Lessons for Babies

My schedule is just awaiting a few returning Jewish students to finish up the fall holidays, before it's set for this new "academic" year. My students who took the summer off, are back and I'm getting calls from new potential students and 

One of the parents who called about her way-too-young child, the other day was surprisingly receptive to allowing her kid wait a while before beginning.  It seems that a lot of parents who may even know better, are reluctant to say "no" to anything for which their children petition, especially, if they can financially afford it.

If  you know me from all the podcasts, you know I'm not a huge fan of putting a guitar in a child's hand before they are likely to have success learning to play it properly.  In my long experience, the low end of the age scale for guitar lessons to be permanently worth the child's effort and the parents' money is about the age of 9 and sometimes later for boys.  There's the whole eye hand coordination thing, and the using the non-dominant hand, if the intended student is a righty. Let's not forget the general complexity if music in general.  Below that age, I suggest parents surround their children with music of all styles and from all cultures. Even if really young ones want to play guitar, little minds and fingers can only benefit from having a keyboard in the home, if there isn't a piano there, already.Young kids can be impressed for a long time by failure and especially failure at some endeavor at which they really, really, really want to succeed. 

I have taught some young prodigies.  They are the exception. One young girl I taught, who also played piano, danced, painted (Mom was an artist) and played sports, in addition to the highest grades in school, was particularly remarkable. She was a little peanut of a girl and played a very well made, vintage 3/4 size guitar. There was nothing she couldn't do and there was nothing she didn't understand when I broke it down and explained it clearly.  

The first time she played in drop D tuning, I had her sight read and play a simple instrumental piece.  She did very well.  In that piece, the only note affected by the new tuning was the low open D string itself.  There were no other notes on that altered string.  When we moved on to music she had practiced in standard tuning, I didn't remind her to re-tune that low string to E, because I knew the unpleasantness of hearing a wrong pitch by fretting a note where it is sounded in standard tuning would be the best way to teach her to retune her guitar immediately after she is finished playing in an alternate tuning. To my amazement, as the low E string notes approached, she made a wincing face and recalculated her fingerings, to accommodate a far away G#m which was no longer at the 4th fret, but at the 6th.   She didn't play one incorrect note.  When we were finished, she asked, "Can we re-tune my guitar now?"  I never told her how astounded I was.  I did have her mother walk me out to the car and I told her.  For the student, it was "normal," for her.  She was so musically gifted and it still makes me smile when I think about it.  

Unless your young child is extraordinarily gifted, let them wait until a competent instructor thinks they are ready for guitar lessons.