Learn Guitar Lessons:  What Are Your Options?

learn play guitar

So you want to play guitar? Guitar lessons, in some form or another, are a necessity for anyone wanting to learn to play the guitar. These guidelines will help you sort through your options and make a good decision.

Guitar Lessons: Private Instructor or Online?

The traditional way of learning guitar is by taking private lessons from a guitar teacher. But today, there’s a lot of guitar lesson choices available in minutes through your favorite search engine. There are range of choices from free online guitar lessons, to high-end distance learning guitar instruction leading to a certificate from Berklee College of Music,

There are also Interactive video lessons available in which the student controls the pace of learning and the tempo of the material. All of this gives great flexibility on when and where to learn.

Guitar Lessons Options

Aside from private lessons, there are three basic formats of guitar lessons and instructional material.

Books- These often come with a CD to provide audio tracks.

Video-based lessons- The bad part is they often lack supporting learning materials needed to be effective for baseline learning.

Multimedia Online Lessons- The Web, plus advances in the technology for creating learning material such as video, has really opened the door to some great multimedia guitar lesson programs.

Learning Guitar – Where’s the Guarantee?

Sites scream out at you – “play like a pro”, “insider secrets revealed”, “master guitar in 30 days guaranteed”… Amazing. In fact, all the guitar systems out there seem to be “guaranteed”. But “guaranteed to” what? There’s no actual guarantee that you will play guitar. There’s no guarantee on anything because there are so many variables like your natural musical inclination, your manual dexterity, your musical ear, your budget, your time constraints, and the rest of your life outside guitar.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t aspire to learn guitar, because it’s the most wonderful instrument in the world. Everyone would love to play the guitar, that’s a fact. The level of one’s success on guitar is dependent on all the above factors and more.

Teaching aids such as those found on the internet can be a help. Watching guitarists (and musicians generally) in action can be an eye-opener and motivator. What it all adds up to is.. there’s no guarantee. Practice, of course, is the only way to improve.