Getting ready to head out for today's guitar lessons. Most of the kids did come up with a song they wanted to learn, but none of them actually looked online to see if the song was chords they (kinda) know.
Me: "Well, that one has lyrics that aren't 'school appropriate'."
"Nope, that has more chords in it than they will learn in the next year."
"Oh, look, a three chord song... OMG, it's a Taylor Swift song. Someone kill me now."
"Well, that one's not gonna happen: bar chord."
I gave them a couple "licks" to practice: one was the opening to Secret Agent Man, and surprisingly, they had all heard it before. I'm trying to get them to be able to pick individual strings... and have some rhythm to it.
You should have seen the looks on those little faces when I said, "OK, work up that song you picked and be ready to play it for the class on the next lesson." (Yeah, I was kidding.)
I take for granted that "we all have rhythm"... I spent some time with my son-in-law last night, and proved that thought wrong. We changed out (and by "we", I mean I coached him through it - he did the work) his strings, too. We'll see what he thinks of coated strings, now that he is building calluses.