Classical or Acoustic as a start for my 9 year-old?

by Dave
(North Carolina)

Hello - My daughter announced that she wanted to take guitar lessons and as insurance against this being a 10 day infatuation we borrowed a 3/4 size guitar from the school's music teacher. It's 6 weeks later and she's practicing without prompting so it's time to invest in an instrument of her own.

Once we started looking at local music stores we realized that she's been using a classical guitar! Surprise. Her instructor assumed we knew and expected us to buy an acoustic when the time came. Not surprisingly, acoustics haven't felt good to her: steel strings are tougher on little fingers though that's not a problem compared to the string spacing and general "feel" of it. I'm sure if she just started using an acoustic she'd get used to it in pretty short order but I don't know if that's what we should do.

She's not sure what style of music she wants to play but I doubt she'll dream of being the next Guitar Hero or folk strummer or even Hannah Montana. (shudder) She's not looking to sing along or join a band. She says she wants to play classical music but I don't know if that's mostly because she likes her classical guitar.

So far her lessons have been single-note melodies on the 1st 3 strings (Ode To Joy etc) and she's liking it. Chords start next week. She prefers listening to pickers than strummers though that's probably since I listen to Mozart, jazz, Ted Greene, Phillip DeGruy and Lenny Breau.

Wow - I didn't intend to be this long-winded. With that preamble, here are a few specific questions:

1 - Is it a mistake to start out with Classical? It must be more difficult to gain basic proficiency than it is with acoustic where if you know 3 chords you can play a *lot* of songs.

2 - Are there differences in string spacing among various student model classicals? Her fingers aren't huge and I'm afraid getting to the 6 string will be more difficult than it would on an acoustic.

3 - What if we bought a cheap acoustic to get us through the next few months as she learns basic technique with her current instructor who is not classically trained? If, after a few months she wants to focus on classical we can find her a new teacher and get a new instrument.

Thank you for taking the time to read this!
DRM

Hi Dave,

Great questions! There's a lot there but I'll try to answer your specific "1, 2, 3".

1. I've taught classical for over 15 years, mostly children your daughter's age. Because of my background in classical I would say a definite "yes" to starting classical. It's not just my bias either.

Although classical is regarded as a harder style to play I think it is better to play that first then go to another style as it is often harder to learn classical technique if learnt the other way round. That is, chords and strumming before finger style/classical.

It is often deemed harder to learn the specific techniques if you develop "bad" (not bad in my opinion just different) habits. What you mentioned about the strings being harder on her fingers always comes up too. It's often quite hard for a young person to stick with it if their fingers are always sore. Many kids I've taught have discontinued because of this.

2. There are different student models with different sizes in terms of length and width. A good rule of thumb is to hold the guitar on its base with the headstock pointing towards the sky (or roof) and if the tip of the guitar comes up to her waist then that is the right size. Unless she has unusually small fingers the spacing should be just about right too.

3. If she really, really wants to play classical properly I'd do two things:

1. Get her a reasonably decent guitar that sounds nice and inspires her and...

2. Get a good classical instructor that will start her off in the correct manner.

All my answers pre-suppose that she WANTS to play classical in the first place. I feel it's utterly hopeless unless a child really is committed to it, though she sounds like she is.

I hope this has been of help.

Kind regards,
Trevor M.