need ideas for self teaching guitar or piano

[bettyandbob]

I'm not musically inclined. (Six years of pian lessons, I played purely by sight and finger coordination. I had a great background in music theory, but no ear) However, I believe music is an important part of education. We have tried music lessons at different times for my two oldest. My 13 yob is playing drums now and will add (at his request) guitar for 3 months this summer. He is starting at an IB high school in September so we only plan to continue one set of music lessons until he has a feel for his time management. I'm look at a self teaching course he can supplement his lessons with (he has no other summer plans besides music) and continue if he has time next year. Like many 13yob's he believes he will be a heavy metal rock star and would prefer a program that leans on rock genre.

 

My daughter tried piano at age 5--very poor attention span and we stopped the lessons after a short time. She tried guitar for a year at age 8. She requested guitar, even though I wasn't pushing lessons at all at the time. She had similar attention issues and couldn't keep up with practice. She's 10.5 now. I've seen her fool around with both the guitar and piano, recently. I'd like to get her kid friendly self teaching books just to look at and use on her own. I will not sit down with her to try things out and I won't purchase lessons again until she asks.

 

TIA

[In The Great White North]

Ds got a keyboard a few years back that taught him a lot. Grandpa bought it for Christmas (around $200). It has a little screen that shows the notes (on normal clefs), and two hands. It highlights the finger as it plays. You can watch it, play along or play without it. It knows 100's of songs. It uses both hands, both clefs and chords. It also has a jack for headphones:001_smile:.

 

After playing with this for a year or two, I finally got him piano lessons. I told the teacher he had a keyboard he played around with but had never had lessons. Half way through the first lesson, he turned around and told me he had been "misled." Apparently, ds picked up a lot more from his keyboard than I was aware of.

 

I didn't want to get lessons either because the viola efforts had been so futile (4 years and still in Suzuki Book 1). He has the keyboard in his room, as a toy. He still plays with it, but now does some of his practicing up there and some on the real piano. He doesn't like an audience so he rarely practices on the real piano when the rest of us are home. His teacher has been pleased with his progress and I never have to nag him to practice.

[klmama]

Ours has quite a few on learning guitar. Not sure about piano.