Essential Equipment:

Guitar
Your child’s size and age will affect what size guitar they can play. Here’s a handy size guide and links to help you make the right choice:

Years 3-4: 1/2 size nylon string acoustic guitar click here

Years 5-6: 3/4 size nylon string acoustic guitar click here

For a student above these ages please email Chris for advice. There are lots of choices: electric or acoustic, nylon string or steel string etc.

Guitar plectrums
The links above come with a packet of plectrums. If you need more (they’re easy to lose!) I recommend these which come with a handy storage tin.

Guitar case
This really is essential to keep the guitar protected and to keep all the equipment together. The links above come with a case but if you already have a guitar in the family but no case, just type the relevant size followed by “guitar case” into Amazon. For example: “3/4 size acoustic guitar case”

Guitar Tuner
Find a cheap tuner here or alternatively you can download free app GuitarTuna for your phone or tablet. Please note brand new guitars will be out of tune and will take a couple of weeks of repeated tuning before they settle and hold their tuning. If your having trouble, check out the video below.

Non-Essential Equipment

Once your child has shown commitment to practice, this stuff will enhance their learning. Also makes great birthday/Christmas presents!

Music Stand
While a table is ok to start off with, we want to encourage good posture by using a music stand. It also helps to have “practice zone” in the house which is always setup ready for that quick 5 minutes playing before bed. I recommend this one. There are cheaper ones out there but they tend to be flimsy and may break easily.

Guitar Stand
Having an instrument visible and accessible at home is proven encourage pupils to play more, (and it looks cool!) I recommend this one but wall mounted ones are also available.

Customised Plectrums
In my experience young students love these. You can get a tin and plectrums with a customised message: “Tom Rocks” for example. They won’t get it mixed up with another students plectrums, and it helps me return it to them when they inevitably leave it in my class room(!) Click here for a link to one of the many sites offering this service.

Capo
Once your child has started learning pop song chords a capo is incredibly useful. It’s like an extra finger that holds down the strings and changes the key of the instrument. This will allow the student to play along with pop songs, which is a lot of fun! Click here for decent one, there are cheaper ones, but the springs tend to go and you will end up spending more money.