Teaching my niece guitar

[tubesornothing]

My niece got a guitar for xmas.  Doesn't play at all.  She is young 11 yrs old, small fingers.

I showed her the typical simple one finger stuff:

smoke on the water
sunshine of your love

I also showed her moveable power chords, so she could play a little Avril Lavigne.  I also showed her (and her mom) TAB.

Anyways, my brother calls me up and says, you gotta show her something else.  She lives 5 hours away.  Chords might be real hard until I come in person or she gets a local teacher.

Can anyone suggest some popular single note vamps I can send her on TAB?

thanks
ToN

[Dynaflow]

 In a goda de vida.... Send her the tab and tell her to tell your brother you love him.. haha...

Regards,

Dyna

[thermion]

layla, life by the drop, anything by nirvana or offspring...
i remember learning some silverchair early on, then a bunch of surf tunes, good easy stuff to get those fingers moving.

[PRR]

> you gotta show her something else.

Every place has under-employed guitarists who would share their craft for cash. Often not much cash. Getting a different over-played riff in the house every week may be worth the cost.

When I was young we had books. Aren't there websites now? I know I have seen actual online guitar lessons, some fairly in-depth albeit expensive (one former student is head of guitar at an online music school; seems to be a day-job for him).

> She is young 11 yrs old, small fingers.

Yeah, it may help a lot to have hands-on coaching for her small nimble digits. At my old brick school, they did online for history and theory, but they felt that there would never be an online replacement for actually sitting together to work on finger (piano, guitar, oboe, etc) placement. There are many-many utterly self-taught guitarists who worked this all out alone, but it can be good to have someone 5 or 50 years ahead of you for ideas and guidance.

Video chat? Get webcams, get good light on the fretboard, you could probably talk/show her a few things. gMail's video chat is free (may be Windows-only?). Of course there are many things an 11 year old girl can do on video chat, not as innocent/safe as fretting her uncle.

[EL34]

I would teach her Chords and how to play songs using chords.

When I was young (about her age), I had no idea how songs were constructed and so I spent most my time doing single note melody stuff listening to songs on the radio.

The first time I found out how songs were constructed using chords I was blown away.
I had no one that I could ask or anyone I knew that even played guitar.

[rafe]

there are so many free and great lessons on you-tube....perhaps you could find some of the easy beginner ones and send  a link once a week....that way you would still be her mentor .....and could get together when you were able to....for that matter if you have a camera you could send you own

[tubesornothing]

Hey all - thanks.

All excellent suggestions.  I spoke with my niece and my brother.  We are going to try a combination of all of the above.  A few youtube lessons, a few simple tabs of popular stuff.  If she likes it I will try to set up for video lessons or a local teacher and start teaching chords right away.

[2twang2]

ToN, here's Justin Sandercoe's guitar lesson site:
http://www.justinguitar.com/

It would take a while because he's very thorough. He teaches face to face as well as on the Web, and has used that experience to build his on-line training. The site and all the lessons are free, although he asks those that can afford it to donate via PayPal or buy his lesson CDs.

The beginner course spends a lot of time on correct hand position and chords. Explanations are clear and he has a very friendly style. Each lesson is 10 minutes long (the You Tube limit--his lessons appear there as well).

May be useful?

[tubesornothing]

That site is GREAT.  Thanks!

[stingray_65]

When my son started playing his first song was Norweigian Wood.

Simple, melodic, repetitive and a cool strumming rythm.

[supro66]

I don't know what size strings are on the guitar

I would start on the thinest


That way her fingers will not get as sore

Thick strings soung good if you got fat fingers to hold them

Try to set the strings close to the frets at the top of the neck as you can

Don't care if the strings hit on the 10 fret

Just learn on the top of the neck

She will learn the lower part later when she does heavy rock