Knowing the names of strings on a guitar is very essential and one of the first basics you need to teach to your students. It’s part of the communication between you and your students. For example: If you say : “Put your pointer finger in the 2nd fret on the A string.” they have to know what you mean. Before teaching guitar chords to kids, you have to make sure that they know the guitar string names.
Or imagine you need to tune your guitar. In this case you have to know the names of the strings too. Same applies, when changing guitar strings. It’s quite helpful to know the string names by heart and not to look them up everytime you need them.
First thing to know is that a standard guitar has 6 strings. Sure, there are also 12 string guitars but let’s stick to the standard. Each of the string has a name and a number.
Learn the guitar string names
So here we have to the string names:
6th string – low E string
5th string – A string
4th string – D string
3rd string – G string
2nd string – B string
1st string – high e string
Remember, the low E string is always the thickest string and the high e string the thinnest string on the guitar.
Number of guitar strings
The guitar has 6 strings and many guitarist use instead of the string names rather the string numbers. We count them from the bottom to the top. This works also great when communicating with your students but using the string names is much better. Why? Because in this way your students are aware of the notes that they are playing.
How to remember guitar the string names
The easiest way is to use a rhyme. You can come up with your own rhyme or you create one with your students togethers. When teaching guitar for kids, try to make it visual. Draw a guitar neck on a paper with the strings and name them with your students. Let your students draw or paint something next to it to reflect the rhyme.
A rhyme that I really like to remember the names of the guitar strings is this one:
Elephants And Donkeys Grow Big Ears
Others are for example:
Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie
Easter Bunny Gets Drunk After Easter
Printable to teach kids guitar string names
I created some free printables for your guitar lessons in order to support this part of your course. You can use the color version to print it out as a poster and hang it on the wall of your classroom. The black and white version is perfect as a handout and can be used for homework. Ask your young students to color it out and at the same time they will memorize the string names.
