My daughter has asked for a guitar for her 9th birthday. We don’t really have enough money to afford a proper guitar teacher so I’m thinking of teaching her myself, maybe using JustinGuitar on youtube and similar channels. I am an extremely limited guitarist myself, I can play chords and from tablature but I am self taught from back in the days before youtube and my technique is pretty terrible. Will I be doing more harm than good being the teacher?
I’m looking at a nylon string 3/4 acoustic to start her off. Not the most glamourous of guitars but my friend is an excellent guitarist and that’s what he recommended. She’s left handed, so I would just need to restring it upside down, wouldn’t I?
If she gets really into it, we’d probably find some way to make it work to afford a proper teacher if she’s still interested in a couple of months, but maybe it’s a false economy starting off with me.
I learned on a nylon string acoustic. While it was definitely easier to play than the steel string acoustics my friends had, I think it depends what sort of music she wants to learn.
If it’s classical, definitely nylon.
If it’s rock/pop, I’d say a small electric would actually be easier — the neck will be narrower at the nut and it if it’s set up well, it should be quite a bit easier to hold the strings down. Barre chords are very difficult on most nylon string acoustics.
My advice would be to buy a left-handed Squier mini strat (£150 new, but under £100 second hand), and pay for a setup — can’t emphasise enough the importance of a good setup, especially for a beginner, as the improvements to sound and playability drastically increase the odds of her sticking with it
Also the last para is a good point. Always tricky balancing something cheap enough that if they give up it’s not a big deal but expensive enough it’s not off-putting to play.
If you string upside-down, the intonation will be off, which might be a bit annoying.
I bought one of the kids a Yamaha guitalele which is tuned with the same intervals as guitar, but low A etc, so basically like a guitar with a capo at 5th fret. Really nice thing it is.
We’re in a semi-detached house, wouldn’t do that to the neighbour! I have a Mustang Micro for my electric so I can only torture myself with my shit playing
Very kind offer! Unfortunately I’m in Belfast which adds to the complexity. A left hander with the extra delivery costs and/or refusal to deliver over the Irish Sea from most places.
Why does she want to play guitar? Presumably she’s not looking to jam flamenco, so I wouldn’t jump to getting her a nylon acoustic. She’s more likely to stick with it if she feels like she’s emulating the thing that inspired her originally.
And I wouldn’t worry about a teacher to begin with. This kind of stuff has to be self-led. If she loves it and feels like not having professional guidance is holding her back, then is the time to invest in it.
All her friends are learning things like violin and harp in school, but the way the school does it, you have to commit for a full year and pay up front. It seems like a ridiculously inflexible system and the literature sent home made it sound like you don’t even get much of a choice of instrument.
She wants to learn something and guitar is the one she’s leaning to the most. She’s only just getting into music and at the minute it’s 100% Taylor Swift, she’s got very little time for anything else. The nylon was purely because the strings would be easier on her fingers.
As mentioned up thread you’re best off helping her set her own goals - find a couple of Taylor songs with only 3/4 chords in the open position as an achievable first goal.
That kind of tangible success is crucial in my opinion - stops those early weeks being an abstract slog!
Both mine had lessons and did grades (one drums, piano and singing, the other french horn and cello). Both taught themselves guitar, and both still play guitar (they’re young adults now) but not so much (at all) the other things (apart from singing).
Ah yeah, if it’s Taylor Swift then my bad, acoustic all the way.
At the risk of repeating myself, my nylon classical guitar was great for single note stuff as a kid (no cheese wire strings) but the nut was very wide and the action was quite high, so I found chords a bit tricky
Looks like Belfast has a proper luthier (actually makes acoustic instruments as well as doing setups), so he could probably flip the bridge saddle on a right handed guitar so that it intonates properly when strung for a left handed player
I learned on my brother’s nylon initially - strings are easier on the fingers but i found the neck really wide which was hard work, a smaller nylon might be alright for this though.
My friends all had steel strings so I quite quickly got annoyed at how crap the nylon sounded for the stuff I wanted to play tbh
I’ve never done the stringing upside down thing but you might also need to think about adjusting the nut I imagine?
