Hey, Rob here. I made my living as a full-time professional guitar player and programmer. When I was asked to find a good “how to play guitar” program for my nephew I wasn’t expecting the difference in quality of materials available online. The truth is that the majority of “learn how to play guitar” programs online are JUNK!
To see which program I believe is far superior to the rest click here

“Lookin’ For An Online Guitar Course?
Wonderin’ Which Programs Are Good,
And Which Are Absolute Crap?”

I made my living playing guitar in clubs, concert halls and recording studios for over 20 years. It was my occupation, my full time job. I wasn’t just some weekend warrior, guitar player wannna be! I was a professional, well-paid guitar player

My sister asked me to recommend a program to help my nephew start learning how to play the guitar (unfortunately, I don’t live close to them). They don’t have a decent guitar teacher in their little town, so she asked me to find a good online program.

I bought ELEVEN online courses. I didn’t know there was so much CRAP out there. I asked for a refund on 7 of them. Only 4 were worth the money. (And ONE stood out head and shoulders above the rest!)

Seven out of the eleven I purchased were AWFUL!!

There’s an old saying.. “those who can’t do, teach!”
I’m sure that a few of these jokers who put together these “learn to play guitar” programs wouldn’t make a penny if they had to use their “axe” to make a buck.  One guy really couldn’t play at all!

So, I ended up sending 4 programs to my nephew. After speaking to him, he took my advice and concentrated on just one.

A few months later I was impressed by how much he’d learned. The kid could actually play! (It was great sitting down and jammin’ with my nephew). He’d been devouring the Learn And Master Guitar program and watching his favorite musicians on YouTube.
Here’s a little more detail about the 4 programs that are worth a lick (sorry about the pun). Unless you just can’t pony up the cash for the first one (Yep, its the best and it’s also the most expensive.), I highly recommend the first program. Seriously, if you get Learn And Master Guitar, put in the time to go through the whole course, and you can’t really play, I suggest you take up another hobby!.

Learn And Master Guitar was by far the most professional, thorough and complete program I reviewed. Honestly, after sifting through the rest of these programs this one is SOOOOOO much better I really shouldn’t have included the other 3 reviews. If there’s a down side to this program (the reason I gave it only 9.9 out of 10) it’s that you have to wait for the program to be shipped to you. I really wish I had access to this type of training when I was starting to learn. .

There is an online student support site and you get your questions answered very quickly.

Here’s what you get

You’ll receive 20 very professionally produced DVDs, you get 5 Jam-Along CDs and a 100+ page lesson book. And, as I said earlier, a free online student support site.

Okay, this is the most expensive of the program I reviewed, so let me throw in this disclaimer. If you are looking to just “noodle” around and learn one or two songs on the guitar, then maybe you want to choose Jamorama. BUT, if you are serious about becoming a “GUITAR PLAYER”, someone who can really make a guitar sing, and you are willing to put in the time and focus to go through this complete program, this is the only program you’ll need.

They give you EVERYTHING you need to become a good player, the rest is up to your level of desire and the time you put in.

Click Here To Visit Their Official Site

Jamorama would be the second best option for my nephew. It is web based (no DVD or Cd’s to be delivered by snail mail). This is a great package for the beginner to intermediate player. I found the lessons very easy to follow. My only criticism was that occasionally the instructor got a little “sloppy” in his playing. I’m sure most beginner’s would be delighted to play as well as him, but, as you progress you’ll notice that you can probably player cleaner than this guy.

You do get a lot content  for a very reasonable price. I have friends who charge more than this for a single, one hour lesson! At 39.95 you are getting a lot of stuff. Good tabs, good videos and the lessons are laid as pretty well.

What’s included?
Two downloadable e-books
- Jamorama Beginners
- Jamorama Advanced

Approx. 150 Online video lessons
26 “active” jam tracks for you to play along with (you can toggle guitar on and off)
Thousands of lines of guitar tabs (tablature)
lots of helpful audio files

Extras:
Jamorama Metronome (to help you develop your sense of time)
GuitearIt! – A software program that helps you develop chord identification and ear training.
Jayde Musica Pro – A game to teach you how to read traditional notation (not tabs)
Guitar Tuner Pro – Software app for tuning your guitar
Bonus ebook: How to Tune your Guitar e-book
Bonus ebook: Advanced Learning Techniques for Guitar
A dedicated support email line.
Lifetime access to updated lessons and tabs

(Update:) Apparently they now offer a complete DVD and book course as well. It’s over $100. I’d stick with the online lessons for now.

Click Here To Visit Their Official Site

Confession: When I first read the salespage for this program I was VERY skeptical. Ask any guitar player how long it takes to learn guitar and you WON’T get the answer “one weekend”. That being said, I didn’t throw up when I got inside this course.

I guess there are many people who wanted to learn to play guitar, spend some time, don’t see immediate results and quit. This course is probably the best at getting people starting to make some musical sounds on the guitar QUICKLY.
Will you be burning it up in a weekend? NO.
However, seeing some initial fast results might be just what a beginner needs to stick around and commit to the process. I’m sure that for many people this course will be the difference between enjoy the guitar or having it collect dust under the bed in a week. Just don’t expect it to do much more than get you started.

IF you are a complete beginner, this will get you to an intermediate player fast (but that’s about as far as this goes).

This program costs less than $50. Not bad for learning how to play QUICKLY!

What’s Included?
- Beginner’s Guide to Unlocking the Guitar downloadable e-book
- 150 popular songs with four chords or less e-book
- Beginner chord sound files
- “Press and Listen” sound files
- The Perfect Chord Chart for Beginners
- Beginning Singing Techniques e-book

Click Here To Visit Their Official Site

This is my fourth choice. If you are a beginner and you’re easily distracted, stay away from this site! They have a tons of videos, tabs, tips and tricks for every level of guitarist. They also cover every genre and style of playing imaginable. You can access this mountain of information within their membership site. You get more “stuff” for $29.95 than on any of the programs I purchased.

The Downside: There is so much information inside their site that many people could get lost, or become unfocused. In Jamorama there is a slick, well designed series of steps and lessons laid out for you. This is important to many beginners. Inside Guitar Hot Shots is a mountain of information. Some of it not exactly “ready for prime time”. There is information for beginner, intermediate and pro level players. I worry that a beginner might get disillusioned or distracted by the pro level stuff. That being said, I knew my nephew was a fairly self-disciplined kid so I suggested he join this program. (Hey, I even learned a new trick or two inside this)

Conclusion: Not extremely well organized, but there is a ton of resources here.

What’s Included?
Tabs, Rhythm guitar riffs, sound files, tons of videos, ear training, tricks, equipment reviews, buying tips and resources, solo scales, arpeggios (and on and on)
A TON of stuff! (quality aside)

Click Here To Visit Their Official Site

There isn’t a program, or a teacher out there that will have you playing better than Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page or Keith Urban. You’ll never play just like Eric Clapton because you’re NOT Eric Clapton.

These programs are a great place to start. But to become a truly great guitar player you need to practice, practice, practice AND you need to listen to great guitar players. At a certain point, you’ll be able to develop your own sound, your own style and your own “voice”. That is when you change from “playing guitar” to becoming “a guitar player”. Don’t try to be better than Jeff Beck, or Carlos Santana, just be the best YOU that you can become. And if you’re playing makes you happy, that’s what counts.

And, when you become “a guitar player”, you won’t believe how people treat you differently!

Old Strat or Martin Guitar — a few thousand dollars
Time Spent Practicing — a few thousand hours

The look on their faces when you start to play —— PRICELESS!

Starting developing your chops by trying one of the programs above (or all four) and then keep workin’, playin’ and listenin’ to develop YOUR own style.

Good Luck

Rob

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You might have met those musicians jamming wildly on stage. The thinking might have crawled into your intellect then ñ if he can do it, why canít I? If you are reasoning of learning yourself acoustic guitar, then you are in good fortune. In this short article, we shall contemplate over umpteen methods with the aid of which you too will be able to jam like the ones you see on stage. There is a myth associated with studying guitar, that one will never be able to master it without attending to some form of nominal education in a music school.

The people who demand this myth forget that the greatest musicians are not made on music schools. You will be able to overcome all of it by yourself. Before instructing yourself how to play acoustic guitar, it is proposed that you should commit on one. For learning purposes you could commit on a second hand acoustic guitar. If you are adorning on a revolutionary guitar, then the directions for tuning up the guitar will be offered in the sort of leaflets along with the product. Hither lies our foremost factor, before you begin instructing yourself acoustic guitar play you should be complete in stringing and tuning up the guitar.

Capable data about stringing an acoustic guitar is made accessible on the cyberspace. Tuning Up the guitar is likewise an intimate function of the studying operation. Tuning Up can be completed either with the service of instruments like the tuning fork or with your ear itself! Technical progresses can be observed in this niche, and you will be effective to see tuners that are known to exercise automatically by exposing right readouts betting upon the annotations formulated by the guitar strings. You will have to give great grandness to chords if you are searching options to learn yourself acoustic guitar.

Utmost studying of the chords can be concluded with the service of commands that are widely accessible online (free) or in the closest music shop (for a reasonable fee). You will have to exercise your fret fingers generously. It is functioning to be a mediocre feel because your digits are not habituated to these forms of activities. With the transition of clock time, calluses will be wrought on the fingertips, and then you will not have to worry about the connected pains. In fact, when you go to a music school, this will be the foremost teaching contributed to you ñ produce callus on the fingertips.

The chords must be represented arbitrarily so that extended exercise is offered to the fret thumbs. In depth knowledge of the scales is also essential in this niche. The thought is to practice every day ñ day in and day out. The more you exercise, the advisable the instrumentalist you will become. In fact, posters naming all the accessible scales can be observed in numerous music shops. Invest on one or get them for complimentary from the cyberspace. The grandness of exercising cannot be transmitted in inexpiable phrases. If you desire to execute something, then you will have to strain hard for it ñ this must be running in your intellect at all times.

Once you reckon that you have perfected at least more or less of the chords and the scales, it is time for you to speculate out into cruder arenas. On the cyberspace, you will find the notes for numerous identified songs. Download them, publish them (if possible), and initiate exercising and playing them at your leisure time. Master yourself one of these songs, before learning a new song. Duplicate the procedure and you should be the best of the set in no time.

Lanny Mcpherson
http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/how-to-learn-yourself-acoustic-guitar-1146134.html

Good luck, you’ll do fine.

Kudos to you for not going with that all to familiar train of thought "how can I teach myself guitar for free in no time and be super awesome". Good luck which ever avenue you take!

If you want to learn to play Flamenco guitar you will find that the basic left hand techniques are the same as the ones you would use in other guitar styles. The right hand techniques for Flamenco playing are more challenging, especially if you have not done any finger style playing before.

Your right hand technique need not be particularly advanced to allow you to add the Flamenco sound to your playing but you should always aim for a clean sound. You will find many amateur, and some professional Flamenco guitar players that you might find on YouTube or on Flamenco records from the nineteen sixties do not pay a hell of a lot of attention to clean notes. There is a school of thought that rough technique is okay if the passion is in the playing. This might apply to guys who have been playing Flamenco all their lives, but if you are fluffing notes it means you haven’t practiced enough.

Let’s think for a minute about where you are going to find Flamenco guitar lessons. The answer is YouTube or similar video sites. The Flamenco guitar videos available on the internet will vary in quality of playing but most of the lessons that focus on specific techniques are generally quite useful to beginner Flamenco guitar players.

The techniques you will be learning are Picardo which is the picking style Flamenco players use to play scale passages, Tremolo which allows the guitar player to play solos made up of long notes while playing bass accompaniment at the same time and Rasqueado which covers the aggressive and expressive strumming techniques which help give Flamenco guitar playing its unique sound.

Some of the professional guitarists you should be listening to are Paco De Lucia, Vicente Amigo, Sabicas, Diego Del Gastor, Serranito and Paco Pena. The lessons available are often given by guitarists whose names don’t sound very Spanish but if you can get a technique that you like from some guy named Hung Li O’reilly what’s the harm? One Flamenco guitar teacher you will find giving good advice and material in the form of video Flamenco guitar lessons is Sal Bonavita.

Back in the nineteen sixties and seventies there were a few guitarists giving “Flamenco” concerts all over the world to big audiences. Their publicity announced that their greatness but they were regarded as nowhere near the class of the guitarists I mentioned above, and have nothing to offer the Flamenco student. So if you come across videos featuring Carlos Montoya, Manitas De Plata and Juan Serrano, don’t waste too much time on them. I don’t want to badmouth artists who have given many people pleasure through their concerts and records but sometimes newbies waste time trying to learn material that will not benefit them in any way.

If you are looking for instruction books on Flamenco guitar, you should look for Toques Flamencos by Paco Pena. In spite of what I wrote above, if you find one of the guitar tutors by Juan Serrano they will at least give you a good grounding in the basics.

Ricky Sharples
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/learn-to-play-flamenco-guitar-743084.html

It takes you step by step through the basic guitar chords one by one. There’s also lessons on guitar scales, techniques and some easy songs to play.

http://www.pluckandplayguitar.com/

For starters, why would you be looking for online blues guitar lessons in the first place?

Well, like many people you may have found that it is pretty easy to find guitar teachers within your local town or city, but finding someone who can help you to specifically learn blues guitar is much tougher.

Secondly paying for numerous one hour long lessons with a guitar tutor can be enormously expensive. Those individual lesson costs can soon mount up!

This is why many people just like you find themselves turning to a search online in their quest to learn blues guitar. This in itself can lead to hours or days of painful frustration when you find that there are a lot of sites out there that offer guitar lessons, but very few good sites that offer blues guitar lessons in particular.

Sometimes your online search will throw up some sites offering free blues guitar lessons, but you will find in general that you get what you pay for. They are free for a reason! Enough said.

If you want to learn how to play blues guitar quickly and effectively then you need to look for lessons that will teach you all the tricks of the blues guitar legends right from the start, so that tricks like ‘Tweedlies’, Hammer-ons’and ‘Pinch harmonics’, (guitar squeals), will become second nature to you and have your friends (audience) gasping at how quickly you’ve been able to play fantastic blues guitar solos.

After all, you’ll be wanting to be able to play some decent blues licks and be able to use sliding “harmony lines”, just like the Allmans do in ‘Stormy Monday’, as quickly as possible, won’t you?

Try to find a product or site that offers you video tutorials that you can easily watch and copy at your leisure. Look for a site that will have you playing killer blues guitar solos very quickly and if they also offer easy to understand scales and fingering patterns with lots of examples you can use, as well as MP3’s that you can listen to, then you are probably going to have all that you need to get started quickly.

Finding exactly the right online blues guitar lessons may take you some time, but can be more than worth the effort as it will potentially save you a fortune when compared to paying for hourly guitar lessons in the offline world.

Roy Carter
http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-articles/online-blues-guitar-lessons-can-you-really-learn-blues-guitar-from-online-lessons-994589.html

I’m sure at one point in time you have wanted to learn how to play the guitar. There is just something about that instrument that if someone can play it they are automatically cool. I know it sounds like a stereotype but can you really tell me I’m wrong? There are countless ways to learn guitar. Below you will find a few that may interest you.

Learning by ear is one way that you may be able to learn the guitar. Some people are just born with natural talent. These are the ones that can pick an instrument for the first time and two weeks later can play every song you have ever heard. If you are able to do this, then I envy you . And so do a lot of other people.

Another way to learn how to play the guitar is through a instructor. Many people like this way, but it can quickly become very expensive. The problem with learning this way is that you are being taught to play the same way your instructor plays. Trust me there are many different theories on how the guitar should be played.

Instructors also come and go. The one you hire may be there one day and then get offered a job some where else and be gone. Now you have to start with someone new and try and learn their style. You would be surprised by the amount of difference there is between teachers. Even the fundamentals are different.

The third way, and the way I believe to be the best is through online programs. The reason I say this is because you get a ton of value for the price of maybe one lesson from an instructor. Not only that but you can practice and learn on your own time schedule.

Maybe you are a slow learner and need to go over a certain area multiple times before you get it. If you paid a personal instructor, you would be paying them three times for the same lesson. This way you can move on when you are ready to move on.

Building a solid foundation and understanding the fundamentals is a major part of learning how to play the guitar. With online programs you won’t have the pressure of having show up to that next lesson until you are ready.

Dennis R. Ward
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-articles/learning-how-to-play-the-guitar-which-way-do-you-think-would-be-the-best-way-for-you-to-learn-747535.html