Learning to play the guitar online

These days, there is such a multitude of sites offering guitar lessons that it is difficult to know where to start. There are free sites and paid sites, sites which offer streamed video lessons, sites which offer downloads of lessons, sites which offer only tab and textual information about modes and scales etc. Then you've got YouTube with tons of guitar lessons available for viewing. Some sites are devoted to a particular style of playing, while others offer a whole spectrum of styles and teaching methods. Where to begin with this somewhat daunting online array if you want to learn how to play the guitar?

Well personally, learning scales never did it for me. How dull can you get? And music theory didn't really get me going either. Yawn. But I tell you what did get me motivated. Songs. You know. Music. My Dad's record collection - ELO, The Beatles, Neil Young etc... Songs on the radio - 'Oh I love this song'.... That's what you want to do on the guitar, isn't it? Play those songs you love? Who is going to want to listen to you playing in the mixolydian mode (no idea what that is) or the G minor scale around the campfire? Nobody, unless they are some sort of twisted Joe Satriani fan. After a couple of beers, we all want to sing along to our favourite songs. Well that's my experience anyway. We want to forget our problems and have a nice sing-song.

So, I got started on guitar just learning songs I liked. I would just listen to records and pick out the tune by ear. Song books are good if you can't always pick the tune out by ear. Those ones which give you a picture of the chords along with the words so you can just look and copy without having to read music. Sometimes, I would look at tab but it can be rather tiresome o puzzle out. So, I would advise you to think about the songs you love and get started on learning how to play the more simple of them initially. Without doubt, the best way to learn the guitar is to have a living, breathing teacher come round and teach you. Nothing can replace a teacher that can say 'ok, play along' or 'change now' or reach over and put your crumpled-spider looking fingers in the right places. However, not all of us can afford a live human teacher in person. I would say the next best thing is video guitar lessons and learning with a teacher via skype.

In a video guitar lesson (especially if the teacher has thought out the camera angles properly), you can actually see and hear what the player is doing and just copy. You're not just trying to figure it out from off a page, which is much harder. You can also get a better sense of the timing from a video lesson than from a page. On the down-side, you don't get feedback from a video and you can't ask a video questions.

Lessons via skype have the advantage that the teacher can listen to what you play and comment although they are hindered by the fact that they can't just reach out and put your fingers in the right places. Plus, you can't jam along to a jam track with a teacher via skype and sometimes the image and sound are slightly delayed or the call can drop.

So, to sum up. If you can't afford a real, live teacher, the next best things are video guitar lessons or lessons via skype. Now it just so happens (and you thought I wrote this article for philanthropic reasons) that I have a site with my very own online guitar lessons for beginners through which you can contact me to arrange skype guitar lessons or from which you can download quality video guitar lessons teaching songs. Some of them are totally free. So you can start to learn how to play the guitar right now.