Online Guitar Lessons and Courses
Discover the top online guitar training courses for beginners, intermediate and advanced. Learn how to play all popular styles at Web Music Star.
Hi there! I'm Terry and if you just opened this page because you were searching for the best and most highly recommended guitar lessons online, I can certainly do that for you. I play many different styles of guitar as well as playing bass guitar (and singing) in a live gigging band and I've done this for close on 40 years now.
I guess you could say I know a thing or two about this instrument and how to play it!
A Very Special Guitar Teaching Program
People have been bugging me for years to put together my own video guitar training course and finally I decided it was time to do it. Right now it's not quite ready for release, but that's no problem because in the interim I can certainly recommend some very good courses that I have been a member of at one time or another over the years.
What's more, I can say hand on heart they helped me improve my own playing skills.
So when someone comes and tells you that "You can't teach an old dog new tricks," tell them that's nonsense! You never stop learning no matter how good you get or how accomplished you think you are, you are always learning new stuff.
Of course when you are just starting out, there is a ton of stuff to learn. But gradually as time passes and you put in the practice and the effort to learn your instrument, you will learn new skills, techniques and tricks that will set you on the road to mastery!
For Beginners: Learning to Play the Guitar from the Start
Everyone who plays this instrument (or any musical instrument for that matter) had to start somewhere and that is right at the start! When you pick up a guitar for the very first time and make up your mind you want to learn how to play it you will probably have absolutely no idea what to do with it.
Come to think of it, you'll have no inking how to make it play like the people you've seen playing on stage in bars and clubs, on music videos or on TV. You can strum the stings and make a sound for sure, but that will probably be the extent of your ability when you're starting at ground zero!
Do not let that lack of knowledge concern you right now. We all started right where you are now, holding this strangely shaped piece of wood with strings on it and wondering what to do with it!
Learning to Play from a Professional Guitar Tutor
The best investment you can make at the outset is to get some private guitar tuition from a professional teacher who can show you how to get started playing some basic chord shapes and where to put the fingers of your fretting hand on the fretboard while you strum or pick with the other hand.
Notice I didn't qualify left or right hand there. That's because a right handed player will use their left hand for fretting and their right for strumming or picking, whereas a left handed player will use the opposite arrangement.
Anyhow, I'm getting ahead of myself here. What most eager new players want to be able to do is to play a simple song on their instrument so they can sing along with it. Some even more eager ones will say "to hell with that" and want to start shredding at a rate of hundreds of notes a bar like Steve Vai or Yngwie Malmsteen, but have patience.
That lofty level of competence will come.
Learning How to Read Music
What? No way man! Reading music is for those classical orchestra guys not for an uber cool guitarist.
Really?
Think again. While it is not essential that you learn to sight read musical score, it really helps to gain an understanding of what written music looks like, what it means and why it is still used in this day and age! Trust me, you will need to know this stuff.
The main reason why a guitarist will need to know about music is because you will have to be able to translate musical notation into fingering positions on your fretboard. It doesn't matter so much about actually reading the music you will be playing, but you will be interacting with other musicians at some point
These may be band members if (and when) you join a band who will be talking about stuff like, "Minor scales, suspended fourths, major sevenths and relative minors," for example and you are going to have to know what they all are!
Even the most basic of chords that you will need to start out learning about have names that you will need to know, like "G", "C" and maybe something like "E minor." You'll need to have learned these chord formations to be able to play simple songs.
Intermediate Guitar Playing Lessons
Once you're past the initial "learning how to play guitar" stage and have become accomplished enough to be able to play most of the more commonly used chord structures and maybe some basic lead work, you can really boost your knowledge and skill by letting a professional show you what to do. Again, you can choose to attend private tuition classes but depending on your budget, you may need to compromise.
There are some really good intermediate guitarists courses available online that are downloadable so you can get started with them almost right away once you have paid for them. This is actually one of the most economical ways of getting top expert tuition for relatively low cost, especially when you compare it to the cost of private lessons.
Take a look at my recommendations below and by all means check more than just oen of them out to see which one feels right for you personally.
Training for the Advanced Guitarist
As I mentioned near the start of this article, I'm a very advanced player but I am still learning new techniques and playing tricks as I go along. I mostly pick them up these days from interacting with other gigging musicians that I meet in my travels, but not everyone can do that.
If you're not regularly gigging the chances are you may not be meeting new players and missing out on picking up a few new tricks here and there. No problem! There are advanced online courses you can get that can show you a lot of stuff you may never even dreamt you could do!
Check out my recommended courses below to see if one or more suits what you are looking for. Bottom line: Never get to that place where you think you know it all. Trust me, there is always more to learn, try out and master!
Acoustic Guitar Lessons
While I'm about it, if you are a beginner you will probably have noticed there are different types of instrument. The acoustic guitar is the one most players learn first, although that's not set in stone.
The reason most people start with an acoustic is that it usually costs a lot less to buy one of these as your first instrument and it doesn't need to be plugged into anything to make a sound. In fact many seasoned players (me included) actually prefer to sit down with an acoustic instrument and play for enjoyment, for practice or just to sing along with.
There are no hassles with having to plug into an amp and then fiddle around with volume and tone settings (never mind the plethora of other sound shaping dials and switches that come on modern amps). You're unlikely to irritate your mother or your neighbours by playing too loud (even though you're sure it's too quiet) and you can pick it up and put it down at a minute's notice.
Add to that the rounder, mellower acoustic tone is pleasant on the ears!
Well you can learn to play acoustic guitar online with specially prepared courses that are available to download if you want and for a surprisingly low cost too.
Learning to Play Electric Guitar
If you are adamant that you only want to play an electric guitar, no problem! You can simply choose one of the better online tuition programs that specialize in electrified axemanship and take it from there.
Of course, a time will undoubtedly come when it dawns on you that a hot Strat is not necessarily the be all and end all of guitaristry and eventually you will come around to the beauty of the unplugged version. But hey, that's for another day, right?
OK, let's take a brief look at the courses that are available right now online at prices that are both affordable and way lower than the cost of private real-world lessons:
JamPlay
Here is a great membership site that provides peer support to go with the excellent course of high quality HD video tutorials that are also mobile and tablet friendly so you can take them wherever you go. JamPlay boasts one of the largest student bases of all online course programs in this category and lists some of the biggest names in guitaristry among its teaching staff!
You can read my full review of Jamplay guitar lessons and learn all about this excellent training program by clicking the link.
Find out more by clicking the link below:
Learn to Play Guitar Online with JamPlay
...more to follow...
Jamorama
Another very highly recommended course of guitar lessons that you can buy and download online direct from the official website is Jamorama. You can click this link to read my full review of Jamorama to hear what I can reveal about it.
This is another of one of the best courses around right now and believe it or not has amassed over a quarter of a million students since it went live several years ago. Created by pro guitarist Mark McKenzie who has a big fan base and a lot or recommendations from past and prese4nt students, if you have any doubts as to which course to go with, this is the one you want to start with!
Find out more by clicking the link below:
Learn How to Play Guitar with Jamorama
Articles, Reviews and More
Below is a list of information articles, product and course reviews etc that are related to this category here at Web Music Star. Just click any title that catches your eye to read the full article.