Precaution To Take While Teaching Guitar To Kids

You are lucky enough to have kids that want to learn to play the guitar, it’s important that you give them all the encouragement possible as this will be something that will enrich their whole life. Start them off properly by investing in a proper kid’s guitar and finding the right teacher who will motivate and encourage them. Their lessons need to be a mixture of fun, pleasure and learning to ensure they get the correct techniques as well as enough enjoyment to keep on learning.

These are some precaution to take while teaching guitar to kids:

Get Them the Right Style Of Guitar

It’s important that kids are learning on a guitar that sounds good to them. They are unlikely to want to practice on an acoustic guitar if all they like is heavy metal, punk or fusion music. Likewise they will not love an electric guitar if they want to play folk or classical.

Get the Right Size and Weight of Guitar

Guitars come in a huge assortment of shapes and sizes as well as weights and there is a reason for this and that is people also do. Matching your kid to the right guitar is very important for their enjoyment, especially when first starting out.

A large, heavy guitar on a small person can be very uncomfortable and cause their neck, back and hands to ache so you cannot expect them to enjoy playing for long.

Not everyone has the budget to buy an expensive guitar, but consideration needs to be given to finding a suitable first guitar, even borrowing one that’s the correct size initially is a good solution then purchasing one as the child shows they are very keen to learn and play.

Chords

Often the small hands of children find it difficult to play cords so having a teacher who is prepared to make adjustments and accommodate them by changing the cords a little so they are easier to play but still sound like a real guitar can make a huge difference

Melody and Riffs

Children need to be motivated and one of the best ways to motivate them is to give them the things they want. When teaching, it’s best to start with easy short melodies that are familiar to them, from songs they love to hear and maybe sing along with.

By practicing simple melody lines, but using only one string to start with can help with a child’s dexterity in their playing. Then add the other strings as they get used to playing.

Patience

It’s important to be patient with kids when they first start out as it can take a little for them to start to get the hang of playing. Just take it a step at a time and allow them to learn at their own pace, they will soon get the hang of it and want to push their boundaries as long as they are enjoying and having fun playing.

Keep them Interested.

Playing different music regularly in the home can inspire and keep them interested in playing.

The biggest precaution when teaching guitar to kids is to stop them losing interest because it’s not enjoyable or fun and make sure they have kids guitar to play.