I am currently working on something for a friend. A friend of mine is interested to learn the guitar and I actually taught him some stuff already. I taught him some chords but I personally think it’s better if he has a chart on paper at home where he can look at the basic beginner chords. Of course, there are many chord charts on the internet but I like to work on little projects myself, true to the motto “do it yourself”, and since I was bored today, I started to create my own in Photoshop. So, the idea was to create some kind of template in Photoshop. So far I’ve done the fretboard grid, I even added a nut at the top, fret numbering that I can change (x), circles that I can duplicate, and the template text for the chord name. I grouped the whole creation and duplicated it so that I have 12 chord diagrams on a single A4 paper. I might also create an empty template that I can print and copy, so that I can label it with a pen at a later point. Here is how my Photoshop project looks like as of now (click on the image to see it in large)…
Diary of Dennis 
Awesome, great project.
It was. And the teaching is kinda interesting too.
Playing chords and other stuff feels so natural now that it’s easy to forget that we’ve been beginners too. Seeing a friend struggle, got me right back to “Uhh ohh, yeah, that’s how I started too”. For example, I almost forgot even if you know where to put your fingers, it doesn’t mean it’ll sound clean. With the first chord we tried, he laughed and said “Whaaaat? It’s not sounding like you’ve shown!!??”. It was very muted and I’ve shown him how to prevent that and soon he got it right. I’ve been patient with him and it was fantastic to see his joy when he played a chord quite clean for the first time. It’s a little bit like time-traveling.
Teaching is rewarding isn’t it. Not all the time mind you. As you probably know, we have a small English and Music centre here in Hong Kong…most of the time it’s great.
It’s fun but I can only give a starting point. I believe I mentioned it once. I’m self-taught by ear player and never really caught up with the theoretical language. So, at some point, it would rather be showing possibilities than explaining why exactly it is working or what I am doing. I don’t think that would be helpful. On the other side, I also just got taught a few chords and string names when I started out, and then I’ve progressed on my own with my ears. So, maybe that’s sometimes enough to get someone into it.
Are you teaching people in the Music centre?
Just ukulele and guitar…but just a couple of small classes. Most of the students come to improve English..
That’s pretty cool Jeremy!