subject: Guitar Lesson Review: The Best Guitar Lessons For Beginners [print this page] Learning to play a musical instrument like the guitar can be fun and rewarding. But taking on a private tutor can be rather expensive; mighty fast! And, the times for lessons are not always when you're free. Quite often, you have to completely reorganise your entire day (or maybe even week) just to get in. Plus, you can't move ahead until the next lesson, even if you've learned your last set of exercises.
Yet if youre interested in learning how to play guitar, there is more than enough information and heaps of resources available for you to teach yourself to play at home. If you'd like complete control of the speed at which you learn to play guitar and you'd like to save some money to boot, then study-at-home DVD programs and online guitar courses might be the way to go. Hiring a private tutor will rapidly run into the hundreds of dollars and over time, many thousands. Teaching yourself is a budget-conscious and sensible way to get started today.
Consider for for just a moment: at $20 per private lesson (and that's dirt cheap!), just one time a week, that adds up to over a thousand dollars... in your first year alone! I haven't met all that many private teachers who offer a money back guarantee, either.
So how do you uncover the best home-study and online lessons that are easy to follow and allow you to progress at your own pace? There are quite a few excellent programs available that you can download and play over and over at your leisure and which will teach you how to master guitar.
Perhaps the simplest way to determine the right guitar course for you is to take a wander through various guitar lesson review sites. They usually deal with: an overview of the lessons, the pros and cons, how much the package is, what's included, and so on. They can help you compare courses in a simple and easy-to-read format.
What to Look for in High-Quality Online Guitar Lessons
Everyone will have different reasons for learning to play guitar and, therefore, different goals. Nevertheless, any set of lessons of real value will teach you the notes on the fretboard, basic chords and chord progressions, and basic strumming technique.
Scales, arpeggios, riffs, chord progressions and turn-arounds, playing in different keys and so on will all come next. Following this you will want to start learning to play songs, of course, and to do this you will need to learn how to read tabs (tablature) and/or musical notation. This will help keep your motivation up as your knowledge increases.
At this stage, you should have no trouble playing acoustic guitar or electric and playing along with songs should be starting to become easy. However, some of the more advanced solos and riffs you hear tearing it up on your favorite tracks may need slightly more advanced skills. This is the value in a well-structured learn to play guitar home-study course. With everything explained step-by-step, you learn everything you need to know, one step at a time, and at your own pace.
You really need to do your homework and determine what's right for you and your needs. Quite often, DVDs are aimed at a particular level only (intermediate, say) and you have to buy more DVDs as you improve. Don't worry, though, because it will be money well spent, provided each set of lessons builds on what came before it, making it easy to learn to play. Being overwhelmed as a beginner is the last thing you want. That will only result in giving up too early!
Online Guitar Lessons: What's the Quality Like?
The option exists these days of selecting online guitar lessons that will expand on your growing knowledge with each successive tutorial. These often begin right at the start with the basics and work through to some very involved techniques that will have you playing the guitar like a pro in no time.
When you browse the guitar lessons review sites, be sure to find out if the lessons are easy to follow along with. The last thing you need is some great guitarist talking to you and using language that's too complex. These kinds of programs are sliced and diced in the reviews so you can make an informed decision about which ones will help you learn the best.
It really is possible to learn to play guitar like a champ using a top-shelf home-study or online guitar course. Most come with jam tracks and other audio files, high-quality video, comprehensive practice exercises and drills, and contain everything you need to get started right away. And the best part? You can start without even leaving your home!
