Start Learning Guitar

This web site is here to assist those who have decided they would like to start learning the guitar.

It explains the options that are available and provides you with links to carefully selected web resources that will help you take your first steps and hopefully beyond.

Regardless of your age or musical experience, learning to play the guitar is hugely satisfying. You don't need to have a grand target such as becoming a virtuoso player or the lead of the current top rock band. Simply being able to pick up a guitar - either when you are by yourself or with a group of friends - and to pick out or strum a simple tune give you a great feeling of satisfaction.

There are three  main approaches a beginner can take when they want to learn how to play the guitar:

• With a personal guitar tutor
• As a part of a group guitar lesson
• On-Line and Self teach guitar lessons

Each approach has it "pros and cons" which are explained below. You will also find some useful links to other sites related to these approaches.

Which ever route you choose - the main point to remember is...
be sure to enjoy yourself when you learn the guitar!

Personal Guitar Tuition

Being taught to play the guitar by a personal tutor who can focus on you, show you the required techniques and then correct you when you are going wrong has to be the most effective approach. Quite often a tutor will have a selection of guitars that can be used for your lessons. Some even have recording facilities to allow you to capture your practice pieces to CD or MP3 format so that you can impress family and friends with your playing.

However this approach isn't for everyone - there is the difficulty of finding a tutor who is reasonably local to you, who has lesson slots available and who you can get along with. There is also a certain amount of commitment as lessons are pre-booked and you may have to fit your schedule around this. An added disadvantage is that this is the most expensive method to learn though some tutors do lessons from as little as £10-£15 per hour.


Here are links to the best sites for finding a guitar tutor in your area:

Group Guitar Lessons

Learning to play as part of a group can have many of the benefits of personal tutoring such as access to someone to show you techniques and correct you were you are not doing it quite right. It is also usually considerably cheaper than hiring a personal tutor. There are also the 'spin off' benefits such as the support, interaction (and often fun) of being part of a group of people all learning together. 

Naturally as group classes will be on a predetermined day and time, there is little flexibility when it comes to finding the best time for your lessons. There is also the 'pot luck' element always found when a group of individuals come together to form a class - you can be unlucky and find that one or two individuals dominate the group and the teacher's time and focus. On the counter side, good fortune can bring you life time friends through this route.

Another increasingly popular approach is the themed training 'break'. These are usually a short intensive residential training session over a weekend using a hotel or similar accommodation.

In the UK, probably the most popular, extensive and easily accessible guitar group lessons are the Adult and Community Learning courses provided by your local authority (commonly known as "evening classes"). As each local authority has its own web site and publicity mechanisms it isn't feasible to provide a list of links here. The best approach is to go to your local authority's web site (usually on the lines of "www.mytown.gov.uk") and use the site's search facility to locate the pages referring to "Adult and Community Learning" or"Adult and Community Education". This should provide you either with direct details of guitar lessons in your area or at least the route to find more information.

Here are links to some more specific the sites that will help you guitar tuition in your area:

On-line and self-teach Guitar Lessons

This is probably the area of largest growth and choice, especiallyin the on-line arena. A number of mechanisms are employed to deliver online lessons to you, varying from DVD, streaming video/audio, downloadable programs to interactive correspondent style lessonsvia email or a website.

The biggest problems with these types of lesson (especially those that are purely self paced) are finding the time and motivation to keep progressing with your lessons, developing bad techniques and habits with out realising and a general lack of feedback on how your are performing and on where to concentrate your practice exercises.

Another problem for such lessons not based on video is that trying to describe a technique with only words or pictures can sometimes be difficult, making learning it correctly near impossible. The better video courses suffer less from this problem.

With such a wide choice, in the end the selection is down to personal preference both in terms of the delivery method, teaching content and style and your available budget.
 
Here are links to the best sites providing on-line guitar lessons categorised by self paced, video/audio and download

On-line video lessons

On-line self teach 

CD-ROM/e-book based training

DVD lessons

Which ever method you use, we hope that you will have fun and satisfaction when you start learning guitar.
 

If you would like to send feedback on this site or suggest further content, then please send an email to
webmaster@start-learning-guitar.com and we will be happy to consider your comments.