Learn Guitar

Last Updated on Wednesday, 01 July 2009 18:09 Sunday, 31 May 2009 17:27

There is a surprisingly high number of online resources available to help you learn to play the guitar. When I first started learning there were only two options: teaching yourself from a book or being taught by a teacher, either one to one or as part of a class.

Some subject areas are well suited to learning using the internet, but I'm not sure that guitar playing is one of them.

 

A teacher can provide instant feedback about not only your playing in the moment, but they can give you feedback on your general progress over time. Can online resources give you that same feedback? I doubt it. They do, however, give you a way to fit learning the guitar around your lifestyle in the most convenient way. Whenever you have time to spare, you can fire up your pc, get your guitar out and watch a video or read a tutorial. If you have one to one tuition or attend a class, then you have to arrange a fixed time for it and then commit to keeping the appointment.

Learn Guitar Online

What I aim to do is explore the guitar learning offerings available online. I've only had the briefest of experiences so far, limited to trying out "free trials" and receiving emails trying to upsell me on joining an online course, but so far I've found the following methods used:

• learn guitar using video. When you sign up, there is a (hopefully extensive) library of videos that take you step by step through learning different aspects of playing the guitar.
• tablature. So far, on one of the free trials I  signed up for, I've received quite a few free samples of guitar tablature by email, that give me a taster of what to expect should I decide to pay for the online course.
• forums. Some sites provide forums for members to discuss problems they have and ask for help. Usually help comes from site staff, but often members help each other.

Some of the websites that provide guitar lessons are ultra-slick. I mean, they look really professional. But, do they fulfill their function - i.e. can you learn to play the guitar using them? Also, how easy is it to do that?

My Exploration Into Learning The Guitar Online

What I'm going to do is select some of the big name guitar tuition sites and put them through their paces. I see a lot of despicable "review" sites that are simply vehicles to get you to sign up for some product or service for which the review site gets paid. The opinions expressed on such sites are biased to try and get you to buy and can't be trusted. I think there should be some trustworthy source of information available to those wanting to learn to play the guitar online - and I want this article to be it!

This is by no means a quick task to complete if I want to do it properly. I think that if I sign up for a subscription at a site,  using it for a month should give me enough time to assess the quality and usefulness of their offerings. If I review 12 sites then that will take me a year! That will keep me out of mischief, and hopefully it will keep you informed.

I'll maintain a growing list of learn guitar sites here and I'll link off to another page that will display my assessment of them.

Online Guitar Learning Sites

OK, first up is one that I've been itching to have a proper look at for ages: Guitar Tricks.

Coming up next month is Jamorama. Somewhere in the not too distant future will be Jam Play. Stay tuned. Ha. Ha.