As a preface to this entry, please refer to Kevin’s question following my prior entry. Building basic technique is one of the hardest things to address as a private instructor. If you are teaching someone teenaged or older, try to use songs that the student is already familiar with which can address basic points of technique; Greenday stuff for power chords, Metallica for palm-muting, etc. I usually have the most success with students whose parents are classic rock fans. They have heard everything, so you can map out the introduction of fundamentals with a variety of songs and artists.
You really run into a problem with younger students, however. Frequently they don’t listen to anything and even if they do, it’s either some rap artist or Hillary Duff. It’s practically impossible to get a kid to learn and memorize chords that he or she won’t be able to use in any songs that they like. In those situations, I try to get them started in a book learning to read notes. This presents its own set of challenges as you have to deal with getting them to play in rhythm, keep their eyes on the page, and learn the notes on the staff. However, if they have the patience and motivation to stick with a beginning book, it becomes a little easier to make the segue to chords and other concepts after a short time.
If you have taught younger students for any length of time, you probably noticed that it’s next to impossible to get them to learn an entire song. I’ve had countless younger students brag that they could play a particular song which turned out, when I heard it, to consist of about four measures which vaguely resembled something like the song they were talking about, if I used my imagination. HOWEVER, since when did guitar instructors become the "Learn-the-Song-Lick-For-Lick-Nazis?" (LSLFLN for short) It is probably better for your sanity and the student’s that you teach them to play the signature lick or riff to a particular song well enough where they enjoy playing it and then move on. Later, after their skill and dexterity has developed to a higher level, they can revisit the song and learn it with more accuracy.
Ideally, every student would be ready from the beginning to practice with a metronome and employ proper technique as instructed. Realistically, that just will not happen. Your job as an instructor is to get them excited about learning the instrument and employ elements of technique as you are able. This flies in the face of more established teaching methods on other instruments, but remember that some of the most innovative guitarists have been those who played styles which contradicted established technique and theory.
One of my pre-teenaged students had been struggling with practically every concept out there until recently. I patiently worked with him on chords, power chords, slurs, etc. One day, when I couldn’t think of anything else to teach, I showed him a little of the tapping section of Eruption by Van Halen. He’d developed his hammer-ons and pull-offs to the point where he could at least play the first measure very slowly. As I showed him the pattern and tapping technique (which is pretty much useless for developing your own career and making money playing guitar, by the way), something clicked and suddenly he understood (as we were looking at sextuplets!) all the things about rhythm that I had been trying to teach for months. Now he actually practices with a metronome, places his hands and fingers correctly, and can comprehend rhythmic subdivisions. Yay! That only took a year of my life.
