Tomorrow I'm going to be substitute teacher for one of the teachers in the store. My student is going to be an eight year old girl. Her teacher says she gets kind of shy with a male instructor and I'm the only other person in the store who's a girl and plays guitar. She's learning out of a book and she's actually better at reading music than I am. Although she's still very much a beginner. So I'm probably going to show her a simple song with just 3 or 4 chords instead. I don't think she's started any scales or theory yet and I don't want to spring it on her if her teacher hasn't gone over it yet.

I need some suggestions on what to teach exactly. I'm going to be looking through some of my books tonight to see if I already have anything I could use. Like I mentioned, I wanted to show her a very simple song. I have absolutely no idea what kind of music she likes, but I'd like to give her a choice of about three songs if I can. That way she can learn something she likes. I thought of showing her some blues stuff, but I'm 99% sure she doesn't listen to blues and I want her to have fun playing guitar and to be able to play something she likes. I also don't want to get in trouble with her parents, so it has to be a very simple song with clean lyrics. If anyone has any suggestions I'd really, really appreciate it! Maybe a pop song, a rock song and something else like a country or blues song. That way there's bound to be something she'll enjoy.

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Texas, the only song I could think of is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and I'm sure you will come up with two more that will work better have fun Teacher!

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

a lot of teachers dont like to teach songs this soon into a new student.
if it were me i would see what she knows and go over the chords that she already knows. playa game with her. turn your back and play a chord and see if she can match it. do it again and again.
shes probably doing the simple strumming like
C C C C D D D D A A A A. show her a new strumming pattern to the chords she already knows. dont teach her something new
(might break the regular teachers pattern) teach her something different.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

That's not a bad idea. I could just have her go over the song she's been learning at first, hopefully I'll be able to follow along well enough to make sure she's on the right notes. And then if we have to kill time after that I could show her some strumming. I just found my first guitar book ever and it has songs like Three Blind Mice and Row Row Row Your Boat. I was 11 at the time I used it and I hated it, but when I was eight I probably would've liked it. It may be weird playing those songs with no melody though, since I'm not about to sing them.

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you know well that you can change the feel of things just by changing the strumming pattern a bit. she might like that. just be the "fun teacher".
you dont have to go to any great lengths to teach her anything on the new side of things. heck, sendher home with your first guitar book if it doesnt mean anything to you. you will be a hit for sure then.
just make sure she doesnt start requesting you over her regular teacher lol.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

as usual i don't have any good advice. i'll just say have fun and enjoy the opportunity to share your gift of music with a young person. it seems to me you've already put alot of thought in to the lesson. that shows you care.
i have no doubt you will do just fine.

Review the lesson from the previous week. Go to the next lesson in the book. Let the book do the work for you. Continue with note reading. It is ok to let students pick their own material however most students, at 8 years of age, do not have a clue as to what they want to play/hear. They want and need the teacher to lead the way.

Most often chords are too difficult for small hands. You will notice that most introductory guitar books concentrate on single notes and melody rather than chords and harmony. Ask her to show you what she already knows and assess it from there.

After 15 years of teaching I have learned that the most important asset that you have is the big smile on your face. Have fun and keep an open mind: you will learn from your student as well.

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Tim

Personally, since it's a new student I'd ask her to show me what she has learned in 5 minutes or so. I'd ask her if she could play any song right now regardless of her playing ability, what would it be? Then I'd just go from there, either from the book or from experience. ^^

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I traded my car in for a microphone.

Well, here's the plan. I'm going to ask her to play what she was studying last week. Then I'm going to work with her on that if needed. If we have extra time then I'll show her strumming patterns to chords she already knows. That should be plenty.

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Website: http://www.rebeccalaird.com
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sounds like a great plan to me.
now go have fun and good luck to you.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

I got through it. The kid was really shy and didn't really want to work on anything in particular. She was bored. She's too young and she doesn't practice. I felt like I was making her practice in the lesson, and she wasn't really interested. She wasn't really ready for chords either, but I showed her a couple of one finger chords for time killing purposes. Luckily reading the music in the book wasn't too hard for me.

When she first walked in with her Mom and I introduced myself her Mom says, "Oh, well next time there's a substitute you need to call us. We probably wouldn't have come." So we started out with a little self esteem boost right there. What she didn't know is that we have one car and my Dad's in Austin working so I had to pull favors and pray for miracles to get there. And we don't call about substitutes, it's actually a favor to the people who paid for lessons that we have them at all. Man, a lot of the parents who come in for their kids to get lessons are total complete jerks. "I want to spend the least amount of time and money on my kid to play guitar because he's not going to stick with it". They literally say that to my face all the time. It's ridiculous, I quit two instruments before I found guitar but my parents never told me I couldn't play guitar because I had quit before. It just takes some time to find out what you really want to do when you're a kid and I wish parents would get that. Ugh. Now I'm just venting, sorry. :/

Anyway, the lesson itself went OK. So at least I'm glad everything worked out. But with a Mom like that no wonder the kid's bored and shy.

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sounds to me like you handled it very professionally...good job ,given the circumstances.

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1986 Fender Sidekick Reverb 35
1990 Fender Red Knob - "The Twin"
1992 Fender Newporter - Acoustic
2000 Fender American Series Strat - Natural ash
2010 Fender Mustang 1
2011 Fender Blacktop Jazzmaster -Sunburst
2012 Fender Champion

wow. your a better person than me. come to think of it, most people are.
i would have found an inexpensive electric and small but loud amp. i would have shown the kid some barre chords and explained that playing on 10 will improve your skills immediately. then i would have loaned the kid the amp and guitar and told her to show mom what she learned at the lesson. have a nice day maam'.
of course you did the right thing.