Learning guitar, or any other music instrument can be an excellent past time, but it is also very healthy. Research shows that it significantly boosts the brain’s growth.
However, as with any other skill, an important question arises: where do we start?
Most of us would look for tutors in our vicinity and be fine with paying hefty fees. But after extensive research, and talking to my self-taught musician friends, I came to a conclusion: you don’t need a music tutor! Well at least, not a physical one at least.
And when I talk about a virtual teacher, I’m referring to someone powerful, someone knowledgeable, someone full of treasures. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, you know that someone as *drum roll* THE INTERNET.
Well it was obvious where I was going with that. But then the same question arises. “Sure, we get it the internet blah blah...but WHERE TO STARTTT?!” With the amount of stuff that is on the web, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But hey remember I said I did some research? I’ve collected some resources that hundreds and thousands of budding guitarists use to learn or sharpen their skills.
So all you need to do is pick up a guitar, and get started.
If you are a complete beginner, there is something you must know before and that is that your instrument needs to be tuned. And since I’m here to make sure you don’t spend a penny on this journey, I’ll also tell you that there are tons of free guitar tuning apps out there. One of the most popular and easy ones to use is GuitarTuna. It’s available on both Google Play and App Store.
Now that your guitar is tuned, you’re thinking “where is that teacher you promised?”. Before I give you that bit of information, I have an advice for you. Sure, you can nose dive straight into the vast ocean of song tutorials on YouTube, and pick out your favourite songs and start learning, but if you really want to learn everything, like the techniques and the theory, which is a very good practice, I’ll advice against learning individual songs. Instead, here are some comprehensive, FREE courses that will hold your hand and take you from a complete beginner, to a pro.
1) Justin Sandercoe | justinguitar.com
Justin Sandercoe is an Australian guitarist and songwriter. He has been teaching online since 2003. He is a remarkable teacher and with him you feel like he’s right there in front of you. He answers all your questions as they develop in your heads. He gives important do’ and don’ts. My favourite thing about him is he outlines a practice schedule for you which helps you keep on track. His videos are up on his YouTube channel, but I would advise you to follow the website. 10/10 our top pick.
2) Marty Schwartz | martymusic.com
Marty Schwartz is an American guitarist who has been teaching for over a decade now. He moved from GuitarJamz to his own website and channel now, Marty Music. He covers a wide range of genres of guitar playing.
3) Andy Crowley | andyguitar.co.uk
Andy Crowley is a British guitarist, teaching online since 2009. Although his courses are paid, he still has thousands of free song tutorials, and he strips them down to the very basics which is very helpful for complete beginners. His free lessons are up on his YouTube channel called Andy Guitar.
4) Dave Tran from GuitarZero2Hero | guitarzero2hero.com
Dave Tran is a guitarist from Australia. His song tutorials are annotated, simple, step-by-step and FREE. He teaches a simplified version, as well as a close to studio recording version. Be sure to check out his YouTube channel, GuitarZero2Hero.
This was a short list of free resources that you can try out. If you want to learn Urdu/Hindi songs, you can always find loads of tutorials on YouTube for them. But I highly recommend going through a proper course, like that of justinguitar.com to get your fundamentals strong.
And as with learning skill, perseverance and patience is always crucial. And so is practice. If you are completely new, your fingertips would hurt from pressing down on the strings so it’s essential to take breaks. Every single person experiences this pain so don’t get disheartened. Remember, the guitar is one of the most widely played instruments, so it shouldn’t be that hard to learn, right? Rock on!
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