For my senior class we have to do a certain amount of volunteer hours by graduation. I have chosen to teach kids how to play guitar at a junior high school. Its the "guitar club" or something.
I've been playing guitar for 8 years, but I have never taught. Theres supposed to be a classroom of 30 kids or so and I have no idea how to approach this situation.
What should I start out with? What should I progress to? Should I start with chords or what?
Start off the class by showing them the standard "G" and "C" chord.
G chord being
E 3
A 2
D 0
G 0
B 3
E 3
C chord being
E 0 (muted)
A 3
D 2
G 0
B 3
E 3
Depending on their proficiency level, this could take a whole class. Maybe two!
When showing them these chords, it is very important that you don't fill them up with information. Don't explain note names, don't emphasize that the E string is muted in the C chord, don't tell them there are other ways of playing those chords, don't show them how to do anything except put their fingers in the right places.
The next thing you will teach them is what a "buzz" is. When a kid strums his guitar and it makes the wrong noise but his hands are in the right place, it is because his fingers are touching strings. Tell him so, then manually move his fingers and have him play it again. (make sure to congratulate him, especially if he is the first one, once he gets it right)
Start slowly, and then if you feel the class has "got it", tell them that they need to learn to switch from G to C. They can do this in class or as an assignment (expect a headache if they aren't using electronic guitars with headphones and you do this in class).
Once they get that down, focus on showing them how to mute strings and how to not buzz strings. It is very important to give them these basics in the very beginning, so they can get the motions under control. If they can't play a G chord and mute the bottom strings on command, they cna't play a G chord.
Once they can switch chords easily, I would suggest teaching them stroke method. The difference between upstroke and downstroke, hitting only certain strings, light strumming(melodic sound) hard strumming (twanging sound), and the different speeds (whole, hlaf, quarter, eigth, sixteenth).
"stroke method" is where you really learn who has a naturally knack for it or not. Half the kids in your class will "get it" immediately and be bored. The other half will be confused as hell and won't know what to do. Expect to need to spend a lot of one on one time with them.
To give the kids a goal (and to give something the kids who already understand something to do), I'd suggest writing a simple song with the G and C chords with an emphasis on switching between the chords every measure or two, muting, and if you feel ballsy you can try to get them to change speeds.
So something like
G (4) muted-g (2) G(2) muted-g (2) G(2) C(4) muted-c (2) C (2) muted-c (2) C (2)
where (#) would be the beats in a 4/4 measure.
Feel free to show off a bit here. This gives the kids something to look up to, and those that already know how to play guitar or understand what you are teaching them can expand their horizons in this way.
After they master this, I suggest teaching them another chord while it is fresh. D chord would be my choice.
E
A
D 0
G 2
B 3
E 2
Then, you have two options.
The first, and easiest, is to stick with chords. You can show them songs, show them how to make a song out of one chord, show them how to make songs using many chords, etc., etc.
or the second is to teach them how to pick. This is very difficult to teach a class, but can be rewarding.
If you want to teach them how to pick, I'd suggest writing a simple song where they play one chord throughout the entire thing, but pick only particular strings in a rhythm.
I teach Guitar and play many musical instruments, and am an English and Education major. If you need any other help/advice, feel free to PM me.
If you feel ike it, you can even go in depth here and explain that all songs don't use the standard eBGDAE, etc...
