More Guitar Lesson than You will Ever Need
How to Play Guitar for Beginners
The internet is a truly wonderful resource. Young people today don’t all appreciate how lucky they are to have the worlds knowledge and skills at their fingertips via the internet.
I started playing in the 1970s with the famous Bert Weedon’s ‘Play in a Day’ book. I could never afford guitar lessons so I would take every opportunity to obsessively study the playing techniques and styles of every guitarist I managed to see.
Modern technology has revolutionised the way that people learn to play the guitar. There are so many excellent guitar tuition DVDs that can be played over and over again, unlike a face to face guitar lesson. And the internet provides an ideal medium for the delivery of some great guitar tutorials.
There are an abundance of guitar teaching websites but my favourite place for guitar tutorials is Youtube. You can find instructional videos on everything from choosing guitars to making your own electric guitar. There are plenty of videos that will help those who are just starting out with the guitar and lots more that are ideal for people like me, who’ve been playing for a while but want to learn more techniques and tunes.
Learning some new techniques, tunes and licks has become my favourite hobby. If the weather is bad then you will generally find me learning a new tune or two from Youtube. I think that my guitar playing skills have improved more in the past five years, thanks to Youtube, than it did in the prior twenty years.
What’s more, its interactive. If I find a video of someone playing a piece that I like I can easily make it one of my favourites and maybe leave a comment for the performer to see. Also, I will often ask the presenter a question or two and they always come back with a positive answer. It’s a bit like having every online guitarist in the world available as a personal guitar playing consultant.
I can’t help but feel a little envious of the young people who are just starting to learn today. I like to think that if I’d been born later, at a time when all of these great learning resources were available, I’d have been playing better than Eric Clapton by now.