How to use the Internet to Learn to Play the Guitar

We have all heard it a hundred times before: the Internet is a vast base of information. It is an unprecedented collection of professional and amateur documentation and advice. Chances are virtually every topic ever has been discussed in some form on the Internet. Well, lucky for us guitars are a very popular topic and there is an endless supply of learning material for beginners on the Internet. I am one of the thousands of people who are living proof that you can learn to play guitar using only yourself and the Internet.

What you will need to learn guitar on the Internet

Everyone’s situation is going to be different. Some people may have some musical experience under their belt already. In their case, learning the musical theory behind the guitar might be a good course to take. For someone like myself who didn’t know squat about music before I picked up the guitar, diving straight into learning songs was the best method. Learning songs allowed me to get a taste for music and made me want to learn more. When learning songs I would be required to study new chords and practice them in order to play the song. This is how my playing progressed. Eventually you will want to write music or play with others and you will get into things like scales and keys.

Regardless of whether you have previous knowledge or not you will need some basic personality traits to teach yourself to play guitar.

1. Patience - Learning any instrument requires patience. Because there is both a mental and a physical aspect to playing the guitar practice is essential. It won’t come easy and sometimes there will be things you wont be able to play.
2. Determination - Learning chords, scales, picking techniques, and fingering techniques will take regular practice. Since you will be learning on your own, you will require the determination to teach yourself these skills.
3. Passion - Finally you will need an interest or a passion to play. If you aren’t passionate about playing what is the point of learning at all? Passion can be the number one factor in determining the speed that you learn.

How much of each of those qualities you need depends on what level of playing you wish to achieve. Metal guitar gods like Zakk Wylde and Alexi Laiho have said that they would spend up to 12 hours a day practicing their playing. Their level of playing is a direct result of that determination.

How I learned to play guitar

I would consider myself an experienced guitarist. I have strengths in a lot of areas, but like every other guitarist there is always something new to learn. It didn’t happen over night. However after 8 years I am playing at a level now that I didn’t even know was possible when I started. Here is how I learned to play the guitar.

Learn Songs You Like
When I started playing guitar I wanted to learn to play Nirvana songs. I knew a friend who played guitar already and I had seen him using online tablature to learn songs. Tablature is a form of music notation that is very simple to read. It tells you directly what strings to pluck and what frets to press. That day I went home, picked up the guitar we had and searched the Internet for come as you are tab. I was able to learn how to play the verse of the song pretty well in about half an hour.

That night I went through my musical collection listening to songs trying to find others I could learn. Many sounded too difficult to me. Some I tried to learn and gave up because they were obviously beyond my playing ability on the first day. Although I don’t remember many of the songs now, I know I learned some parts of different Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Collective Soul tunes. By the end of the week I had a few songs I could show off to my family and friends.

Challenge Yourself to Learn More
Eventually in learning I became aware of chords. Initially I only learned power chords because they were the choice of Kurt Cobain. Power chords are 3 notes that have the same finger formation. All you do is move them to a different location on the guitar to make a different chord. When I began playing some Classic Rock I learned the concept of open chords. These chords all have different finger formations and are usually played near the end of the fretboard. As I would try and learn new songs I would have to study and practice different chords.

Through learning songs from tab files there were a lot of symbols like “/”, “^”, “h”, and “p” that I didnt understand. Searching the Internet for an article on how to read tab files I found that / was slide, ^ was bend, h was hammer-on, and p was pull-off. These guitar playing techniques were all new to me and again I had to search the internet for tutorials on each technique.

A few months into playing guitar I started playing songs with other friends who played guitar. While jamming with my friends they would often improvise in their playing and I wanted to learn to do that. It was confusing to me how people could learn what notes to play so that it would sound in tune with the other guitars. Again I searched the internet for “how to improvise guitar”, “how to solo guitar”, and “how to jam guitar”. Through the articles I read I became aware of the world of scales. I think this is where things really started to make sense for me. I learned a lot of things over the next few months. The basic scale to learn seems to be the pentatonic scale. So I learned that one and was improvising in no time.

The next thing I learned was barre chords. Barre chords are difficult to learn because they usually require all of your fingers to fret them, but once you learn them you arent limited to open chords when you want to play rythm. Barre chords really improved the strength in my fretting hand and allowed me to play with more precision and speed.

At this point I had a bag full of techniques and chords under my belt and I was finding songs were much easier for me to learn. I think I began to plateau at this point and really focused on perfecting the skills I had learned. Eventually I grew tired of playing acoustic guitar and started lusting after electric guitar. My musical tastes had moved from Classic Rock to Thrash and Metal. I was listening to Metallica, Pantera, and Ozzy and I wanted to learn to play Metal.

I started focusing a lot of my attention on my soloing skills. I learned several solos note for note and practiced my speed and precision.

Resources

So enough talk, simply what can you find online to help you play guitar? Probably the first thing you want to find is tabs. Find a song that you like, that in your opinion doesn’t sound too hard musically and search for a guitar tab for it. If you find a tab and you don’t know how to read it, search for “how to read guitar tabs”. Once you get the hang of reading guitar tabs start searching for guitar lessons. Most guitar lessons use tab notation to teach you, so you will need to know how to read them first.

Tablature and Chords
Tablature (or tabs) and Chords are another guitar player’s interpretation of how to play a song. Tablature ranges in detail but will tell you where on the fretboard to put your fingers. Chords tell you the names and the order of the chords in a song. Learning the rhythm or picking pattern is up to the player.

There are millions of tab and chord files online and depending on the popularity of the song may be multiple different versions from different guitar players.

Lessons
Lessons are also easy to find online. Many guitar related sites offer lessons written by site members. Some sites provide video or audio to go along with the lessons. Some just are plain text. Lessons range from beginner to expert. One note, you should never have to pay for lessons online. There is an abundance of free lessons and nothing you pay for will be any better than these.

Offline Resources
Although the Internet is an excellent source for guitar information, sometimes sorting through it all can be difficult. Many online material is written by amateur writers and therefore can be hard to grasp. For that reason, I think it’s a good idea to also look into books and guitar magazines for learning material. Since they are written by professional authors they should be easy to read and not too cryptic. Guitar magazines are also a great source of tabs. Each magazine usually comes with 5 or 6 tabs of recent and classic songs.

What You Won’t Find
The Internet can’t teach you everything. Because playing the guitar is a hands on activity sometimes there will be things that will be difficult to learn from print. There are just some techniques that would be much easier to learn if there was someone to guide you and give you feedback.

Since everyone and anyone can put a guitar lesson on the Internet it is hard sometimes to tell which technique is best or “proper”. Some really bad habits that will be impossible to break can be picked up by teaching yourself. However, some of the best guitarists were self taught and their “bad habits” have become something that amateur guitarists aspire to perfecting.

In Review

The Internet can be a great resource for learning all sorts of new skills, including playing the guitar.

What You Need

• Patience and Determination
• A working guitar to practice on
• An interest and a passion to learn

What the Internet Can Offer

• Tab and Chord files
• Lessons on scales, chords, and techniques
• Lessons on guitar care and maintenance

What the Internet Can’t Offer

• Hands on teaching
• Guarantee of “proper” technique

Links

WholeNote - The Online Guitar Community
Ultimate Guitar.com
Guitar Noise - Online to On Stage
Cyberfret.com - Your source for free online guitar lessons

Please, feel free to comment with your online learning resources.

Posted Saturday, November 18th, 2006 at 10:41 am under Guitar Basics.

tagged beginner guitar, guitar, guitar basics, guitar lessons, how to, learn how to play guitar, learning and lessons

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