im giving guitar lessons and dont know where to start?!?

Question

anywhere from 3rd-6th graders.
i was trying to find some guitar fret charts that are empty that i could have the kids draw in where they put there fingers for C, D, A, and ect. chords.
but i cant find any.
should i start by teaching them the parts on the guitar or the chords and then jump into songs?
and if anyone could find that guitar fret diagram it would help out a bunch.
thanks!

Answer 1

What I use to do with this age group was to get them to go to Sam Ash and get a beginners book for their age....and that's where you start !!!!! It's as simple as that . Or you can get the books yourself and charge them with the first lesson. I would start them with the book and at every lesson teach them some part of the guitar, remember at that age they have a very short attention span....and in the beginning they find this all very boring....it's usually the parents who are pushing them. I had one student who begged me to let him watch cartoons when he came for lessons...I tryed to tell his Mother that he had no interest in music or guitar....but she made him continue for another six months....and then finially gave up !!!! As for diagrams and guitars with the frets and names of the notes on them there all over the guitar sites.
http://www.guitarforbeginnersandbeyond.com/
http://www.guitarchordsmagic.com/
http://www.jamplay.com/
http://www.8notes.com/ (click on guitar)
http://www.learn-to-play-guitar-online.info
http://www.learnhowtoplayguitar.com/
http://www.billbrutal.com/
http://www.freebasicguitar.com/
http://www.guitar.about.com/
http://www.stringdancer.com/ (this one has a free electronic tuner on it's homepage....it's on the right)

Maybe some of these sites will give you ideas about teaching it !! Good luck....hope this helps....especially with that age group....I found out that that age is not for me....I like to start with the teens....students that have had at least a year of guitar.....you'll see why after a while !

Answer 2

First, you're going to want to look for a solid beginners guitar (either electric or acoustic, depending on your preference). Don't waste all of your money buying a top end guitar now, as when you start to get better at the guitar, you'll understand more of what you will personally want in a guitar. You will also want to buy a basic book of guitar chords, and maybe a beginners songbook of some tunes that interest you. There are also several books that actually help you to learn how to play also. The final item that I would recommend you buy is a guitar tuner, unless you have a piano available and have a good understanding of standard tuning for a guitar. As for learning how to play, make sure that you practice regularly and give yourself time to get better. Don't expect to be amazing when you first start. Start off by learning the basic chords and finger placement, then progress to different strumming techniques and more advanced styles of playing. If you work at it regularly, you'll be playing songs around a campfire in no time! Once you understand chords and strumming, it's pretty easy to pick up any music with chords and be able to play along. I hope this helps, and good luck!

Answer 3

I'm not a guitarist, but I would first cover the bare basics...parts of the guitar and playing position. Then, you can talk about the strings of the guitar and how to place the fingers on the strings to get the best sound. In addition, you can have the students practice basic strumming techniques. Once they have that down, you can move onto note/chord reading (aka..music theory) in preparation to start some beginning songs. Or if you wish, you may have your students learn a few short tunes by ear in order to help develop their listening skills. Then, you can go onto note/chord reading.

Also, there's nothing wrong with coming up with your own fret diagram. This may end up saving a lot of time and energy if you're struggling to find one online. You can just make enough copies for your students to have in their class folders or whatever. Just make sure that it's neat and easy to read.

Answer 4

These days you can learn how to play guitar over the internet. Check out Mark McKenzie's guitar video lessons here: http://www.jamoramaguitar.com The videos are very easy to follow and to my surprise extremely helpful even for advanced guitar players. For beginners I would have to say this is a gold mine.

I was able to improve my skills in just under 4 weeks and I am an intermediate-to-advanced guitar player; I've been playing guitar for the past 6 years and I was on stage with my band a lot of times.

I live in New York City, I wanted to go to a pro guitar teacher but that would have cost me over $1400 per month. Good thing with this internet, $1400 it's a lot of money for me. Good luck!

Answer 5

If you're giving guitar lessons and don't know where to start, you shouldn't be giving lessons at all.