they would do air guitar to the songs on the radio. 

The kids had no interest in learning technique, songs - even tuning the instrument.  As soon as things started getting challenging, they decided they wanted to learn piano from my wife instead (she does this for a living). That didn't last long, either.

So glad you've found a good one!