Guitarists are insatiable learners and the world is full of great guitar learning material. First of all, there are countless tablature books which show you in the easy-to-learn guitar tablature format how to play all your favorite songs even if you can't read sheet music. If you can read sheet music, then there is sheet music available for every popular artist and thousands of classical and lesser-known composers. There are also ?method books? that teach how to play a particular style, and there are instructional guitar DVDs that show you and tell you everything a single guitarist knows how to do. There are books with CDs full of audio examples, there are DVDs that come with tablature books; the list of available guitar learning resources is endless.
Guitar lessons are still the number one way that guitarists pick up new information. In-person guitar lessons with a local guitar teacher are probably the most effective way to learn new things about the guitar. The world is full of part-time and full-time guitar teachers, who put their heart and soul into teaching their students how to be an ever-improving guitar learning machine. Guitar teachers are expensive, however, and not everyone has the money or the time to commit to in-person lessons. So while this is a truly effective method, it is not for everyone.
Over the last 5 years, online guitar lessons have become an outstanding resource for guitarists wanting to learn guitar at a convenient pace and at very low cost. In my opinion, online guitar lessons have come of age, and are now the best tool for learning guitar available to anyone anywhere. I don't propose that online guitar lessons should supplant books, sheet music, DVDs, and in-person guitar lessons. What I would like to suggest is that online guitar lessons are more convenient, cheaper, more useable, and provide more breadth of information than any other method available.
Convenience: Tablature books are OK, as long as they come with some audio examples. DVDs are OK, as long as they come with a book. The problem is that keeping your place in the book and your place on the CD/DVD in synch is difficult. Every time you take a break (every day basically) you lose your place and have to synch up all over again. Online guitar lessons, on the other hand, solve the problem of synching the tab, explanation, and audio/video samples. A web page is the ultimate guitar lesson format: audio, video, and text all together in one document.
Price: Books and DVDs have to be manufacturer, shipped, and inventoried. If you have ever burned a CD or made some copies at a copy shop, you know that manufacturing a product costs real money. Imagine if you had to turn around and sell your product at a profit? Shipping a book or DVD to the retailer is another expense in traditional publishing that occurs before the product is even ready to be sold. Inventory, the hidden expense, can be the largest: every month the book sits in the store, it costs the owner a percent of the price to pay for it to be kept out of the rain, and if the inventory is bought on credit, there is interest on the loan as well. All told, it is no wonder there are few places that sell guitar lesson products even in a large city.
Breadth: Guitar books generally can only have a few hundred pages; DVDs can only hold a couple of hours of video. A web site can expand to the size of a whole library full of books and DVDs. This is one aspect of the size advantage of online guitar lessons, but the more important aspect is this: getting a book published is so difficult, that many great guitarists simply never try it. Publishing a web site is so easy that many fantastic guitarists who would never previously have published their knowledge can now publish their guitar lessons online where you can find them.
As you can see, online guitar lessons have significant advantages that should make them an important part of any guitarist's learning strategy. As the internet continues to grow, and the use of video on the internet spreads, look for online guitar lessons to one day be the recognized leader in helping guitarists improve their skills in a convenient, inexpensive way.
Doing this increases your chances of success exponentially, and especially so when it comes to learning the guitar.
You see, if you go down the traditional road, of finding a guitar class or teacher, chances are your learning speed will be slowed dramatically?
Why you ask?
Because you can only learn at the speed at which they can teach, and often they aren't as good as you think that they are.
You also have to ask yourself, why are they teaching you? Is it because they just enjoy teaching you how to play the guitar? Or more realistically it is because they are running a business and need to earn a living. But what does this mean to you?
It means they have a set program that they run their ?students? through that takes them from A to Z, and they've set it at that pace, so that they can extract the maximum return from you, from a monetary point of view.
Now, this might sound a little cynical, and sorry it if is, but GENERALLY, that is the truth, that is how the world works.
You CAN find those rare gems of the human race that will teach you, and do it purely because they love what they do, they either have a lot of money themselves, or don't need the money for whatever reason.
If you can find someone like this, learn from them, because they will teach you everything that they know, at YOUR pace, not theirs? because they don't have a hidden agenda.
Where do you find someone to model off?
Ok, there are a few ways to go about this. Obviously the best way to go about doing it is to actually find someone who is in a band that does incredibly well (the more famous the better).
This is rare to find these kinds of people, sometimes you can find someone who is retired, and is looking for a ?prot'g??, who is willing to put the time and effort if they believe in you. And if you manage to find yourself someone like this, then you better do what they say, when they say it.
You have been given an incredible opportunity.
Now, with the advent of the internet, information is king. And with that, there are lead guitarists from around the world, releasing their programs on how to play the guitar just like them.
Some of these programs really are a joke, but there are some that are absolutely incredible.
They can take you from amateur guitarist, to full on pro in an extremely short period of time. And the best part, is that you can go at your own pace, you are not limited by someone who doesn't know how to teach you faster.
Bottom line, the courses that these high profile guitarists are releasing is probably going to be your best bet for modeling off excellence. It gets you access to their information, while still maintaining your independence, and self learning speed.
Both Jon Broderick & Marc Lindsay are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jon Broderick has sinced written about articles on various topics from Guide Guitar, Music. Jon has been playing guitar for over 30 years. He is the webmaster for http://www.guitartricks.com, which has been publishing online guitar lessons since 1998. Guitar Tricks now has over 2500 lessons from 43 guitar instructors from all over the world.. Jon Broderick's top article generates over 2900 views. to your Favourites.
Marc Lindsay has sinced written about articles on various topics from Adware, Flirting Tips and Car Auctions. If you are looking to or then. Marc Lindsay's top article generates over 201000 views. to your Favourites.