Guitar Lessons For Kids

Looking for guitar lessons for kids? You’re in the right place. This free guide will get you started quickly.

On this page you’ll find some fun, educational lessons that are perfect for kids!

In this free guitar lesson you will learn:

• 4 super-easy chords to get started on an ideal guitar journey.
• 3 simple songs that can be played with the easy chords.
• The secrets of the guitar anatomy.

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What’s the best age to learn guitar?

Around 8 or 9 is the earliest age we usually recommend. Having said that, many people start learning even younger (and of course, much older).

(Our oldest student is 87, incidentally.)

If your child is under 5 then they’ll struggle with guitar and might be better suited to something like a ukulele.

If they enjoy the ukulele, there’s no reason why they can’t graduate onto a guitar when they’re bit older.

The importance of guitar sizes

Guitars come in a range of different sizes. We go over them in this article: Guitar Sizes – A Guide To The 10 Sizes of Guitar

So if you’re unsure what size of guitar your child needs, it should point you in the right direction. Guitar size is a CRUCIAL factor. Please don’t overlook this.

If you’re unsure whether or not your child should learn guitar, you should perhaps check out this article which details many of the benefits of learning to play a musical instrument such as confidence building, social skills, improved academic skills, discipline, patience and time management: The 6 Benefits Of Music Lessons

What are the different parts of the guitar called?

Before we learn any chords, let’s just have a quick look at what the various bits of the guitar are called.

It’s especially important to know what the frets are as they’re the things we press our strings against.

Our guitar strings also have names…

A great way to remember the string names is with this phrase:

Eddie.

Ate.

Dynamite.

Good.

Bye.

Eddie.

… or…

Elephants.

And.

Donkeys.

Grow.

Big.

Ears.

Did you notice that the thickest string and the thinnest string are both called ‘E’?

This can be a bit confusing.

The thickest string is called the low E because it makes a much lower sound.

The thinnest string is called the high E because it makes a much higher sound.

If you want to know more about the names of guitar strings, take a look at this article of ours: Guitar String Notes: The Ultimate Guide

An out-of-tune guitar is a pleasure to no-one

It’s important that your child’s guitar is properly in tune. Young children will struggle to tune a guitar themselves, so it’s best to ask someone who already knows how to play to tune it for them.

Tuning a guitar is easy. (An adult can learn how in less than 60 seconds.) Here is an article that will teach you quickly: How To Tune A Guitar

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Guitar Lessons For Kids: Let’s learn some chords!

“What’s a chord?” you might be asking.

A chord is when we play several strings together rather than one at a time.

When teaching guitar lessons for kids, these chords are our favourites. (They’re perfectly suited to tiny fingers!)

Let’s have a go at a G chord.

For this chord, we only need ONE finger.

Here, we’re pressing the thinnest string on the guitar (the E string) at the third fret.

If you look at the diagram, the two thickest strings are marked ‘X’.

This means we don’t play those. (We only play the other four strings.)

Give it a try. Strum those four strings!

Not sure how to read chord diagrams? Not to worry. We have an article that explains them for you: How To Read Chord Boxes.

If you’re struggling to avoid those ‘X’ marked strings, here’s a top tip..

Make sure that you strum lightly.

Strumming a guitar doesn’t take a lot of power. Just a nice gentle strum will do the job and allow us a bit more control of our playing.

Try to forget about this sort of image of a guitarist:

Instead, try and keep your strumming arm on the body of the guitar, like this:

For the moment, it’s probably best to strum with either your thumb or your index finger, but as you progress as a guitarist, you’ll want to have a go with something called a guitar pick.

To learn how to hold a guitar pick, go here: How To Hold A Guitar Pick In 3 Easy Steps

Let’s try another chord…

This one’s called C and it also only uses one finger.

Here, we’re pressing the second string (the B string) down at the first fret.

You’ll also notice the three thickest strings are marked ‘X’, so we don’t play them. Just the other three.

Give it a strum.

Now, before you go taking your finger off that C chord, there’s a really quick change we can do to turn that C into an Am chord.

Am (AKA “A minor”)

All we’re doing here is adding the second finger to the second fret on the third string (the G string).

So to change between C and Am, all we need to do is lift this finger on and off.

Easy!

You’ve probably noticed, whereas the G and the C chords sound quite bright and happy, the Am sounds quite sad.

That’s the difference between major chords and minor chords.

The minors are the sad ones.

So now we know a few chords, let’s have a go at a song!

Guitar Songs For Kids

We’re going to look at a few songs in these guitar lessons for kids so hopefully there’ll be something for everybody.

This song’s a great one for kids who love pop music:

‘Shake It Off’ by Taylor Swift.

This song uses our Am, C and G chords.

Here they are again if you need a reminder.

This is how we write this song out:

| Am        |C             | G            |               |

We want to strum:

• The Am four times.
• The C four times.
• The G eight times.

And we want to go round and round and round the sequence.

Give it a go!