[ddots-l] Re: youngest student ever!

  • From: "DeRosa, Thomas" <Thomas.DeRosa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:04:14 -0400

The other thing I would do is play rithyms and have him try and match them. 
Being precussive on the instrument will be fun for the kid.  You should make it 
a game to match what you do.  I did this witha very young student and it kept 
his interest.  During each lesson I played a simple song that I thought would 
be good for him to keep hearing so when I tried to teach it to him he would 
have some familiarity with it.  

Tom

PS what is your approach to teaching music notation
-----Original Message-----
From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Chris Smart
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 5:46 AM
To: midimag@xxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ddots-l] youngest student ever!


HI.

Has anybody here tought the absolute fundamentals of guitar to a 
six year-old boy?  I have a six year-old sighted student starting 
this week at the music school where I teach.  He has a half-size 
acoustic, his mom says it's his idea and he's really kean, and 
she'll be sitting in on lessons to help.  It'll be one half-hour a 
week.
I'm used to teaching people ten and up, usually in their teens.

Mom wants him to learn to read music as well, but I'm thinking the 
best thing early on would be just to try matching sounds. Play a 
high sound or a low sound, and get him to try to make the same 
sound.  Or maybe show him a chord and how to strum it, slow, 
faster, down down down, up down up, etc. Is that a good place to start?

I don't even know how much information I should give in terms of 
naming things ... should I even name the strings beyond just 1 
through 6, i.e. letter names?

Should I start him off with, say, Mary Had a Little Lamb played on 
a single string, in a few week's time, as a first goal to work towards?

Any and all suggestions are really appreciated.  This will be most 
interesting to me, as I'm used to just spitting out names and 
numbers, or getting a teenager going with tablature right away. 
I've never had to go right down to the absolute basics before.
Overall, I just want to keep this kid interested, so he sticks with 
it long enough for him, and his mom, to see some progress, say by 
Christmas time.

Thanks for any insights,

Chris


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