Recently I have been adding new students to my teaching roster. People come in at all age levels and all abilities. My youngest student today was just nine years old and he had never picked up a guitar before.
Teaching a nine year old who has essentially no concept of how to play an instrument, or even think about playing an instrument, is a unique challenge. It makes you revisit your own learning process.
I started guitar when I was ten, but I had already played violin for five years. Already my start to guitar is different from my student’s today. I also switched guitar teachers each year for the first four years I played. That definitely changed my experience as well.
When I am teaching someone guitar for the first time, I always try to focus on what I wish I had been taught right away when I first started. A lot of the time that involves incorporating basic music theory and technique into their practice. This is so they have a better understanding for what they’re doing and they don’t get hurt. I want them to avoid my trajectory! I spent far too long physically playing instruments without knowing the concepts behind what I was doing because I was not taught how to contextualize the movements that I was making right away. I also eventually ended up giving myself a serious repetitive stress injury from the physicality of the instrument.
I can do nothing to change the process in which I first learned guitar, but I can still learn from it! Keep the good and change the bad.
This being said, the history behind my teaching philosophy is difficult to explain to a nine-year-old during an introductory lesson, so I don’t try. Instead we learn how to hold the instrument and how to make sound on it with our bodies. We start with the right hand (plucking) and then add the left hand (fingering). Then we learn how to play a series of single notes in a row (a scale!). Then we might work on playing two notes at the same time (a chord). Besides that we are talking about why we want to play guitar and what music we like to listen to! Getting to know each other and talking about our purpose for lessons is the most important part.
My nine year old student today told me he gets excited about the Spongebob Greatest Hits Album. Hopefully he comes back so I can teach him to plunk out Goofy Goober Rock on his oversized guitar.
Everyone’s learning processes are different and everyone’s learning trajectories will be different. The only thing a successful student needs to do is to bring a good attitude and keep an open mind. Remember that it’s never too late to try something new!