Many Types of Guitar Lessons What’s right for you

So you want to learn to play guitar. Of course you’re going to need guitar lessons, but there are a few questions you should answer before you run out and buy a “teach yourself program” or sign up for lessons.

Questions you should ask yourself are:

• Do you want to play Rock, Blues, Jazz or a variety?
• Do you want to take lessons or teach yourself?
• What level of play are you at now? Beginner or intermediate?

As a guitar player, I think there is still a lot to be said for the quality of instruction you get from a one-on-one in person lesson. You can ask questions receive immediate feedback, and also custom tailor your instruction some what to the style of guitar you’re most interested in.

Of course, this isn’t for every body, and if you prefer learning from the comfort of your own home, then you should. That’s why these new products exist, and it’s also the exact reason I put time into building this website.

Let’s look at the different types of guitar lessons available, and what format is best for you.

Guitar Lesson dvds

This is probably the least “tech” of the three types of guitar lessons we’re going to talk about, how ever it’s my personal favorite. Guitar lesson kits that come on dvd generally consist of a very thorough lesson plan, and provide very high quality video, and professional teaching style.

It’s not cheap to make dvds. There is a cost of production, creation, packaging design, and distribution, there fore it’s only high end instructors and large companies that put these types of guitar lesson dvd packages together.

DVD’s are divided up into chapters, usually one chapter is a lesson. So in a complete lesson kit you might receive 10-20 dvd’s, plus additional printed material. My favorite Guitar lesson dvd package is Learn and Master guitar, I’ve put together an overview of it here.

PROS

• Easy to follow lessons and build on each previous one
• Covers all areas of learning including theory, chords, reading music etc.

CONS

• Easy to follow lessons that build on each other for easy learning
• Is more expensive then other products

Best For: Beginner, and Intermediate players. Players who want to learn electric, acoustic, or both

Learn more about guitar lesson dvds here.

Online Guitar lessons

Over the past year there have been two large online guitar lesson sites launched. Both sites charge a monthly membership fee that provides you with access to hundreds of guitar lessons ranging from 3-30 minutes.

The amount of content these sites provide is huge, mainly since they have zero cost of delivery. They can create as many guitar lessons as they can and they don’t have a production cost to create dvd’s and/or distribute them.

The down fall I see to these guitar lesson websites is the time it can take for a video to load. Depending on the length of the video you sometimes wait for the video to load before you can watch your lesson. Also if you plan on learning a lot then you’re going to be paying that monthly fee each month for quite a while.

PROS

• Lots of instruction, and lots of variation for what you can learn
• If you only join for a couple of months is the most cost effective option

CONS

• Not great lesson plans, often left up to you to decide what lesson you do when
• Doesn’t always cover the basics and provide a good foundation to work on

Best for: Intermediate Players, mainly due to lack of exact direction for beginners. Acoustic, and electric players.

Downloaded Guitar lessons and courses

These are the simplest of all the guitar lesson products. Usually they consist of a downloaded ebook (Adobe acrobat file), some video and audio files. They’re targeted at brand new guitar players, and usually teach you how to play your favorite songs but not much about musical theory.

The price is normally quite a bit less then some of the DVD guitar courses, and monthly membership sites, but the amount of content and instruction you receive is a lot less as well.

Most of these products sell you on the concept of learning guitar quickly. How ever if you’ve been learning guitar for any length of time you know it’s not instant. It takes time to build the right foundation and expand your knowledge about the instrument. These are my least favorite type of guitar lessons.

PROS

• In-expensive
• Learn to play songs faster since there is no technique or theory lessons

CONS

• No theory lessons, so you won’t be able to read music or expand your knowledge beyond playing chords etc.
• No real technique taught so can be difficult to progress

Best For: purely recreational players to learn a few tunes to play around the camp fire. Acoustic guitar players mainly.