Free Guitar
Instruction
Learning how to play the guitar can be an expensive undertaking so free guitar
instruction can help especially if you’re a beginner with a light budget. Quality instruments can
cost hundreds of dollars. For electric guitarists, double that cost for amplifiers and effects
pedals. Add on top of that expensive private lessons, and well, you get the picture - not a cheap
undertaking.
Nevertheless there are ways of cutting your costs down, especially for guitar
lessons. For example, you can find many resources for free guitar instruction online – at least
enough to learn some of the basics. Saving money takes some time and research, but the payoff can
be worth it.
If you are an absolute beginner looking for free guitar instruction, the following
list of topics will help to ensure you have covered the fundamentals necessary for proper guitar
lessons:
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Parts of the Guitar |
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Tuning the Guitar |
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Changing the Strings |
|
The Open Post ion Chords |
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Basic Strumming Patterns |
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Basic Note Reading in the Open Position,
Tablature and Traditional Notation |
You may notice that this basic list does not cover any songs. You will discover,
however, as you mine the internet for fee guitar instruction on these topics that you will stumble
upon songs that are used to exemplify them.
If you are an intermediate player looking for free guitar instruction, you should
also take the time to compile a curriculum for yourself. Start with determining a topic for study
and build a program around that topic. You can build topics from the following general
ideas:
|
A particular genre like Blues or
Jazz |
|
The playing style of an artist like Jimi Hendrix
or Joe Pass |
|
A specific technique like building accompaniment
patterns |
The resources for free
guitar instruction online are many. Start by making a short list of the major online guitar lessons
sites. A few examples are guitartricks.com, guitarjamz.com, and jamplay.com. Each of these sites
are paid subscription sites, but offer free guitar instruction as well. Take the time to sign up
for one of these sites, for free of course. Once you have experienced the techniques and style of a
few free guitar instruction websites, you’ll be in a better position to chose a which paid
subscription site might be best for you.
Another great resource for free guitar instruction is the video sites, especially
YouTube. Many major instructional programs will post free lessons as a kind of advertisement for
their particular programs on YouTube. Granted, you’ll need to filter out the many beginners
attempting to teach beginners, but as your experience grows, so will your ability to refine your
searches.
Your short list of free guitar instruction sites may also be a list of online
forums. These provide a wealth of knowledge on different guitar techniques, and how to overcome
some of the technical difficulties you may be experiencing. Take the time to familiarize yourself
with one or two of these online forums and begin to mine and filter their information down to the
topics you are interested in studying.
Finally, another resource for free guitar instruction is your recording
collection. Become an active listener of the music and players that appeal to you. Active listening
means listening without other distractions. Listen to the same song a few times. Find out its key,
learn a riff from it or its chord progression and study its musical form. You can also read along
to transcriptions of the solos.
As you can see, getting free guitar instruction is possible and can be a lot of
fun. It just takes a little work and creative thinking.
lessons online should be fun. Check out the free introductory lessons and ask
yourself if you not only learned something, but enjoyed the time you
spent.
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