This isn’t completely without reason, there are some things that are very difficult to impossible for a young child to do on a guitar. An easy concept from a guitar lessons DVD for an adult might not be physically possible for a child. However, taking this into account can help a child avoid a lot of frustration when learning to play guitar.
Yo-Yo Ma began to play cello and Emilie Autumn began violin when they were four years old. This isn’t actually that unusual age to start playing for a lot of instruments. However, look at guitarists and you will see people like Steve Vai and Ryan Roxie not really starting until they were fourteen, and Frank Zappa was seventeen before he got his first guitar.
An important thing to keep in mind with a young guitarist is that it is important not to push them too hard to practice. Initially, guitar is a painful instrument to learn as it does take time to build calluses. In addition, guitarists do manipulate metal strings with a decent amount of tension on them, and that is quite physically intensive and can cause injury if pushed too hard. A little push now and then to keep them practicing is alright, but definitely be sure to have them stop if their hands are tired or start hurting.
This may not be as big an issue as it seems, a child that really specifically wants to learn guitar will probably be more motivated to practice than someone forced onto another instrument. It can be painful and uncomfortable at first, but once they get used to playing, you may find it hard to get them to stop. Just let them progress through their guitar lessons dvd at the pace that is suitable for them, and don’t insist on any sort of time schedule.
A standard guitar can be too big for a child and one way to work around this is to get a specially designed small scale student guitar (even though they are technically a specialty guitar, they do cost about the same as any student guitar would). Travel guitars also happen to be about the same size in many cases. Using this guitar, they could use the same guitar instructional DVDs that an adult would use to learn to play guitar.
The main downside to this is that down the line, if they are serious about guitar playing, they will end up having to transition to a full sized guitar, which can come as a shock since the scale difference and size and weight will take a good amount of time to get used to. It may even take some time before they can play lessons on guitar instruction DVDs that they had already mastered.
Another option is to use a capo to effectively remove part of the neck and cause the bottom of the neck to be on smaller spaced frets. They could still use the same mechanical motions, but the pitch of any given note they play would be higher than normal. This can allow them to more gradually move down the neck until they are playing on the full neck. However, since their guitar is in a different key, any attempt to play along with a lesson from a guitar instructional dvd will naturally sound out of key. This is a good way to develop the mechanical abilities, as long as the child realizes their notes should sound higher pitched than on the lesson.
Both solutions can work for a child to help deal with their smaller reach, and there is no reason they can’t use the same beginner guitar lessons DVDs that an adult uses. The pace will likely work just as well for them, and they won’t be bombarded with advanced musical concepts. Don’t forget to check out our website for more information to find the most suitable DVD.
