My daughter's HNGD

[Mr.Grumpy]

My daughter's now 7 and a half years old, and again has become interested in all of my musical toys. Lately she's really been 'taken' by my G&L "Tribute" strat copy, but of course a full size guitar is still too big, heavy and unweildy for her. So I searched on our local Craigslist, and found about 3 Squier mini strats for sale. She didn't want the pink one. Wasn't interested in the red one, either, she wanted the black one with the white pickguard, because it matches my strat.

 

Got it used for $80, and the thing's in mint condition. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality, it's a thoroughly decent guitar. She LOVES IT of course. Looks like she can plug the thing into her Barbie karaoke machine too, and it's got reverb!!

 

I explained to her that learning guitar is hard and slow, especially at first, but if she keeps at it, by the end of this summer she should be able to strum some open chords and play along to a country song.

She likes Taylor Swift and Miranda Lambert...mamma taught the little diva to sing along to "Ugly Lights", Miranda's song about closing time at the bar....

 

So I go to my local used book store and got a kid's book for learning guitar, only to realize after I get it home and start flipping through it, that they tune the guitar to OPEN G. smiley-indifferentThe short scale and thin strings are already sloppy loose, but I'm supposed to downtune the Es to D? Thank goodness the book was only two bucks. I think I'll ditch this one and look for one that teaches guitar in standard tuning.

[DeepEnd]

Tell her Happy New Guitar Day from me. Best of luck to the budding musician. I can't help wondering who learns guitar in Open G? A girl I knew when I was in college played in some oddball tuning but I don't know what it was.

[Mr.Grumpy]

Apparently this guitar book is intended for smaller kids, like 5 or 6 years old. "strum, strum, strum, strum!" We plow through the first five or six "lessons" in a few minutes, then we get to the first chord: what they call an "easy D" using two fingers on the 2nd and 3rd strings, but only strum the top 4 strings. It doesn't sound right, sounds like a 7th chord, but whatever. My daughter of course got frustrated almost immediately, and I'd figured we'd done enough for the first day.

 

I'm putting 11s on this little thing and putting it back in standard tuning. It does not like being tuned to open G (D, G, D, G, B, D), the strings are floppy and the intonation is horrible.

 

 

 

[Freeman Keller]

HNGD to your daughter - its neat that your music inspires her.

 

I can' argue for starting out in an open tuning, however I play in them a lot. I almost always have at least one guitar in open G, usually several. Most electric players don't use the down tuned open tunings (G or D) but rather tune up to open A (EAEAC#E) or open E. The relationship of the strings and notes is the same but the tension is higher so the guitar plays a bit better. You tend to not do much string bending in open tunings so more tension isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

One of the fun parts of open G or D is that a simple one finger barre at the 5th and 7th frets create the IV and V chords, so with one fretting finger you can play some three chord songs.

 

However I really don't think I would suggest a new player - child or adult - start in an open tuning unless they specifically want to play something that requires it. As some wag said about standard tuning, you can play almost any key with equal difficulty.

[gardo]

HNGD to your daughter

Dad sure is her hero

Sometimes life is pretty good

[daddymack]

Mr. G, I hope little Ms. Grumpy appreciates this long term. I kept a Rickenbacker 'Ryder' short scale for years for all my daughters, none stuck with it, so I eventually sold it. I almost bought one of the Hello Kitty Strats for the grandkids, but decided against it based on their mother's past performance.

 

On a side note, that is a short scale instrument and should be tuned up at least a whole step higher than standard E, like F# or even G to keep the string tension relative.

 

I also am in agreement that teaching kids to play in open G is a bad idea, unless they plan to cover the Richie Havens discography [unlikely] or want to play bottleneck...or pretend they are Keef...

[DeepEnd]

. . . I'm putting 11s on this little thing and putting it back in standard tuning. It does not like being tuned to open G (D' date=' G, D, G, B, D), the strings are floppy and the intonation is horrible.[/quote']

11's in Standard should work fine assuming the guitar is properly intonated, considering that 9's are fairly common for a normal Strat.