Teaching chords can always be tricky, especially with kids. This lesson plan will show you the best way to teach guitar chords to children, from learning basic guitar chord shapes all the way up to playing a full song.

Depending on your student you may need to spread this out over a few lessons.

 LESSON OBJECTIVES

  • Play E, A and D chord shapes

  • Play basic rhythms over chords

  • Play a beginner chord song

1 – TEACHING GUITAR CHORD SHAPES

I always start by asking my student to try the chord shapes E, A and D. I use the full chord shapes straight away because a lot of kids are able to play them with a bit of help. If my student is obviously struggling or their hands aren’t strong enough I would move them onto the beginner chords for children. But you should try the full chord shapes first.

I start with E, A and D because you can use these to play a range of recognizable songs. If you try to teach all the open chord shapes at once to a child you will overwhelm them.

When I first show them a chord shape, I demonstrate it on my guitar and show them where my fingers are placed.

I then tell them where to put their fingers one at a time. It’s important they understand that their finger should stay down until they’ve made the full chord shape. I used the analogy of their fingers being stuck in mud or glue.

As you are showing them the shapes it is important that you explain how to chord shapes relate to the chord diagrams. They need to understand these to practice outside of the lesson. If your student can’t understand them explain it to their parents to they can help.

Once they can play a chord shape ask them to try and memorize their hand position. I will then ask them to try and take their hand off the guitar and place it back in the chord shape. Doing this a few times in a row will really help a child remember the guitar chord shape.

For some children this will be enough for one lesson. Remember you have to adapt to your student and decide when it is right to move on.

2 – TEACH SONGS USING OPEN STRINGS

While your student is learning the guitar chord shapes we can start introducing them to the chord songs they are going to learn. You can teach them how to play the songs using the open stings and playing a bassline instead.

This helps with picking co-ordination, string names and gets them learning the rhythm of the songs.

I use the songs below, but you an use any that have an E, A and D chord progression.

Wild Thing – The Troggs

Back In Black – AC/DC

Hound Dog – Elvis Presley (12 Bar Blues)

For this example, I will use Wild Thing but you can apply this technique to any song.

I start by playing the actual recorded song and then I would play it on my guitar using the full chords. It is important your student knows what they are working towards.

Then I would write out the chord progression like so.

Wild Thing

A       A        DD      E       E      DD

This clearly shows how many times we play each chord or string. The positioning of the letters show the rhythm that they need to play.

Once a child understand this your they can try playing this using just the open strings. Focus on them hitting the correct string and playing the rhythm at the same time.

If your student can do this and change between the chords comfortably you may want to skip straight to part 4.

3 – STRUMMING RHYTHMS OVER GUITAR CHORDS

While your student is getting comfortable with the chord shapes we can also work on other aspects of the playing, for example rhythm and strumming.

Here is my guide on How To Teach Rhythm To Children.

As you’ll know, the same strumming patterns get used again and again in songs. It’s really useful to teach children to play them as soon as possible. If they learn how to play the patterns individually as a rhythm exercise they’ll find it much easier to apply them to songs later on.

I usually teach the four strumming patterns below, but feel free to change or add others if you like.

 1      2       3  +  4

D     D      D U D

1      2        3  +  4  +

D     D      D  U D  U

1     2    +    3     4  +

D    D  U   D     D  U

 And for a bit of an extra challenge…

1       2  +       +  4

D     D  U      U  D

 As you are teaching your students these rhythms you can ask them to play them over one of the chord shapes. This way they learn rhythm and reinforce the chord positions at the same time.

Remember to remind your students which string they should be playing with which chord.

To help with the chord changes as well, you can ask them to play the rhythm on one chord and then move to another and play it again.

4 – TEACHING BEGINNER CHORD SONGS

Ok, so the whole point of learning how to teach guitar chords to children is to get them to use chords in a song. By going through the first three steps your students should have the ability to do this.

Whichever songs you decide to teach first make sure they are the same as in part 2. My go to beginner chord song is Wild Thing.

Wild Thing

A        A        DD       E         E        DD

Even if your student has a bad sense of rhythm they can clearly see which are fast and slow. This song can also be played just with down strums and there’s naturally a gap between the chords. For me, this is the ideal beginner chord song.

If you want to teach a more traditional chord progression you should find ways to build up to the final version. Trying to do everything at once will confuse most children.

To show you how to do this I am going to use the 12 Bar Blues chord progression.

12 Bar Blues

A           A           A           A

D          D           A           A

E           D           A           E

To start with I would ask my students to strum through the chord progression, just strumming once per letter. I wouldn’t worry about rhythm yet, just ask them to leave a gap after each chord.

Then I would explain that each chord lasts for a bar and that is four beats. I would play the song while counting the four beats and only strum the chords on the first beat. My student would copy this, while I count the beats for them.

Once my student can do this comfortably I ask them to play on every beat in the bar just using down strums. Again here you should count for your student at a slow and steady pace.

Now my student can play through the entire song on the beat I would introduce a strumming pattern.

Whichever strumming pattern you use, make sure you have covered it already in part 3.

I use the strumming pattern below because it only has one up strum. 

1            2            3     +   4

D           D          D   U   D

Make sure your student understands that they have to play this pattern for every letter in the song. Demonstrating this to them will really help.

Depending on the child you may want to start by doing just one line at a time. Once they can play each line individually they can build up to playing the full song.

That’s it, you’ve taught your student to play basic chord shapes and use them in a song. You can build on all this afterwards and introduce other chord shapes using a similar process.

CONCLUSIONS ON TEACHING GUITAR CHORDS TO CHILDREN

The main thing to remember when teaching guitar chords to children is to not pitch your lessons at too high a level. Always simplify and learn everything in stages.

When you are first teaching the chord shapes pay attention to their hand and finger position. They may not be big or strong enough to play even the children’s guitar chord shapes. In which case there are plenty of other aspects of guitar you can teach them.

On the other hand some children want to quit the second they find anything difficult or their fingers get sore. Here you need to make sure you encourage them to persevere and spread learning chords over a few weeks or months.

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