There are couple of ways you can learn to play guitar online. The first is the expensive and long way. Most people who learn choose this method because it seems easy, cheap and fast.
You search the internet for free online guitar resources and instructions, and you end up with tons of tips and technique videos that lack a ton of detail.
But you have heart, so you slowly research tabs for your favorite song, follow chords lessons, fingering techniques and picking techniques. Step-by-step you learn to play guitar.
Then you begin to advance, and you reach a plateau. Your posture slows down your chord changes and transitions, your thumb position gets in the way when you try to move up and down the neck of the guitar, some of the notes come out flat because of your finger position on the frets.
You love to play, so you begin to fix each problem as you come across them. Often, as you learn, you realize that you need to un-learn some of the things you worked so hard to gain.
This first method of learning is is the school of hard knocks, going it alone and re-inventing the wheels at each step of the way.
This is exactly what I did at first, and it cost me a lot of time and energy.
My next step was to find a guitar instructor.
My first guitar lessons were with the wrong instructor who really didn’t understand that I was not planning to join a band or play in a philharmonics orchestra. I just wanted to play songs fast, and he wanted me to learn the theory of music, learn to read notes and play scales all the time.
I got discoursed and frustrated especially since I didn’t have a lot of money to keep spending on private guitar instructions. I went back to learn on my own for a while.
Later, I joined a class and noticed there are some nice people of both sexes who wanted to learn to play because they liked the sound of the guitar. Some liked classical deeper sound themes and some love the sound of electrical guitar and the cool things they could do with it that was not possible with acoustic guitars.
This time the instructor understood and within the first sessions, we all could play a couple of songs. They were simple songs, but we learned to make music in one session. He also gave us three different guitar fingering exercises and picking techniques that were fun to practice.
I learned that I needed solid guitar lessons that were planned so that I could progress without forming bad habits. Forming bad habits is a major problem with those who learn on their own with free online lessons without a solid plan. They miss steps, and don’t even know it; they form bad holding, playing and fingering habits that comes back and haunts them later.
I know because I had done that. As I got better and found out how much backtracking took and how frustrating it was, I wish I had spent a few box and joined paid memberships online.
As a beginner, I also needed these lessons to keep me motivated by helping me play music.
Nothing can substitute a live guitar instructor who can see you play and correct you. The next best things are a carefully planned step by step training from skilled guitarist and teachers. Not everyone who is great at playing guitar knows how to teach you. Following a step by step plan from an experienced teacher and a skilled guitar player is the fastest way to learn to play guitar and improve for both beginners and advanced students.