Without a question guitar is the most popular instrument amongst beginner musicians looking to learn to play something. After all most popular songs are written on the guitar and it’s much easier to lug a guitar around as opposed to drums or a piano.

Do you know what the second most popular instrument is with beginners?

The piano, that’s right. The guitar and the piano go hand in hand for a couple of reasons. One they are both used to write much popular music we hear today. Also a singer can use just the piano or guitar to accompany themselves, making it easy to perform for others (large or small groups).

What about learning the piano? Is it a lot more difficult to learn piano as apposed to guitar?

If you’ve spent much time on this site you’ve probably realized that we’re big supporters of the learn and master guitar course. Well guess what, there’s a learn and master piano course as well.

The piano lessons dvd program is similar to the guitar course in that it comes with a lesson book, several lesson dvds and Jam along discs for practicing. The target audience for this course is adults looking to learn piano but don’t have the time for private instruction and would like to save a little money as well.

The course is taught by a world class pianist, Will Barrow. Like Steve Krenz, the instructor for Learn & Master Guitar, Will is a professional performing, composing and teaching musician. He has the knowledge to teach beginners quickly and help them along their journey to mastering the piano.

Legacy Learning Systems Releases New Guitar Course

Legacy Learning Systems, the creators of Learn and Master Guitar, have been busy. They’ve recently released a new series of self study music guitar courses entitled their “Spotlight Series”.

This spotlight series basically focuses on topics that Legacy feels don’t require a full 20 disc course to cover the material needed. The topics covered in this series are:

• Blues Guitar
• Bass Guitar
• Guitar Setup

The most logical one that I had been waiting for was the blues guitar dvd, learn and master blues spotlight. The blues is generally the most popular form of guitar that most electric players are interested in learning after hammering down the basics.

For owners of the original guitar course who have completed it I am sure purchasing the new blues guitar course will be a no brainer.

The bass guitar course is another logical expansion for Legacy Learning. It makes sense that they’d want to incorporate bass guitar into their suite of learning tools, especially since it’s not as heavily covered in the market place as the regular guitar. The bass instructor for the new bass guitar spotlight course is the same bass player used in the jam along band of the blues course.

Finally the guitar setup course is a nice add on, or gift idea (wink wink, nudge nudge), for all those guitar players who are the DIY types. You can always take your guitar into a shop to be professionally setup by a lutheran (guitar maker), but if you want to know a bit more about how to do it yourself this course makes sense.

To learn more about the original guitar course check out our learn and master guitar review. It covers everything you need to know about the course, what you’ll learn and who it’s best suited for.

The Biggest Obstacle to using Guitar Lesson DVD’s and How to Fix it

I talk a lot about the quality of the guitar lesson dvd from Legacy learning systems. I’ve shown you my copy of the product, I’ve written a review and preach about it’s quality to all beginning guitar players I meet. How ever something I don’t do is talk about the #1 obstacle to people succeeding with Learn and Master Guitar.

Discipline

If you bought a copy or are considering getting a copy of Legacy’s guitar instruction dvd then you’re obviously serious about learning guitar. How ever it’s what you do with that guitar course when it lands in your mail box that will make the big difference.

Learning to play from home is 100% possible and fun but you need to add one ingredient that doesn’t come in the box. PRACTICE, well maybe two because Discipline to keep up with the course is a must.

I’ve watched myself purchase courses and programs I was sure I’d use. I’d get excited at the beginning after I buy it but the excitement would die off over a period of days or weeks. It takes time to see big progress when you’re trying to learn an instrument, a language or anything else. You need to have a serious goal set to practice each week, consistently watching the lessons and staying active with your learning.

A Plan to Succeed

I talk a lot about the benefit of being able to watch lessons when ever you want, practice when you have the time and basically be free as a bird and teach yourself at your own pace. Few people actually can do it this way. I’ve found it to be more successful when I set a schedule of when I’m going to read or practice (depending on what I’m learning) and keep a log of each day when you do it.

Some people find it good to report to a friend or spouse how they’re progressing with their goal of learning guitar. This helps create some accountability which is the main reason we give up on things like this when we’re trying to go it alone.

If we’re only accountable to ourselves when we’re learning something new then it’s easy to let ourselves off the hook.

So if you’re about to order a guitar dvd or you have one and haven’t been using it in sometime I’d suggest trying this.

1. Tell a friend or family member you’re planning on getting back in to teaching yourself guitar.
2. Set which days your going to practice and try to set a time you’re going to practice each day.
3. Get started and report back to your friend or family member frequently so you maintain your accountability

Some people don’t have a person they want to confide in to help them along with their goal of learning guitar for those I’d recommend either starting a free blog or posting in a forum daily. This will create some accountability to other forum members and also those who read your blog.

So good luck and get some accountability going to improve your guitar playing!

Learn to play guitar from home - Can everybody do it?

I think there are still a lot of people that believe you cannot learn to play guitar as well from a home study course (whether it be a dvd, online videos, book etc.) as you can taking private guitar lessons. My thoughts to this? I disagree strongly. I cannot see any reason you cannot learn to play guitar at home just as well as you could taking a weekly private lesson, although I don’t think everyone can do this.

What do I mean not everyone can do it?

Well, consider this how many people try to start a diet or a new exercise program only to not stick with it more then a few days? A lot right, that’s the same thing that can happen to those trying to learn to play guitar from home.

You need to have discipline, a plan, and a want to learn the instrument. I think if you really want to learn to play the guitar, and are willing to shell out $10-$15 bucks a week for a 30 minute lesson then you’re likely capable of learning from home, but go over this checklist before you spend any money on a guitar lesson dvd, or online product to make sure.

Are you ready to learn to play guitar from home? A Checklist for the rest of us….

1.) If you’ve taken online lessons in the past, have you practiced between lessons?

If your answer to this question is “NO I didn’t practice” then stop right here, do not pass go. If you didn’t practice when you were paying for lessons each week what are the chances you’re going to take the time to go through the lessons at home and practice on your own terms? You probably like the idea of playing guitar, but don’t yet want it bad enough to commit the time.

2.) Do you have a free 1-2 hours a week, or 30 minutes a day?

Realistically, just because you’ve decided to learn to play guitar from home doesn’t mean you can just ignore practicing and go through the lessons from number one to what ever and not spend a moment reviewing and practicing what you learn.

If you’re going to learn to play guitar from home I suggest you have at least 30 minutes to dedicate to it each day. This way you can watch or review one of the lessons, then spend the rest of the week practicing what you’ve learned. I strongly suggest Learn and Master guitar because it is laid out perfectly to follow this format. You watch one video lesson, then refer to the practice book and jam-along cds for the rest of the week to practice.

3.) Do you believe in the “learn to play in a weekend” concept?

If you think you can learn to play guitar over night, well leave my blog now go buy the first downloaded ebook or product you can find and I wish you luck. I’ve been playing guitar for probably 12-14 years now. It’s only been the last few years that I’ve taken a strong interest in improving my skills and I’m still learning every day. I can’t see (not that I’ve tried so take this as you will) how you can pick up a guitar on Friday, and by Monday morning be playing your favorite top 40 songs.

There are exceptions to this, but if you have zero musical ability right now, have never touched a guitar don’t fall for this concept.

4.) How’s your attention Span?

A lot of us, me included, have difficulty focusing on things for any length of time. If you’re one of those people it’s possible that a 20 minute guitar lesson video might be difficult for you to digest in one sitting. If this is the case you’re either going to have to break the lesson down into even smaller parts, re-watch the lesson more then once that week to grasp the techniques, or opt to enroll for private lessons instead. Hopefully with someone in front of you speaking you can focus better.

These are just a few of the points to consider before you invest any money in a learn at home guitar product. As I already said, I believe any of us can master the guitar on our own if we realie that it takes work and discipline, and it doesn’t happen over night.

If you’re interested in reading about what beginner guitar lessons products I suggest visit my main site here.