Learning to play the guitar requires practice and commitment. The difference between starting the right way from day one, is choosing your lessons wisely. This simple factor determines 50% of your success! Not choosing the right method for you, will only lead you down the road to eventual frustration.
What factors determine a good method?
#1. Well structured lessons
Practice and discipline is your part of the deal but, who wants to learn in two years what you can learn in two weeks? Each lesson in a learning block should naturally flow into the next one.
Shy away from methods that randomly jump from one concept to another without filling in the gaps. These are intended for advanced guitarists, but no good for beginners, and even intermediate guitarists, to gain a proper foundation, as you will end up feeling like a child in a candy shop.
As a beginner guitarist you should not have to decide which lesson goes first and which comes next. This is a decision for experienced teachers. YOU choose the goal, THEY choose the means to achieve it.
#2. Short and simple guitar lessons
Short lessons that you can easily tackle are more fun and rewarding than long theory lessons. Some people have the misconception that only children need to be entertained by a lesson, but it has been proven that adults need it, too. You may be thinking: “But, adults have a longer attention span”. It’s true, but when it comes to totally new concepts, this is questionable. Why punish yourself unnecessarily?
#3. Play with others when you’re studying alone
You need to practice with different time signatures and know how to count beats so you don’t get lost when playing in a band. A good alternative to playing in a band is professionally recorded backing tracks. Midi tracks are useful, but they don’t motivate you as well as professionally recorded audio.
#4. Ensure your future in the music business
A good general method will ensure that you’ll be prepared for any situation you’ll encounter professionally. Certificates and/or diplomas earned during and after the course are also more convincing when you are looking for that high paying job as a studio musician, on a TV program, in a professional band, etc.
#5. Learn to read musical notation!
Guitar tabs are nice and practical for learning and most online guitar lessons make use of them. But your chances of getting much further in the music business rely heavily on the ability to read and understand musical notation. Don’t fool yourself and end up getting left behind further on down the road!
#6. Multimedia - take advantage of progress
Most online guitar lessons give you access to mp3 tracks of the exercise being executed properly, so you know what it’s supposed to sound like. Some even have videos to this end, which is even better, because it takes the guesswork out of your learning and saves you from acquiring bad habits which can limit you from learning more advanced concepts later on.
Chris Standring’s “Guitar Made Simple”, in addition to all the features mentioned in this article, also offers personally designed software and excellent email support.
Final words
Jean Jacques Rousseau, started the revolution in teaching methods way back in the 18th century, stating that the lesson should be adapted to the learner, and not the learner to the lesson. Today this makes perfect sense, because difference between learning quickly, slowly or not learning at all, depends largely on the way the lesson is presented and taught. Chris Standring applies this philosophy intensely in his guitar lessons.
Ruben Cardos has been a non stop studio and live musician as well as sound technitian, electronics technitian and sporatic guitar teacher for well over 25 years.
Check out Chris Standring’s “Guitar Made Simple” at: http://bandsuccess.blogspot.com/2008/02/review-best-online-electric-guitar.html
