Sensible Guitar: Minimum Age for Guitar(?)

MINIMUM AGE ..................................................

This website is a companion to the book Sensible Guitar. All of the material is provided by the book's author, Chris Cass, a long-time music educator who teaches guitar in southern Connecticut. Any subjective viewpoints or recommendations are the author's own. Your questions, responses, or differences of opinion are welcome via email: chris@sensibleguitar.com.

How old does one have to be to start playing the guitar?
There is no consensus among teachers. A 2008 survey by AcousticGuitar.com (results no longer posted online) yielded a range of responses from "no minimum age" to "over 10 years old".
I feel the ideal starting age is about 9 or 10 years old. Of course, there are potential benefits to familiarizing younger people with the instrument. However, there are clearly some concerns and considerations regarding when and how to start formal lessons. (Note: It's never too late to begin guitar lessons; older kids, adults, & seniors can start any time!)

The basics:
For our purposes, let's define "young" and "youngster" as less than 9 or 10 years of age, or not yet in the 4th grade. Let's also acknowledge the difference between simply playing the guitar (for fun—banging away without regard for "proper technique"), and trying to actually learn to play, with the benefit of lessons. Parents: if your child is happy just banging away, that's great. (No lessons needed for you!) The following material addresses when to start taking lessons.

About youngsters (below 4th grade)
I'm not a big advocate of starting guitar lessons (or lessons on any instrument except the piano) prior to about the 4th grade. String instruments (as well as brass, woodwinds, etc) can be very frustrating, especially if one is at a disadvantage in terms of size and strength. Guitar requires firm pressure and wide finger stretches (and that's just from the left hand!).

Of course, lots of younger kids do get involved, and it's not always a negative experience. The key is to have very modest expectations. Young kids should play for the pure enjoyment of it, without being burdened with goals or timetables. It follows that if a youngster is going to play (with) the instrument without any real demands or expectations, lessons aren't required. Consider this: as a student, you practice until (hopefully) your playing sounds good to you, and you get some joy and satisfaction from making music. Meanwhile, kids who are perfectly happy to strum away and make random sounds are already playing for their own enjoyment! A teacher will (however gently, but necessarily) inform them that they're not playing "correctly", and introduce "proper" technique. It could be years before the student actually enjoys playing again. Until a youngster, given an instrument, moves beyond enjoying random sounds and begins to seek out a "correct" approach, it's not time to consider lessons.

If you're the parent of a youngster who has never had access to a guitar, that's OK. In fact, it may be favorable. A youngster is likely to develop all sorts of ill-advised habits if playing guitar without the benefit of proper instruction. Then the beginning stages of lessons involve un-learning the bad habits before making any forward progress.

Youngsters who grow up exposed to accomplished players naturally have an edge. Even without playing, their exposure to the instrument breeds a familiarity with the desired tones and techniques. Plus, once they begin lessons, they presumably have access to some extra coaching & help during practice. This can clearly be a huge advantage. Simply having someone who can tune a youngster's guitar makes a tremendous difference.

Considering the piano
The piano is another story all together. Unlike string instruments, youngsters can produce a nice tone out of the piano easily. (Simply by striking a key, most anyone can achieve a good piano sound.) Also, unlike the guitar, the notes on a piano are physically arranged in a way that makes obvious musical sense. For these reasons and others, piano is the ideal starting instrument, especially for youngsters. Should one switch from piano to another instrument, a tremendous amount of learned skills and information are applicable. The piano provides a great head start, laying important groundwork should one eventually decide to pursue any other instrument. Parents: if you're looking to get your youngster involved in music lessons at the earliest reasonable age, I recommend starting piano lessons around the first grade.

To summarize
If you've read this far, you're beginning to realize that I don't recommend starting music lessons too early. Many well intentioned parents want to give their children every music advantage, but starting lessons too soon doesn't offer any benefits. In fact, it can turn kids off the idea of lessons.
My profile of an ideal beginner guitarist looks something like this: A fourth grader who's never played guitar before, but has taken two or three years of piano lessons, and has consistent access to a capable guitarist (such as a parent or sibling) at home.

Of course, every so often a 4 (or 5 or 6) year old comes along and just excels— winds up playing all sorts of great stuff, and blows all these recommendations out of the water. But it's rare. More rare than you probably think.

Lessons for youngsters:
Some teaching methods (notably the Suzuki method) are geared specifically toward the younger student. These programs (at their best) address the concerns noted above. In short, they keep the enjoyment factor high and the expectations minimal.

What is reasonable to expect from a youngster taking guitar lessons?
Don't expect to hear presentable, recognizable music in the first few years. Ultimately, I've found that a 12 year who has played for, say, 7 years doesn't usually sound any better than a 12 year old who has played for 2. So where's the advantage in taking lessons all those extra years? Here are some possible answers:

Expect to get a sense of whether or not your child is willing to practice with any regularity. Of course, for young students, practice requirements are minimal (to the point of being almost nonexistent), but a willingness to pick up the guitar and play a bit each day without too much prodding is a good sign. Parents: do not argue with your youngster about practicing the guitar. It's a losing battle. If it becomes a struggle, discontinue the lessons.

If your youngster turns out to be studious, they may have an advantage in learning to read music. (More about reading music on the guitar here.) Typically, older kids want to rock, and have little interest in the tedious work required to develop reading skills. Younger kids are less tainted by rock-star fantasies, and have trouble playing chords, anyway. The early years present a (possible) opportunity to get a head start on learning to read music.

Sometimes starting early breeds a higher level of confidence once the student reaches adolescence. That is, a student is more likely to approach the guitar with an aggressive self-assuredness if they can hardly remember a time when they didn't play. Of course, there's no guarantee of this, and sometime's one's ability to learn quickly (having started later) is an equal boost to the confidence. Eventually, shyness and doubt can hinder one's musical development. Confidence can't hurt. On an advanced level, facing things like auditions at the high school level and beyond, it's good to be as comfortable as possible.

Bottom line
By the age of 9 or 10, kids are typically capable of handling the demands of guitar playing. For younger kids, beware. Consider the piano, or enter into guitar lessons with reasonable goals and limited expectations.

This website is a companion to the book Sensible Guitar, an instructional method book for all guitar students. Most of the site is dedicated to providing supplemental material for students and teachers using the book. However, the "Getting Started" pages are offered as a service to potential students (or, more exactly, the parents of young students). All of the material is provided by the book's author and publisher, Chris Cass, a long-time music educator who teaches guitar in southern Connecticut. Any subjective viewpoints or recommendations are the author's own. Your questions, responses, or differences of opinion are welcome via email: chris@sensibleguitar.com.

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