How Should You Learn To Play Guitar

What’s The Best Way To Learn To Play Guitar?

If you have made the decision that you want to learn to play guitar, the next question is how? Once upon a time, it was an easy decision as there was only two routes you could take; learn on your own or get a guitar teacher. Now, with the advent of the Internet there is another option which is to learn online.

Learning online through guitar lessons is in one sense easy. Simply go to Google and type in “learn to play guitar” and you will be offered thousands of different opportunities. This article looks at the pros and cons of the different ways of learning now open to the guitar student.

Learning Guitar With A Teacher – The Pros

• At your first meeting, a good guitar teacher will quickly establish where you are at from a technical and playing level and build up a tutor profile of what you need to move forward.
• The teacher (hopefully) has a worked out lesson plan(s) which will guide you through your learning. A thought through plan will greatly accelerate your learning helping you make progress much faster.
• Learning with a guitar teacher means that your specific guitar technique problems are addressed with individual exercises specific to you.
• Guitar tutors can demonstrate how a particular passage, scale or arpeggio should be played relevant to the lesson. They will then be able to show you alternatives and dig deeper into areas such as fingerings, musicality and why something does or does not work.
• A guitar teacher will be able to judge over a period of time how quickly you manage to attain certain skills and tailor your future lessons and learning accordingly.
• Having a regular recurring lesson puts pressure on you the pupil to practice and deliver. This teacher – pupil relationship, is one of the biggest reasons learning with a guitar tutor is a very strong motivator.
• Your guitar teacher should have a wide range of music resources at hand such as notated music, play alongs mp3 files, deep knowledge of specific musical genres.
• They will be able to guide you in your future development regardless of whether they continue to teach you or not.
• Finally, most teachers will be able to take you through a graded syllabus of learning should you wish it. A big pro point for those that want to learn to play guitar.

Learning Guitar With A Teacher – The Cons

• • If you live in a rural area or small town that does not have a guitar teacher…you’re in trouble.
  • One to one lessons can be very expensive and is a barrier to participation for many.
  • You are hoping that your teacher is good and knows what they are talking about. The assumption is they do know what they are talking about, but can they actually teach?
  • You may only want to dabble in guitar and the stress of learning to a weekly or bi-weekly routine may be disheartening.
  • The teacher may not be that close so the time and expense of travelling to your teacher needs to be factored into the whole experience.
  • The guitar tutor does not know the style you want to play that well or not at all but you have to make do as he/she is the only person in your area.
  • The teacher may be unreliable, unresponsive to your requests, lazy etc.

Learning Guitar On The Internet – The Pros

• For the most part, or if you wish it, it’s totally free.
• It’s right there in front of you, no travelling or travelling costs.
• A huge amount of websites and video sites offer a massive amount of material in all possible genres.
• Large amounts of fresh new content being created and uploaded every day.
• There are now established sites which Youtube and other video sites regard as “go to” guitar lesson pages.
• On the better videos resources such as PDFs, backing tracks and more are offered completely free of charge.

Learning Guitar On The Internet – The Cons

• • There is no critical appraisal going on whether a tutor’s videos are good or bad other than if they are popular. You want to learn to play guitar and it’s right in front of you.
  • The guitar student does not get feedback on potentially harmful technical ticks that need addressing.
  • Cherry picking. Very prevalent on the web. Guitarists take a bit of this, a bit of that and at the end of the day know a lot of little bits of songs, riffs, ideas but do not learn an overarching approach to playing the instrument.
  • Guitarists don’t have any anyone telling them that their execution of a scale, riff, lick is poor. This can lead again to poor technique and a “it’ll do” attitude.
  • Just because there are people on the Internet who can play well, fast or have a lot of views does not necessarily mean they have thought through lesson plans, ideas and can educate guitar players to a higher level.
  • If online lessons were the answer, why are guitar teachers more popular than ever?

Conclusion On How To Play Guitar

Although this site promotes online guitar lessons with video and further resources, we paradoxically come firmly down on the side of guitar players looking for an actual guitar teacher. Or perhaps, a better conclusion would be that “blended” learning is the way to go. The Internet offers guitar players a great wealth of opportunity through video lessons. New ideas, huge amount of content are all great plus points for this way of learning. The proviso is that to make fast progress and to ensure that bad habits don’t take root a good guitar teacher offers more. The downside to one to one tuition is the cost. Also, we would say that learning within groups is also a bad ideas especially if you are beginner guitar player. Invariably, people learn at different speeds and the slowest either get left behind or the faster learners become frustrated.

Learn To Play Guitar – The Third Way

There is a third way and one that strides both camps and that is learning via Skype guitar lessons or other online real time teaching methods. These lessons will cost you money and you will need a reasonably fast computer and broadband Internet connection. If you have these in place and a guitar teacher is not close by then this could be an excellent choice.

Have a look at these comments and advice from people across the web on how to play guitar on Quora. Hopefully this will help you come to your own decision.

Check out our latest guitar lessons on the GMI homepage.