At a family get-together recently, my wife popped the King's Shilling into my pint and I ended up being drafted in to give my nephew guitar lessons. I'm a fairly good guitarist (ooohh!! get HIM!!!), and whilst I taught myself, I've never really taught anyone else. My nephew is 17 years old and his favourite music is Kelly Clarkson, Avril Levine, and Maroon 5. (All of which, by the way, is Greek to me....). I'm a fingerpicker in the style of Bert Jansch, John Renbourne et al, so there is no musical meeting of minds between us.

I've given him a few lessons, and he is certainly willing enough - he seems to have practiced well and has a fairly good grasp of most open chords, (majors, minors and sevenths). His changing between chords isn't really fluid, and if he does anything complicated with his right hand (like fingerspicking or arpeggiations with a plectrum) then his chord formation goes out of the window. So for now I have him strumming chords to his favourite Maroon 5 and Avril songs.

My question is - what do I do with him next? Every week we look at barre chords, but so far with no luck. Now I remember the pain trying to learn those myself, so I don't blame him for not picking them up quickly. We also do a bit of travis picking on one chord to try and get his fingers moving, but I think he's not too interested in that style of playing, so again, I don't blame him if he doesn't spend too musch time practicing that at home.

So I'm at a loss as how I can help him. I'm tempted to say "look, I can't really help you, here's a list of phone numbers of professional teachers", but before I do, I thoght I'd call on the collective wissom of the Mudcat to see if there are any suggestions out there.

Are there any teachers out there who could help me formulate a "lesson plan"?

Cheers,

Baz.