You’re never too old or too young to learn the guitar—but you can be too busy. Let’s face it, not all of us have the time to shuttle back and forth from work to home to guitar lessons and back home, even on a weekly basis. The alternative? Online guitar lessons—courses you can do from the comfort of your own home, in your own time, even in your pajamas.

Online lessons have become increasingly popular as people, even children, adopted busier lifestyles. This applies even outside music, from art to academics. But in music, it’s a little complicated because it’s always a two-way affair. you don’t just want to learn notes—you want to be able to play well. Often, that means playing for someone. Many guitar lessons get the instruction part right, but aren’t good at prompting practice and assessing performance. This is one of the first things you should look for when choosing lessons.

High-quality video and audio lessons are a good way of assuring this. Jamplay, for example, has about 570 hours of video instruction from over 40 real-life experts. And it’s not just some scripted lesson plan, either: you get professional-quality videos and performances from your instructors, and they keep adding new ones every week.

Another great thing about this program is that it covers various musical genres, something that’s rare in the industry. Most guitar lessons will focus on a particular style, such as rock or jazz, but Jamplay offers lessons across the board, allowing you to try out new styles and eventually settle into something you like.

You also have to consider your level of expertise. There are guitar lessons for pros and lessons for those who’ve never held a guitar before. If you’re the latter, a good place to start is Beginner Guitar System from Railroad Media. Nate Savage, a guitarist with over 16 years of experience, walks you through all the basics, from common chords and power chords to skills like rhythm and timing. Even intermediate players can find some of the concepts useful.

Such programs are ideal for beginners because they don’t cost much—for instance, the Learn and Master Guitar program from guitar manufacturer Gibson offers about two years’ worth of lessons for a fraction of the price. If you’re not sure you want to be a serious player, or if you’re just trying to see if your kid will like it, it doesn’t make sense to pay a fortune for a private instructor’s time.

28 Day Rockstar Review

Check the website out at www.28dayrockstar.co.uk

28 Day Rockstar guitar course is a fully downloadable learn to play guitar course which aims to move new guitar players through an accelerated learning path and have them playing great guitar in one month’s time.  The course is structured using a 28 day plan and encourages you to complete the lessons while practicing for 20 – 30 minutes per day resulting in you developing some guitar skills and ability to play the included jam tracks.  28 Day Rockstar has been created by Richard Deyn, a guitarist and music teacher with over 18 years experience and he features in much of the material of this online guitar course.

As with many of the online guitar courses, 28 Day Rockstar features lessons and information in a combination of different media.  Much of the 28 Day Rockstar course is featured in the audio only lessons which have a printable PDF booklet for you to follow while listening and playing.  This course also includes some video lessons as well as a few extras such as access to a guitar tuner, timer and several bonus videos and play along tracks.

Once you have downloaded and registered with 28 Day Rockstar you will unfortunately run across a few issues with the content such as poor audio, typos in some of the written material, lessons that are hard to find or are misplaced and hardly any video lessons.  One of the main issues with 28 Day Rockstar is that the size of the course is 3Gig.  This is substantially bigger than many other online guitar courses however 28 Day Rockstar does not have a larger amount of material, the content is large as many of the files are not compressed or are saved in a format that takes up 8 – 10 times more space than they need to.

Much of the learning is done while listening to the audio lessons and following along with the PDF workbook.  The audio lessons are taught by Richard Deyn and he also features in the small number of video lessons that are included in this course.  As with many of the online music courses, 28 Day Rockstar also features a long list of extras that are available to all members.  These extras include things such as a guitar tuner, templates for writing music, additional songs to learn and a few bonus videos which teach some of the basic guitar skills such as strumming and using effects.

28 Day Rockstar does have some good content however with so many other great learn to play guitar courses on the market for a similar price or less it would be wise to give this course a miss.

For more information check the website www.28dayrockstar.co.uk

Elmore Music Guitar Tips website www.guitartips.com.au

The Elmore Music Guitar Tips course is an Australian produced online learn to play guitar course.  Chris Elmore, the founder of the company is a very accomplished guitar teacher who has produced several learn to play guitar courses for all levels of guitar playing ability.   This course differs to the previous guitar courses that Elmore Music has produced as Guitar Tips focuses more on teaching the student specific skills rather than teaching the fundamentals of guitar playing which many learn to play guitar courses start and focus on.

Guitar Tips is a multimedia guitar course with lessons combining video, text examples as well as audio tracks to teach various guitar skills.  The course is only available as a download but there is the choice once you have joined and paid the membership fee to either stream the video lessons or content or for people with a slow internet connection you can download the whole course.  Downloading the whole course before you start seems to be the better of these two options as the lessons and content was more responsive with less loading time.

The members area contains all the lessons and information that you need to complete the Guitar Tips course.  The lessons are laid out in a 30 day plan however it is recommended that you move along at your own pace as everyone learns at different rates.  Guitar Tips has tried to cover all bases by including both right and left handed examples of many of the exercises and there are also mini lessons spread throughout the course which are great for learning new guitar skills.

As well as providing a structured course, Guitar Tips also offers guitarists 5 jam tracks to learn and play along to.  This is extra to the 21 popular songs that are covered in the video lessons and include popular artists such as Greenday and Santana.  These video lessons have been produced by a third party and are not taught by Chris Elmore and even though they teach you what you need to know to play these popular songs the video and audio is not as polished as the rest of the Guitar Tips course.

Becoming a member of Guitar Tips also gives you access to a couple of free software programs.  Easy chord is one of these programs and is great for beginners and Scale tool is also excellent for people new to the guitar and to music.  Guitar Tips is a great course for people who are not sure if they want to learn guitar and don’t want to invest too much money before making a decision.  Guitar Tips is excellent value when compared with other guitar courses and is currently on sale for half price.

For more information check the website at www.guitartips.com.au

Guitar Hotshot website www.guitarhotshot.com

People shopping for a great resource for learning the guitar through online lessons may come across a new website called Guitar Hotshot.  Taking a closer look at Guitar Hotshots it is clear that this course is not everything that it promises to be.  Guitar Hotshot claims to be taught by Jamie Lewis who has experience as a guitar teacher and recording artist in New York.  After a little bit of research of Guitar Hotshot and Jamie Lewis we found that Jamie Lewis is also known as Jay Dynasty and Guitar Hotshot is a rehash of the guitar lesson scam Music Master Pro.

Guitar Hotshot is almost identical to the guitar section of Music Master Pro with only the small difference of one or two more added video lessons.  Guitar Hotshot has 15 very badly produced video guitar lessons.  The video is low quality and looks as though it has been filmed by a cheap webcam.  The audio for these lessons is also bad and in some cases it was hard to hear what was being played.

The content of the video lessons is also badly put together and appears to have little to no structure with most of the content played and left to you to figure out.  Most of the teaching is difficult to follow due to the poor video content and poor audio.  After watching the video lessons is it clear that Jamie Lewis maybe exaggerating his teaching credentials as his lessons are appalling.

As well as the video lessons, Guitar Hotshot also claims to have the following extra features which are advertised on the sales part of the website.  Guitar Hotshot claims to give you access to over 10,000 riffs, solos and licks, access to an extensive library of scales and chords, lessons on different styles of guitar such as rock and jazz, 52 video lessons and over 40 hours of intensive guitar lessons on video.  What you really get with Guitar Hotshot is no riffs, solos or licks, no extensive library of scales and chords, no lessons on guitar styles, only 32 poor quality flash video clips and  nowhere near 40 hours of guitar lessons.  The video lessons that do appear on the Guitar Hotshot website require you to spend an extra $20 to be able to download the files.

Guitar Hotshot is a scam and you should avoid at all cost.  There are many other great online course for learning guitar so don’t get sucked into spending money on this.

If you want to check it out you may visit www.guitarhotshot.com to know what this article means.

Guitar Tricks website www.guitartricks.com

The Guitar Tricks website has been around for just under 20 years and is one of the largest learn to play guitar websites on the internet.  The website has been developed by musician Jon Broderick and one of the excellent features of this website and the learning material is not just from one teacher, the website features lessons, tricks and information from 45 guitar teachers.  Featuring a large number of guitar teachers each with a specific genre or style, means that the website has variety and quality lessons for all guitar players.

Guitar Tricks has a huge amount of content and lessons which makes it suitable for beginner through to more advanced guitar players.  Once you have paid and registered with the site you will notice that the various lessons available are grouped together to make it easier to navigate through the skills and lessons that are relevant to the level of guitar you are at.  This grouping of lessons is great for guitarists who want to focus on a particular genre or a particular technique such as strumming or hammer ons rather than the traditional learn to play lessons (which are also available).

One of the great features with the lessons in the Guitar Tricks website is that any supplementary material such as guitar tab, fingering or music is all accessible while watching the video lesson.  This makes it much easier to find the relevant information and saves you from having to move back and forward from the lesson to the supplementary material while you are trying to play your guitar.

Another great feature of the Guitar Tricks website is that you can try the site for free to see some of the lessons and information on offer.  The free membership gives you access to 24 Online Guitar Lessons and if you like the lessons you can then up grade your membership to gain access to the rest of the site.  Guitar Tricks is also great for people who don’t have a fast internet connection as all the lessons are able to be downloaded to your computer at no extra cost.  Video streaming is available but it is recommended that you only do this if you have a fast internet service otherwise you will spend all your practice time waiting for the lesson to load.

For the price, Guitar Tricks is excellent value for money with many other sites asking for double what it costs at Guitar Tricks.  The options for Guitar Tricks is pay by month or pay for a full year to get a discount.  It is recommended that you try the website for a month and if you like what you see then get the year membership for the discount.

For more information check the Guitar Tricks website www.guitartricks.com

Infinite Guitar was created by musician and guitarist Sean Conklin with input from six other music teachers and guitarists.  The guitar lesson data base has over 1,000 video lessons for learning to play the guitar and was developed as an alternative to the current online tutorials or book based lessons on how to play guitar.  Infinite Guitar is not just targeted at beginner guitarists but has a large section of video lessons and material for intermediate and advanced guitarists.  This website also advertises that new material is added all the time which once you are a member is all free to access.

Infinite Guitar is fairly similar in lesson structure and even site design to many of the other learn to play guitar course websites but it comes in first when comparing the price of Infinite Guitar to the competition.  For people who like to try before buying online courses there is a basic membership available for Infinite Guitar which gives you access to a music forum and also access to 26 of the video guitar lessons for free.

The Infinite Guitar website gives you access to all the video lessons, diagrams, lesson text, tablature and even has a guitar forum where members can ask questions and get an answer from the professionals.  The main part of the website is the video lessons which make up most of the Infinite Guitar course.  The video lessons are generally well done with some use of multiple cameras as well as the advantage of using flash video player which allows you to view the lessons full screen which makes things easier to see if you are sitting back from the screen playing your guitar.  One aspect of the video lessons that differs to other website based courses is that the video lessons are not able to be downloaded.  Each of the lessons needs to be streamed to your computer, even if you are repeating a lesson, which may turn some people off especially if you have a slow internet connection.  Infinite Guitar has seemingly gone with this arrangement to stop people from downloading the lessons and illegally file sharing or copying the lessons.

Apart from the video lessons, Infinite Guitar also has lesson text, play along tracks, tablature and a great members forum.  These extra features are great for adding depth to the lessons with most of this material accessible while you are going through the video lessons.  Infinite Guitar is an excellent resource for guitar players both beginner and intermediate who are looking for good value for money when it comes to online guitar resources.

Many people who have researched online sources for lessons on how to play the guitar have at some stage come across Jamplay.  This online guitar lessons website was officially launched in 2007 and has grown to become one of the largest online resources for people who are looking to learn to play guitar using online lessons and resources.  When the Jamplay site was accessed we found that there is material being added every week and currently the website holds over 400 hours of video guitar lessons.

Jamplay is a great program for beginner guitarists through to advanced players looking for ways to improve parts of their playing or looking to learn different styles.  Unlike many of the online guitar courses Jamplay does not require you to learn a certain genre as the course covers all the common guitar genres such as acoustic, jazz, blues and rock.  This website also features more than one guitar teacher which is a distinct advantage over other courses that just feature the one teacher throughout the lessons.

Once you have paid your money and have access to the members area it is a pleasant surprise to find an easy to navigate website that is free from adds and pop ups.  The large amount of information contained on the Jamplay website is organised into three main areas, beginners, genre teaching and learning songs.  For the beginner guitar player the lessons are based around teaching the basics such as strumming and playing chords and the lessons also cover essential information that is important to the beginner.  The intermediate guitar player has a choice with the Jamplay lessons depending on which of the genres they choose to learn.  These lessons teach you specialised guitar techniques, skills such as reading music and guitar tab and this section also has lessons on how to sing while playing guitar (for some people this is harder than it looks).  The third part of Jamplay is the learning songs section which as it suggests is video lessons that break down popular guitar songs and teaches you to play them.  When the site was reviewed there was over 100 songs in the library which includes artists such as Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Greenday and the Beatles.

The video lessons on Jamplay are excellent, they are produced in flash video format and with multiple cameras so that you can see what each hand is doing while you are learning.  The only issue with the video lessons is that they cannot be downloaded they have to be streamed from the website and this might make things a little frustrating for people with a slow internet connection.

Overall Jamplay is a great tool for all levels of guitar ability.  If you are looking for an online resource for learning guitar then this might just be the one you’re looking for.

Learn and Master Guitar is a DVD based learning program that has been around for many years.  This learn to play guitar course is one of the better programs for teaching people to play guitar visually.  Learn and Master Guitar is one of those courses that allows you to learn at your own pace and has been produced by the Legacy Learning System which has other quality courses available.  This course is essentially a DVD course with the package spread nicely over 20 DVDs and 5 CDs with supplementary material.  When you purchase Learn and Master the Guitar the course comes in a great binder and case which also includes a lesson book that is packed full of great tips and hints and also follows the work that is taught in the DVD video lessons.

The Learn and Master Guitar DVD lessons are a great guitar course for beginners through to intermediate levels of playing.  The lessons teach important skills which are essential for beginners and can be a great refresher for people who are more experienced guitar players.  This guitar course also comes in a Student arrangement which includes some extra material such as a teacher’s guide, a curriculum outline and 2 extra DVDs with other teacher’s material.  The Student pack is great for kids who are home schooled or in an area where there is no access to music teachers but it is important to note that the course has not been specifically designed for children so if you have young children this may not be the most appropriate course on the market.

The Learn and Master Guitar lessons have been designed to move you along as you learn and become proficient at the exercises at each level.  The course moves in a logical way and is designed so  that even a beginner can follow the lessons and progress quite quickly.

One thing that is surprising with Learn and Master Guitar is that the course is not downloadable but comes in a box set with DVDs, CDs and a work book available from the website.  All of the course video lessons are contained on the included DVD set which has been divided into sections with easy to use DVD menus.  The course also includes 5 CDs which are designed so that the beginner guitarist can play along with a band and these tracks also have the option of playing with or without the guitarist.  These jam CDs are some of the best on the market making this course great value for the beginner or intermediate guitarist.