March 29, 2021 by Klaus Crow
The guitar is an attractive looking and beautiful sounding instrument. Also to young kids. And once the kids get excited about the guitar try stopping them.
I used to teach kids to play guitar from the age of 9, but my wife and I found a way to simplify things and start earlier for younger kids who can’t wait that long. We began teaching our own kids to play guitar from the age of 5. Along the way we discovered the best approach to teach these young students how to learn this challenging instrument and have fun at the same time.
Although our kids chose to learn the guitar without our meddling, we are aware of the influence we have as parents since we are both guitar teachers and the house is full of instruments. There is almost no escaping ;)
Melody and Riffs
We always start to teach easy and short melodies from familiar songs they love to hear. A big motivator! The practice of those simple melody lines, using only one string in the beginning, really contributes to the dexterity of their playing.
A nice touch to the experience is playing the electric guitar from time to time. We turn on the amp with a fat distortion and let them play the famous intro riff of Smoke on the water by Deep Purple. (Don’t worry, they also love to play it on an acoustic guitar). They can start off practicing that melody on just one string:
After a while they can learn the original riff which is played on two strings:
