looking for kids instructional materials

colorado_hick

My son is 8 and has a basic understanding of chord structure and good rhythm and thinks heavily in patterns. I am lining up with a local guitar teacher who is accomplished in many styles but usually starts kids off with the cowboy chords, but is open to doing something more pattern based especially if I can help find some supporting material. Does anyone have recommendations for resources? Basically I want him to learn how to build 3-finger major 6, minor 6, and dominate 7 chords off the first two strings and know the notes on the first two strings. Even some song recommendations? dark eyes? well you needn't? I realize this would not be the approach for everyone (but I sure wish someone would have started me this way!)

blindjimmy

There was a book in the store here called debutantes written for kids

Tubaphone

This isn't a perfect solution, but I noticed Michael has a Gypsy Jazz ukulele book for sale, which might work:

Gypsy Jazz Ukulele.

The chord shapes and fretboard patterns would translate to a guitar, with a caveat. The shapes on the uke would be the same shapes on the bottom four strings of a guitar, but the actual chords/notes would be a fourth up from the guitar. So if you made what would be an A minor 6 chord on the guitar (xx4555) it would be a D minor 6 on the uke.

I'm not sure how you'd proceed from there though... just start him on uke and switch to guitar when his hands are big enough for 6 strings? Make the teacher transcribe/translate to the correct frets for guitar, just using this book as a reference for simple melodies and 3-4 string chord shapes?

Just an idea, maybe not a useful one...

Mark