Teaching a beginner

[Dead-Eye]

Hi everyone, I need your help. Especially from those of you who teach the guitar.

A friend of mine wants to start playing the guitar (acoustic for now, although she might change her mind when she sees my JP ) and asked me to show her a couple of basics. After I agreed I realized that I have never done that kind of thing before. So I'd like to see some suggestions about what I should show her first.

Thanks in advance!

[Jim_F]

Hi

Start off with the real basics ...
String names - how to tune a guitar.
Left-hand position, fingering techniques and how to fret a string properly without buzz,
(be prepared for the 'but it hurts!' phase)
then move onto a few basic chord shapes
A, E then D then C and G

get used to moving between the different chord shapes
perhaps then move onto minor chords etc,

A min, E min, D min,

then might be time to introduce scales in and then once the transition between basic chord shapes starts beconing smooth try bringing in the idea of bar chords.

There is a lot of tuition material out there on the 'Net. DVD etc. which can be v useful for beginners. Depends on how serious your friend intends to learn guitar and what kind of music she wants to play I also recommend getting professional teaching sooner rather than later before the bad habits get ingrained.

[freddy]

hey Dead-Eye...excellent advice above from Jim_F.

I also found that sprinkling in some easy-to-chord songs is good for motivation. I've used 'Horse With No Name' by Dewey Bunnell of America. It only has two chords: Em and a whacky chord formed by just spreading your fingers one string over on both sides (supposedly a Dadd6add9). It sounds cool. The song is also easy to sing. It's good beginner practice for finger placing and muscle memory.