Why You Should Learn The Guitar Online

So what can you expect to get from a typical private guitar lesson? Lets assume that this is an hours lesson which is usually scheduled for once a week. The typical guitar tutor will usually charge between $20 - $25 for this hours lesson and during that time you can probably expect it to include:

1. Time taken to get yours and/or guitar tutors lesson material ready
2. Tuning of your guitar
3. Warming up your fingers
4. A review of last weeks lesson
5. Problem solving review of last weeks lesson with some hints and tips
6. Learn some new material
7. Repeat this process the following week

Believe me I know this to be true, I am a private guitar tutor myself and spoke to various friends of mine who have had private lessons. This is just a pattern which happens over and over again, it is a tried a tested method that works - but it takes a lot longer to learn to play the guitar this way than using online guitar lessons. Look at those 7 steps - how many of those could you eliminate if you were to learn online? I would say step 1, 2, 3 (and maybe 4 depending on what you are learning) could all be eliminated which will give you more time to learn, play and practice.

This isn't an attack on the private guitar tutor by any means, as I said - I am one! There is still a place in the "learn to play the guitar" market for them but I don't believe that it is on a weekly or fortnightly basis. A student should only use guitar tutors when they have difficulty with something in particular. Any guitar tutor worth their salt will be able to tutor you at any stage you are at, if not tutor you then mentor you. I believe a guitar tutor should teach you how to teach yourself to play the guitar but many don't - its not in their interest, why would they do something that sabotages their income? Of all my students only 1 has a weekly lesson (and this is because it is a group lesson of 3 brothers, they are 7 years old and the parent wants them learning and not on the street), the others have fortnightly lessons at most.

There is a saying that guitar tutors have about learning the guitar: "you learn the guitar inbetween guitar lessons - not at guitar lessons". Its a very good saying for several reasons.

1. You only learn by practicing.
2. The guitar tutor doesn't teach you something and you can immediately do it, a guitar tutor will teach you something, point you in the right direction and then you practice it until you can do it. It doesn't matter whether you are a beginner or whether you are Eric Claptop, the principle applies to you both.
3. You will learn more on your own from experimenting and playing. As Albert Einsein said "the best form of education is play".

Assuming that you agree with what I have just written then a private guitar tutor can't offer you anything that an online guitar package can't except costing you more - do you agree? Why are so many professional guitar tutors now working online for such companies that I will cover later?

If you are one of those people that would like to learn to play the guitar but has never got round to it, let me tell you - it is never too late! If you are seriously considering learning to play and have looked into the possiblitly of online guitar lessons then you have probably asked yourself - why should I learn to play the guitar online? If you haven't looked into how you will learn yet then let me tell you now - take the online route.

I have had many discussions with guitarists and guitar tutors about the online guitar lessons vs private lessons argument but this hub is about why you should go with online guitar lessons over private ones.

The biggest reason why you should choose online guitar lessons over private ones is because of the price. Online lessons are available for around a quarter of the price of private ones. For example; with private tuition you are looking at around $20 - $25 an hour! Read that cost again..... That is just for one hour of someones time, what really can you learn in that time? You will probably be shown no more than three chords, how to play them, the names of the strings and thats it I would say. I am a guitar tutor myself so I know only too well the general format of private lessons. Now lets compare that to a few online packages.

Guitar Tricks

With Guitar Tricks you have 24 FREE video guitar lessons to get you started. These lessons are taught by up to 45 professional guitar tutors and include sheet music, tutorials and video streaming.Create yourself a free profile and you get another 24 free lessons!! Now thats 48 lessons already and you haven't paid anything yet. If each of those lessons took you an hour (in all honestly they will take you longer) that is obviously 48 hours - that is a massive saving! If you are hell bent on having private guitar lessons at least take these first you have nothing to lose.

Further to that, Guitar Tricks offer a monthly subscription at a cost of $14.95 which will give you over 3,000 video lessons. Now I don't need to do the math for you here! For a years subscription at Guitar Tricks you could probably only get around 10 private lessons - thats 10 hours of lessons at most or put another way 10 WEEKS! Compared to the 52 weeks that Guitar Tricks will give you.

Ironically with that much of a saving you can buy yourself a guitar, or a better guitar or effect pedals. I have included the price list below from there site for you to glance at, or click here.

With Jamplay the price is slightly higher at $19.95 at the time of writing (they say this is a limited time offer but with 100% money back guarantee it doesn't matter too much) you still have a vast array of guitar lessons to choose from. They provide

• 46 guitar tutors (one of which I have included a video of here as an example) 
• Over 475 hours of guitar video lessons
• Lessons for beginner to advanced guitarists
• 100% money back guarantee if you are not satisfied
• Guitar Tutors live on webcam
• Printable Lessonn write-ups

Jamplay have been broadcasting up to 12 hours of webcam guitar lessons a day. Ask yourself now - what can a private guitar tutor offer that online guitar lessons don't? The customer support is superb, the email support is improving the community forum is growing and with time this will be exceptional. I am a firm believer in community forums, it is a great place to discuss your problems and solutions with learning the guitar and discover whether different students learning methods work for you. You may want to meet with local guitarists in your area for a "jam" and a forum makes this possible, but bear in mind the Jamplay forums are not designed for this so don't be too dissapointed if this isn't possible.

I have included an example lesson by one of the instructors at Jamplay called Jim Deering, his website is found at http://www.jimsguitar.com/. This is just one example of the tutors that they have at Jamplay and if you look at his website you can see the quality of tutor and guitarist that they are providing. If fingerpicking is not your style of guitar then don't worry they have many tutors of this quality that provide a variety of genres of music.

Overall though, like Guitar Tricks, Jamplay has far more to offer than a private guitar tutor could and for a lot cheaper.

With Jamorama you will be joined with over 200,000 members. Jamorama is by no means the biggest online guitar tuition package but they do boast being the 'Leading Provider of Guitar Courses Online'. A little vague in my opinion, I don't know what that is compared with or how they can claim that but either way they are a major player in the online lesson market. They do have major benefits for learning, like the other packages mentioned above they have:

• Downloadable video lessons
• Electric and Acoustic guitar lessons
• Play along tracks
• skill building exercises

While this is a good introduction, I don't feel that it compares to Guitar Tricks or Jamplay by any means, for example there are only 148 video lessons currently compared to the 3000+ at Guitar Tricks. Jamorama make some bold claims but I am not sure what they base these claims on or where these 'surveys' have been conducted.

With all this being said it is a great way to learn and Jamorama are definately heading in the right direction, I just fell that should you invest in a course, you can get more for your money at Guitar Tricks or Jamplay.

If you are in 2 minds (or maybe 3) then try signing up for Jamorama's free guitar lessons to get a taster. You have nothing to lose, there is no opt in after the free lessons so see if you get on with it, each course will suit different students. Either way you can't go wrong with this format, as I said it is just my opinion that there is better out there.

There are many other related articles should you want to learn the guitar online. I have written a more thorough review of the Guitar Tricks product which can be found here but other reviews and hubs will follow.

Sunilmuse also released a hub for Jamorama which can be found here which may be of use to you.

Alternatively if I have failed to convince you of the benefit of online guitar lessons over private guitar lessons then there is also the possiblitly of DVD guitar lessons. There is a hub here on DVD guitar lessons which you could check out. I am by no means suggesting taking this route as I don't believe it will benefit you in the long run over online lessons but it certainly wont hurt your skills to take a look.

Below I have listed a number of websites for you to take a look at that offer online guitar lessons. Check them out and try out the one that best suits you.

• Guitar Tricks
• Jamplay
• Jamorama
• Justin Guitar it offers free lessons by one guitarist/tutor. Very good but not to the level of Guitar Tricks or Jamplay.