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These days, there is such a multitude of sites offering guitar lessons that it is difficult to know where to start. There are free sites and paid sites, sites which offer streamed video lessons, sites which offer downloads of lessons, sites which offer only tab and textual information about modes and scales etc. Then you’ve got YouTube with tons of guitar lessons available for viewing. Some sites are devoted to a particular style of playing, while others offer a whole spectrum of styles and teaching methods. Where to begin with this somewhat daunting online array if you want to learn how to play the guitar?

Well personally, learning scales never did it for me. How dull can you get? And music theory didn’t really get me going either. Yawn. But I tell you what did get me motivated. Songs. You know. Music. My Dad’s record collection – ELO, The Beatles, Neil Young etc… Songs on the radio – ‘Oh I love this song’…. That’s what you want to do on the guitar, isn’t it? Play those songs you love? Who is going to want to listen to you playing in the mixolydian mode (no idea what that is) or the G minor scale around the campfire? Nobody, unless they are some sort of twisted Joe Satriani fan. After a couple of beers, we all want to sing along to our favourite songs. Well that’s my experience anyway. We want to forget our problems and have a nice sing-song.

So, I got started on guitar just learning songs I liked. I would just listen to records and pick out the tune by ear. Song books are also good. Those ones which give you a picture of the chords along with the words so you can just look and copy without having to read music. Sometimes, I would look at tab but I found puzzling it out rather tiresome. So, I would advise you to think about the songs you love and get started on learning how to play the more simple of them initially. Without doubt, the best way to learn the guitar is to have a living, breathing teacher come round and teach you. Nothing can replace a teacher that can say ‘ok, play along’ or ‘change now’ or reach over and put your crumpled-spider looking fingers in the right places. However, not all of us can afford a live human teacher in person. I would say the next best thing is video guitar lessons and learning with a teacher via skype.

In a video guitar lesson (especially if the teacher has thought out the camera angles properly), you can actually see and hear what the player is doing and just copy. You’re not just trying to figure it out from off a page, which is much harder. You can also get a better sense of the timing from a video lesson than from a page. On the down-side, you don’t get feedback from a video and you can’t ask a video questions.

Lessons via skype have the advantage that the teacher can listen to what you play and comment although they are hindered by the fact that they can’t just reach out and put your fingers in the right places. Plus, you can’t jam along to a jam track with a teacher via skype and sometimes the image and sound are slightly delayed or the call can drop.

So, to sum up. If you can’t afford a real, live teacher, the next best things are video guitar lessons or lessons via skype. Now it just so happens (and you thought I wrote this article for philanthropic reasons) that I have a site with my very own <a target=”_new” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.mattsguitarlessons.co.uk/”>online guitar lessons for beginners</a>through which you can contact me to arrange skype guitar lessons or from which you can download quality video guitar lessons teaching songs. Some of them are totally free. So you can start to <a target=”_new” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.mattsguitarlessons.co.uk/”>learn how to play the guitar</a> right now.

A couple of years back, I was unhappy in my job and was searching for a sense of purpose in life. I longed to do something that was more meaningful, fulfilling and rewarding. One day, whilst looking for inspiration online, I discovered some of Wayne Dyer’s audio material. He was talking about living with ‘a sense of purpose, a sense of mission’, and I was very taken with his message that it is possible to do what you love for a living. Over the course of the next year or so, I listened to a lot of his material, and I became convinced that doing what you love and making a living at it was not only possible; to do anythinhg else was an insult to the universe. Hopefully I can convince you of the same with this article.

I have always loved music and I started to play the guitar when I was sixteen. I loved it and soon had a reputation for being the best guitarist in town. I would sit for hours and work out songs on the guitar, something for which I had a real talent. However, I had never really thought about playing the guitar for a living and ended up taking the ’sensible’ and ‘realisitic’ route into a job that, despite paying well, left me unfulfilled and frustrated. We are often told that our passions are alright ‘as a hobby’ but that they won’t pay the bills and family members are often the worst for doing this. But Wayne Dyer really helped me to undo a lot of this societal brainwashing and I got to thinking about how I could get paid to sit and play the guitar all day instead of working for the man. After a period of reflection, I hit on the idea of making videos to teach the stuff I enjoyed working out so much on the guitar and selling them online.

So, I set to work. It wasn’t easy. I came up against a lot of skepticism and discouragement from family and friends. I didn’t know the first thing about setting up a website and I had no capital whatsover. In fact, I was in quite a lot of debt. Nonetheless, I was determined to succeed and I just started putting one foot in front of the other and finding out how it was all done. I started making the video lessons in my spare time, got a website going all by myself and although I have had a million and one hurdles along the way, the site is now making enough money to live from and I get so much encouragement from my students that I know I am following the right path. Now, I get up when I want and spend the day doing what I love and more money keeps rolling in. If I can do it so can you.

If you really want to do something, then with enough determination, hard-work and persistence, you’re going to make things happen. There is no other way it can be. If you can believe in yourself, even during times when you seem to be getting absolutely nowhere, and keep the dream alive, you will be able to do what you love for a living. If you can ignore the skepticism and discouragement of family and friends who sit around making excuses all day and trying to sully your plans, you are going to succeed. End of story.

Take a look at my website with its video guitar lessons