Sharing your passion for music with the next generation can be very challenging.

My son, who has had his own group for nearly nine years now, once thanked me for making him learn on an acoustic guitar first. I had played for years, self-taught and with a poor ability to sight read. When he said, at age 5 or so, that he wanted to be a "rock star," I had a chat about basics with him.

I told him we would get a guitar for him to use, but that he would have to demonstrate that he was serious by taking lessons, learning music theory and staying with that program for at least two years. At first, he was angry that he wasn't getting an electric. But, he did all he was asked, learning with a steel-string Yamaha.

He started picking up my classical guitar and spending more time with it along the way. We eventually got him his electric, an inexpensive Squier. Within a year, he had sold it and bought his own Takamine classical guitar, with which he continued his lessons past the age of fifteen. He told me that the musical discipline and versatility he now enjoys comes from the basics we asked of him when he was starting out.