Just volunteered to teach guitar lessons - HELP!!

[Jefferson]

Well, I just volunteered to teach guitar lessons to a small group of middle and high school kids at the Children’s Home where my wife works. I’m pretty excited… but now what? !!

First and foremost, we need some instruments. I am imagining purchasing 2-3 decent (but beginner) guitars that will be used for the class and kept in the activities director’s office. The kids will be able to “check out” the guitars whenever they have time to practice, but they will reside in her office. There may be a small budget to help with the purchase, but I imagine I’m either going to have to invest my own money or seek out donations for the majority. So, money is an issue. One question I have is whether I should invest in electric guitars or acoustic guitars. These kids have all come from very bad situations – they need confidence building and fun foremost. They are also typically only at the facility for 2-3 months before they are put in more permanent situations. I've heard many people say it is better to start on the acoustic guitar first in order to build finger strength, but I wonder if in this case if it wouldn’t be better to teach on the electric guitar, as they are typically easier to fret. I want this experience to be as un-frustrating as possible in hopes that in the short time I have with each student, I might possibly spark more interest down the road… that’s about as much as I can ask for in 2-3 months time, I think. Another option I considered was using ¾ size guitars with extra light strings and setting the action as low as I can… Any thoughts or suggestions on equipment?

My other question is what exactly to teach… Given each kid may only be in the class for a few months, I was thinking that I would go straight for teaching basic chords as opposed to getting into theory and foundational stuff. If they know the basic chords, they can figure out just about any song on the radio these days… Along those lines, I thought about writing up some easy arrangements of current songs that they are into. I want them to learn actual pieces pretty quickly so they can “impress” their friends - a lot of these kids have trouble making new friends… Is there any curriculum you recommend for getting up and playing the basics quickly?

Any suggestions, advice, etc. you folks have would be greatly appreciated!

[D. Churchland]

being a teacher myself here are some pointers for you that I've learned through hard experience

As for guitars, invest in some cheaper small bodied Yamaha guitars, they're very inexpensive for the most part (like the FS720) but very good for learners because of their easily adjustable action and decent sound. Definitely should be acoustics because of the lack of need for electricity and everyone will play at the same volume.

I would avoid 3/4 size guitars because they tend to not stay in tune very easily at all (cheaper ones that is) because of the extremely short scale and tuners generally speaking.

As far as what to teach I usually teach rhythm first and foremost. Rhythm is the foundational building blocks of music and without it you don't have music. I usually teach a basic 2 step rhythm to start with and then move on to more complicated rhythms and eventually teach them how to arrange rhythms and leads into full fledged songs with lyrics etc.. I also teach them how to play with a metronome and then eventually a drummer or percussionist. I usually teach E A and D chords to start with and have a rhythm that combines all 3 of them together in a fun way.

That would be where I'd start. But that's just me