learn to play guitarIn the world we live in today it sometimes shocks us to find some things are still free and without a catch, but it’s true. On of those things is getting free guitar lessons or ecourses online and even songs with guitar chords for you to learn right at home.

I’m just about 60 and didn’t actually learn to play acoustic guitar until I was 47 years old. I tried learning how to play guitar back in the mid 70s and didn’t succeed. I ended up giving up and giving away my guitar and books. I even hired a guy to come to my house to teach me but he just wasn’t a people person and shouldn’t have been trying to teach. I kicked his sorry ass out the door after just three lessons.

It wasn’t until 20 years later when the Internet was available to me that I started finding more and more sites about learning to play guitar and a lot of free guitar related sites. Then along came Youtube and my interest in learning to play acoustic guitar returned like a tidal wave.

The Freedom of Free Guitar Lessons

jamorama-125x125I have a membership with Jamorama.com so I can learn more and more but prior to that I learned most of what I know because of the free content, including videos, I found online. Youtube is by far my favourite site for both learning and sharing about how to play guitar as a beginner all the way to advanced.

The only downside to using the net for free content is that it’s scattered all over the place meaning you’ll need to go from site to site. But hey, I did it and learned a lot before joining Jamorama to learn more advanced lessons. Wish I had started with them as I spent a lot of time searching for the exact stuff I needed where Jamorama has it all in one place, just like JamPlay.com does.

How To Find Free Guitar Lessons Online

If you don’t think there are a lot of people who want to “learn how to play guitar online” just do a search in Google for that phrase and you’ll find about 60 million pages. Fortunately you don’t have to search through all of those to find the best as Google does a great job of giving us the best content for our search phrase.

Check Out YouTube For Free Guitar Lessons

I go to Youtube.com for free guitar lessons almost every single day. Most of the time it’s to find songs I hear on the radio I like and want to learn. To do this I look for the song, the artist and the word ‘cover’ which usually gets me a list of those doing cover songs. I will also add the word guitar into the search to be sure I find those playing guitar.

I just did a search for “how to play guitar for beginners acoustic” I added the word acoustic because I don’t have an electric guitar and would rather learn things for my Yamaha acoustic guitar.

You can search for ‘learning guitar chords’ as a way to learn more chords. I like looking for ‘guitar riffs’ or ‘guitar licks’ to learn some cool things that impress my guitar jam buddies.

acousticguitarmannLiving in a world where sounds abound, appreciation for music comes naturally for those of us who are still human.

This is reflected in the way different cultures keep their own interpretation through use of indigenous instruments. In this generation, one of the most popular acoustic instruments is the guitar.

Learning to play guitar can be done in many ways such as using many self-help tools like learn guitar DVD.

The best starting point in learning to play the instrument is to have the interest and motivation. Once the interest is there to learn, everything is easily regardless of the mode of learning. With the technology that is the most influential attribute of the present times, the Internet is the best source of information and self-learn materials. With the abundance of options, one may become confused with the spread of choices. Finding one too many free online and downloadable self-learning tools can make choosing hard. For those who have no access to the Internet, other methods are better preferred.

A good alternative is the use of learn guitar DVD that can be watched in homes with a DVD player. It is actually like watching a movie so that it comes without too much pressure. A DVD self-help instructional material can be likened to having a private tutor that can be used anytime and be replayed again and again especially the hard topics. As long as one wants to practice, it can be played repeatedly without tiring. Just how perfect is that?

To get the best possible DVD for learning the guitar, one can always refer to reviews to find the most cost-effective that gives a good value for money. Jamplay.com for $19.99, Learn and Master Guitar for $149.00, Guitar Tricks with a 14-day free trial, Beginner Guitar System for $97.00, and Jamorama.com for $49.95 are the top five DVDs in the Guitar Lesson Review for 2012. By a mere glance and reading the brief descriptions, one can easily form an opinion.

Why learn how to play guitar with lessons the are difficult and stressful when simple video instruction can make it so much easier. One can use the guidance provided by the reviews to cut corners, avoid mistakes  and smartly make the right picks for the learn guitar DVD.

Learning Acoustic Guitar Songs

learn how to play acoustic guitarIt’s been about 10 years since I finally bought an acoustic guitar and began to learn how to play my new guitar. Well new to me that is. Nothing says one needs a brand new acoustic guitar to enjoy playing guitar.

I started by learning a few simple chords which only took a few minutes to learn. Immediately I was able to learn hundreds of songs that use those particular chords.

The first chords I learned were A, C, D, E, F. Here’s a image of what those chord shapes are as well as where you’re fingers are placed to make that chord.

basic acoustic guitar chords
These Chords Took Just Minutes To Learn

two more chordsI quickly learned that by adding just two extra chords, minor chords, that I had a whole new world of songs opened up to me.

I have learned a lot of chords since I started playing acoustic guitar but those first two minor chords I learned made a huge difference in the number of songs I was learning.

Looking For Great Online Guitar Lessons

jamorama-125x125jamplay guitar lessonsTwo of my favourite sites for learning how to play acoustic guitar are Jamorama and JamPlay.

Both sites have quality lessons that are worth checking out, whether you’re new to playing guitar or just want to become more advanced.

I take a long time if I try to learn a song on my acoustic guitar by just listening to a song. Sometimes I get a few chords but tend to get frustrated. I should add that the longer I play the better I get at recognizing chords and notes by ear.

Use Youtube To Learn Songs

finding songs on youtubeI have say that we are certainly blessed today as we have Youtube. Pretty much every song I like I can find on Youtube but even better most of the songs I can find someone playing it on an acoustic guitar.

When I am looking for songs to learn on Youtube I usually search the name of the song and then add something like the word lesson or cover. It works great most of the time and in seconds I am listening, watching and learning how to play acoustic guitar. What a great hobby.

Jamming Acoustic Guitar With Friends

I was so happy to finally be learning how to play guitar. Of course I couldn’t stop talking about it at work and soon found a few others that played guitar and before long we had a guitar jam planned.

That little guitar jam was awesome and turned into a weekly jam, sometimes two a week. One would be a practice so we could learn new songs and the other was to for jamming with what we’d learned.

electricguitarlessonsPeople eager to learn how to play electric guitar today are turning to the world wide web for lessons over hiring someone to come to their home.

I tried learning to play guitar before the Internet was available and it didn’t work out so well because I was just too shy or scared to look stupid in front of anyone. I was so happy when the time came I was able to learn how to play electric and acoustic guitar online.

You will find all kinds of lessons online, you will even find a variety of formats for learning. Also some guitar lessons are free while others are paid guitar lessons. My first piece of advice, if you’re paying is to find a place you can get a refund because not all guitar lesson sites are equal.

You may also find some sites are great and do a good job of teaching while you may also find that some just don’t have their facts straight or things are just too confusing for the beginner guitar player.

Free Guitar Lesson Sites

Most free sites aren’t structured well and usually hold info that will help you learn but the information isn’t in order and again can just make you frustrated, even though they are completely free.

These free sites may have some songs and show you how to play them, even some trips and tricks but the theory is sorely lacking and it’s the theory that helps you learn how to put things together to be able to play tunes on your own.

The thing with free sites is that the owners don’t have the incentive to create a good site for people like you and me to learn how to play electric guitar.

Paid Guitar Lesson Sites

Paid electric guitar lessons are usually more structured and even offer support which means if they want to keep their subscribers, paid clients, they need to keep them happy.

Like I said at the beginning, you need to be sure, if you’re going with a paid site, that you can get your money back if it doesn’t meet your expectations. I don’t just do this for learning how to play guitar. I actually do this for anything I want to learn online. If it sucks I want my money back.

Free Guitar Lessons Aren’t Always Free

I tried the free guitar lessons some years ago and they weren’t all that helpful. I nearly just gave up learning how to play electric guitar. Things weren’t explained and I found myself guessing at a lot of things.

I did learn some things using free sites but found I was more frustrated with my level of playing. I should have been a lot better and should have known more about what I was doing, that’s when I tried a few paid lessons and soon realize where I went wrong.

Well I didn’t really go wrong anywhere it was the site owners on the free guitar lesson sites who had things wrong and then I was learning mistakes. Heck I can make mistakes all by myself, I don’t need someone to be teaching me mistakes.

So in conclusion my suggestion is to go for paid acoustic or electric guitar lessons online and leave the free sites for maybe collecting songs in the future. I use a lot of free sites to get songs with chords on them but I learned how to play electric guitar first.

The site I am suggesting today, for learning to play electric guitar is Jamorama.