[sabretalon]

Well, apprently according to my daughter!

It was her 5th birthday on Wednesday the 21st March and as some of you may know, I bought her, her first electric guitar!

Well, she was over the moon and is constantly picking it up and attempting to play, which whilst still early, is a promising sign.

I have her working on her rhythm, singing the tune she wants to play and strumming at the same time, whilst not being worried about what the left hand is doing. This has been good for her because has she sings it and plays it, it sounds to her as if she is getting it right!

Anyway, I will be looking to step into different lessons with her so I can incoporate her left hand as well. At the moment though I'm just happy she is picking it up and strumming along and our neighbours love the sound coming from her amp at 06:30!

I am now aiming to push myself to learn more so I can relay it back to her.

[si16]

That's great news. Sounds like she's been bitten by the bug.

[allthumbs]

Great news. Duets are in your future.

[knight46]

Please let us know how it plays (pun intended) out. I have a grandson that age who has been asking for a guitar and would love to get him that interested.

[Rockerbob]

Cool!

I bought a beautiful Lake Placid blue Fender Stratocaster for my son the year he was born. He's 18 now, and although he knows how cool the guitar is, he has turned out to be a writer, not a player. I'm happy with that.

[eddiez152]

Just keep makin it fun for her. The rest will come on its own in good time.

[Hilch]

wow 5 ...

I have to ask when do you get your children into music ?

All my children are way past 5 , my youngest is nearly 15 and we started the guitar the same day ..

But I have a granson aged 3 who has a toy guitar and he loves to play with his poppy ..But when should I get him like a 3/4 real guitar ?

All my children at that age were into barbie dolls and and that Teenage Mutant Turtles show..

But little Noah { granson } is a music boy ..

Trev..

[Chris C]

Sounds good from here - have fun.

[cshude]

I would say that piano is a much easier instrument to start learning when young- I was 5 when I started taking classical lessons. Gives a good foundation of music knowledge and you don't have to go through the pain of calluses. I think the bottom line is that at an early age, the child really needs to have the inner drive (the "bug", if you will) that will draw them to playing without a push from Mom and Dad. The general census around here from other threads touching on this issue seems to be that around age 10 or so is a good age for most kids to start.

[sabretalon]

Was really surprised last night!

My daughter asked to play her guitar again, she has asked every night since she has had it.

Well we were sat going through some things, I have her using the pick one string at a time etc... after a little while we started a game, guess the string!

I would get her to close her eyes and guess which string I had played. Just using open strings. She was right on all of them, she would listen and then play the string I had played. I could not believe it! She would do the same to me and we both seem to be doing well at picking the right string!

I need to look for a few songs that use the e, B and G strings in the main as those are more within her limits of reach. She can reach the others but she is changing how she holds the guitar to do so, which I don't think is good.

Her strumming is getting better, I make sure she sings/hums what she wants to play and that helps her to focus on the speed.

[agent0064life]

The national anthem uses the top 4 strings as does the super mario bros theme song.

EDIT: also the beginning to brown eyed girl uses only the top 2 strings.