Learning How To Learn To Play Guitar


If you want to learn how to play the guitar the right way, you have to learn how to learn. When I started to learn to play the guitar, I was learning stuff from all over the place. I got free online guitar lessons, which were helpful, but unfocused.

It was like trying to get somewhere by wandering all over the place. You'll get closer to the goal, but never really home in on it. It's certainly not the best way to learn to play guitar. You don't want to meander all over the countryside. Get on the interstate instead of taking the scenic route. Head straight for the goal, pedal to the metal.

When I got serious about learning how to play the guitar I got lessons. Having learned some thing helped, but it also made things difficult because I had learned some things without learning the foundation first. All out of order and confused. And to be honest, my first teacher was a very good guitarist, but not quite as talented at showing someone else how to learn to play guitar easily.

I wish they had courses like Jamorama back then. This is the way to learn how to play the guitar easy and quick. You get started fast and learn exactly what you need to know in exactly the right order. It makes a big difference. In a few weeks you can learn more than in months or years of unfocused lessons and noodling around.

I know from experience that even established guitarists can benefit from the Jamorama course. It's common to hit a plateau and be unable to progress any farther no matter how much you practice. The trouble is that you have to know what to practice and how to practice efficiently. I've known more than a few guitarists who practiced and practiced playing, and never got any better. Why? They were practicing how to play the guitar badly, so they got better and better at playing badly!

Jamorama puts an end to that. This learn to play guitar system gives you a focus so you know how to learn to play guitar quick. It shows just what you need to do to advance to the next skill level... and the next, and the next. It is definitely the quickest and easiest way to learn how to play the guitar.

The Easiest Way To Learn Guitar


Back in the old days, trying to learn how to play guitar was a lot more difficult. You had to find a teacher for one on one instruction. Usually that meant going to a music store and paying someone for weekly lessons to learn how to play the electric guitar you got for Christmas.

And then you never knew what kind of quality the instruction would be. You might get someone who could show you the best way to learn how to play the guitar or someone who didn't really know how to show you the way to learn to play the guitar easily.

Nowadays it's so much easier. You can find courses online like Jamorama that show clearly the best way to learn guitar. Listen, if you want to learn to play the guitar online you have GOT to understand what a value the Jamorama course really is. You could pay ten times the amount for lessons on how to play the electric guitar from a private teacher than you would pay for the ENTIRE COURSE from Jamorama, and still not get results that are half as good. It's really amazing. I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars to private teachers trying to understand the best way to learn how to play the guitar and I've seen students learn more in a week of lessons about how to play the guitar from Jamorama than I did in months of lessons on how to play the electric guitar. Learning to play guitar from a guitarist is one thing, but it's much better to learn from a guitarist who also knows how to teach, breaking a subject down into easy pieces and presenting them in the right order.



People ask me how hard is it to learn guitar? Honestly, it's very easy if you get a teacher who can show you the way to learn how to play the guitar online. Jamorama is one of the best methods available to get you playing like a pro quicky and easily. Even you long time players who've hit a plateau and gotten stuck in a rut will improve your guitar playing skills quickly.

If you want to successfully learn how to play the guitar quickly and easily you have to do what it takes to make it happen. Don't settle for a sloppy approach and second rate results. You can bet the masters of the guitar never passed up an opportunity to improve their playing.

Tuning Up Your Guitar

You can't very well learn how to play the guitar if you're not in tune. The first thing to become familiar with is standard tuning. There are lots of ways to tune the guitar, but this is the most common and the one you'll want to learn first. The notes of the open strings in standard tuning are, from lowest to highest, E A D G B E. The highest string, the thinnest one, is referred to as the first string. B is the second string, G the third, D the fourth, A the fifth, and the lowest E string is the sixth.

You'll need something in tune that's going to give you a pitch to work from. Tuning forks and pitch pipes are inexpensive and have been used for a long time. Nowadays there are lots of guitar tuners online, such as this guitar tuner at gieson.com. A lot of players tune from a keyboard. If you have one handy, that's a great way to tune up. Best of all is a decent electronic tuner. It's a great little tool.

If you have just one string in tune you can tune up all the others. In standard tuning the interval between the strings is a perfect fourth with the exception of the second string, which is a major third above the third string. So the fifth string is a P4th higher than the sixth string, the fourth string is a P4th above the fifth, the third a P4th above the fourth, the second a M3rd above the third, and the first a P4th above the second.

Don't get all hung up on intervals, though. Not yet. You'll learn all about them soon enough. In practical terms it shows a way to tune one string by seeing it's relationship to the next lowest string. The A of the open fifth string is also located on the fifth fret of the sixth string, so you can tune the fifth string by raising or lowering the pitch to agree with the note at the fifth fret of the sixth string (assuming the sixth string is in tune). Likewise, the fourth string's D is also found at the fifth fret of the fifth string. The G of the open third string is located at the fifth fret of the fourth string . The B of the second string is found at the third string's fourth fret (a major third higher than the G instead of a perfect fourth). And the high E of the first string is located at the fifth fret of the second string.

Note that the same pitches of the higher strings are also found higher on the fretboard on the lower strings. The D of the open fourth string is located at the fifth fret of the fifth string, and also at the tenth fret of the sixth string. The open third string's G is at the fifth fret of the fourth string, the tenth fret of the fifth string, and the fifteenth fret of the sixth string. Now, these G's are the same pitch, but the different acoustic properties of the fatter strings will make the timbre a little different.

Looking at these relationships also introduces us to patterns on the fretboard. This is vital in coming to understand the instrument. Increasing you skill as a guitarist means becoming more and more familiar with the territory of the fretboard. Exploring that territory is what playing guitar is all about.

Learning Guitar For Beginners: A Solid Foundation

One common question asked by those who are just beginning to learn the guitar is whether it's necessary to learn how to read music. Can't I just learn to play the guitar by using guitar tabs? Guitarists are divided on the issue. The position here at Learn How To Play Guitar Online is that knowing how to read music is an important part of being an accomplished musician.

"But what about [insert name of famous musician here]? He composes great songs and knows how to play the guitar like a master, and he never learned how to read music!" Well, it is true that there have been accomplished composers and guitarists who couldn't read music. But that is an exception. Your skill as a guitarist and a musician will be much greater if you can read music. It is an incredibly valuable tool that any musician will benefit from having.

Learning to play guitar is partly about understanding music. This is much easier with the ability to read music notation. It may not be entirely necessary, but I would strongly suggest that you at least become somewhat familiar with the musical language. Your ability to learn guitar playing will be much easier and your knowledge much deeper if you understand the language!

Here are a few links to get you started:

Guitar tab notation is also very useful for learning to play songs on the guitar. It does have some drawbacks, though. Tab has no indication for note duration, so if you don't know the tune you're out of luck. There are also a number of very badly tabbed songs out there, and often the fingering choices are less than ideal. It can also cause a certain amount of laziness on the part of the guitarist, providing a simple way to play a song without really understanding what's going on musically. Nonetheless, it can be very helpful, especially for someone who is starting to learn to play guitar. Even experienced guitarists like guitar tabs, and perhaps the most useful songbooks are those that contain both traditional notation and tab.

Best of all, you can understand tabs very quickly and easily, much more so than traditional notation.

Now, I know how it is to just want to learn to play guitar and not get sidetracked with other things, but theory is an important part of becoming a musician. You will be able to play guitar much better with a solid musical foundation. You want to play the guitar—that's good. But you should also understand the guitar as well, and the music you want to play on it.

Learn How To Play Guitar Is Online!

Learn How To Play Guitar Online is dedicated to helping new guitarists learn how to play the guitar and to help guitar players learn to play guitar better and improve your guitar playing skills.

We'll be beginning with the basics of learning the guitar and understanding music. Many guitar players skipped over some of the basics and can improve their playing skills tremendously just by taking a step back and strengthening the foundation of the skills they've already learned.

Photo by bentonjazz


Play The Guitar Often

If you want to play guitar better, you have to practice. A lot. The more you play, the faster you will improve. Of course, you have to learn to play guitar correctly in the first place. If you pratice playing guitar badly, you'll only get better at playing the guitar badly!

You have to practice playing the guitar often, and you have to practice your guitar playing correctly. Your early efforts to learn the guitar will be bad. You'll fumble around, your chords will not ring clear, the chord changes will not be smooth... this is completely natural. Just keep at it. Don't be discouraged. Every master of the guitar started the same way.

It takes time to develop your guitar playing skills. You aren't born with the necessary grip strength and dexterity and finger memory. Just play that guitar every day. How soon can you expect your guitar playing to improve? That depends entirely on the quality and amount of your practice. Everyone is different, and the only sure thing is that you will never become a great guitar player if you don't spend a lot of time playing the instrument.

Photo by dustpuppy

In the coming weeks and months we will be providing a valuable resource for new guitarists to get started learning to play the guitar. Stay tuned, and best of luck to you all!