When you start looking into learning to play an instrument, such as the guitar, you’ll be flooded with opinions on the different ways to do it. The Internet is full of different methods and tricks guaranteeing you’ll be playing smooth tunes in no time. 

But can you really learn to play the guitar so quickly and are the methods worth the time or the money? 

Learning On Your Own 

Most people will tell you that you can master the art of guitar playing all on your own. In short, this is true. But – there’s always a but – it isn’t necessarily very easy and learning to play on your own doesn’t suit everyone. 

If you are committed, enthusiastic and passionate about learning, then learning to play on your own can be a great and cheap option. 

Nevertheless, it takes a lot of dedication. You should also be mindful of the fact that learning without any guitar videos or the help of a tutor makes it harder to correct your mistakes. 

Joining a Group 

If you live near a big city, you might have the option of learning to play the guitar in a group. The bigger your town, the more options you’ll probably have. Sometimes the groups might even be free to join and, in general, can be cheaper than private lessons. 

Learning in a group is often a lot of fun, as you’ll get to meet new people! Despite having more fun, it can also mean extra pressure, as you might progress in different pace to the others. You also won’t often have a lot of choice when it comes to the songs or styles you’ll learn to play. 

Hiring a Tutor 

You could consider hiring yourself a guitar tutor. It might sound odd, but sometimes committing to something financially can act as theextra motivator to keep you going. When you know you have a lesson to attend to – which you’ve paid for – you are more likely to get up and go. 

Finding the right tutor isn’t as difficult as it might sound. There are plenty of part-time musicians and full-time music teachers out there providing lessons. 

The downside to hiring a private tutor is the time restriction. You can’t always choose when you practice and you might even have to travel to meet your tutor. If playing the guitar becomes a chore, it might make you less interested and even frustrated. 

Online Lessons 

If you want to add a bit more structure to your learning, while still being in charge of where and when you learn, online guitar lessons might be the right choice for you. Video lessons guarantee you get more in depth understanding of the sound you should make – not to mention how much easier it is to learn the right hand positions, for instance. 

Our video lessons, for example, won’t cost a fortune and they’ll give you the freedom to practice from the comfort of your own home. If you want to learn at your own terms, then video lessons are a great addition to your self-learning experience. 

It’s important to find the different methods that inspire you to learn more. Listen to people like Joe Mendelson (YouTube video above) on their secrets to mastering the guitar and check out our website for more information on guitar lessons. 

We are naturally a bit biased at Pro Music Tutor to answer this question, but we honestly believe there are plenty of benefits to taking online guitar lessons.

So, what do we think are the great benefits to online guitar lessons?

You Decide When You Learn

Online guitar lessons give you the freedom to choose when you pick up the guitar and start practicing. This is a huge advantage over learning with a tutor, as you can’t often select what time and on which days you must have the lessons.

We all have different ways of learning and we are the most active during different times of the day. With online guitar lessons, you get to decide when you learn and for how long you play.

You Save Time

Learning to play the guitar won’t happen overnight, but you also don’t want your guitar practice to consume whole of your life.

If you have to travel to your guitar lessons, you are spending a lot more time on your practice – not to mention that you aren’t really learning to play when you sit on the bus, for instance.

Online guitar lessons mean that you have an instant access to the lessons when you feel like it.

You Can Choose the Things You Want to Learn

You can, of course, discuss your guitar playing goals with the tutor, but real life tutoring groups don’t give you the same freedom to choose what you practice as online guitar lessons do. You get to pick the aspects you need to practice the most – perhaps it is guitar licks you want help with or maybe you just want to learn the scales.

The freedom isn’t just about picking the specific things you want to learn, it is also about choosing who will help you take in the new information. The Internet has a number of guitar lessons available and you get to decide who deserves your time and attention! With tutoring, you have a much more limited number of teachers available.

You’ll Feel More Comfortable

All of the above will ensure your learning experience is a comfortable one. You don’t need to worry about peer pressure or how you get along with your tutor –you just need to watch the videos and learn.

Don’t worry about having to learn it all on your own either! Good online guitar lessons will help you understand what is required and you can always get in touch with other guitarists online to ask questions!

Online guitar lessons make you feel like you are playing with a friend in your living room! Image courtesy of Rick & Brenda Beerhorst, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.

The benefits are amazing when it comes to online guitar lessons. You might be thinking it all sounds great but is it worth the money? Absolutely, as online guitar lessons are often cheaper or the same price as tutoring sessions.

Learning to play the guitar is a journey where everyone has to choose the right vehicles to use in order to reach the destination. Often, you need a few different methods to master the art of guitar playing.

Taking online guitar lessons can be a great addition to your practice routine, so you should give it a go!

Scales are the core buildings blocks for any guitarist. If you want to take your skills to the next level, understanding how different scales work is essential. 

The major scale is one of the most important scales to learn, but the minor pentatonic scale follows closely behind it. If you are into blues or rock, the minor pentatonic scale is especially good one to master. 

So, what are the most important things to know about the minor pentatonic scale? 

The Scale Formula 

Minor pentatonic scale is actually a simple scale to learn. The big difference to the other common scales is that the pentatonic scales only have five notes instead of the usual seven. 

The minor pentatonic scale formula is most used in blues and rock music. For example, bands like Led Zeppelin and the Foo Fighters often use this scale in their songs. As an example, you could take a listen to Led Zeppelin’s classic Stairway To Heaven song. 

The scale formula describes the interval distances between each note of the scale. You can use the formula for building the chord keys and such. 

In the above scale, T stands for tone (whole step), S stands for semitone (half step) and TS stands for tone + semitone (minor 3^rd interval). 

The numbers represent the note you play. 

That means C minor pentatonic scale would look like this: 

 f you look at the C minor scale and the scale formula, you can see how the changes happen. For example, the scale goes from C to the minor 3^rd interval to Eb, then a whole step to F and another whole step to G, and so on. 

If you know the first note, you’ll know the rest of the notes with the formula in mind. 

Breaking the Rules 

With the above in mind, it must be said the minor pentatonic scale is a bit of a rule breaker. This is mostly down to the scale’s use in blues music, with blues being quite a groundbreaking genre itself. 

The chords available within the minor pentatonic scale don’t always follow the above rules. The changes available for you are called the following: 

·         Power chords – the chords are used with a root note in the scale

·         Extended power family chords – chords which commonly use the scale but are not necessarily in the actual five note scale 

The power chords and the extended power family chords are the most common in blues context. The chords in C minor pentatonic scale would look like this: 

Practicing Tips 

The minor pentatonic scale puts your finger skills to the test. There isn’t any ‘right’ way to fingering the scale, so keep trying what works the best for you. 

The key is to keep practicing quite a lot until you can play the scale by heart. This will take some time and you need to keep at it. 

Just like with many guitar techniques, you want to start with a slow tempo and keep pushing yourself to play faster as you progress. 

The key minor pentatonic scales to learn are the five most common positions. These positions come from the CAGED-system. You can view the position from the below image:

The minor pentatonic scale will provide you with amazing tools to creating cool guitar solos. It is especially handy scale to learn if you are a looking to play rock or blues. 

Just stay patient with your practice and find ways to apply what you’ve learned into real songs and solos. This will help you remember the scale quicker. 

One of the most fun things about playing the guitar is the amount of different techniques to try. You can try picking, strumming and even bending to create amazing sounds! 

Among the most fun techniques is the sliding technique. This technique creates a unique and cool sound, but you need to practise quite a bit in order to master it. 

To help you out, here are some of the slide guitar essentials you need to be aware of. 

Image of a metal guitar slide.Image courtesy of Rashka, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. 

Choose the Slide Carefully 

In order to play with the slide technique, you naturally need to get yourself a slide. The available options are plentiful; you got glass slides, steel slides, and brass slides, for instance. 

As well as having different material options, you also get to choose the size of the slide. Some guitarists prefer very sleek, small slides, whereas others might be looking for something a bit sturdier. 

The best way to find out is to experiment with different options and see what feels the best for you! 

Finding the Right Position 

Once you have the slide, you need to start practising how to use it. If you’re new to the slide guitar technique, the main thing to know is that the slide will replace the fret while you play. So, your slide should always be exactly where the fret is. 

You shouldn’t press the strings on the frets with the slide, but just keep a slight pressure on the strings. The pressure when you move the slide along the frets should make the sound smooth – in fact, it should be unnoticeable. 

You can practice by holding the slide lightly on the strings. Start playing the notes and move the slide from left to right. Does it make a smooth transition? If you can hear a sharp change in tone, it means you are pressing too hard. 

Furthermore, start by keeping the slide parallel to the fret. Once you become a guitar wizard, you can find out about the other techniques – but at the start, just keep it parallel. 

Master the Muting 

Slide guitar technique requires you to mute some strings with your note playing hand. Using a pick is not recommended, as it can make the technique a lot harder. 

So, the aim is to mute all the other strings expect for the note you are playing. There are different ways of going about it, but typically, the easiest is to play the note with the index finger and mute the thinner strings with middle and ring finger. Your thumb would then mute the thicker strings. 

Adding Vibrato 

Finally, once you get the hang of the above, you can start practicing the vibrato. Just vibrate the slide by moving it slightly around the fret. 

If you watch guitar videos, you’ll see some people vibrate by moving the slide behind the note, some by moving it above. There is no ‘right’ way to do this, so just experiment. 

               The above YouTube video is by the king of slide guitar, Elmore James. 

The easiest is to start playing slide guitar with the regular tuning. Once you feel comfortable with the technique, you can start playing with open tunings as well. 

So, there you have all the essentials for mastering slide guitar technique! 

If you’d have to pick something fundamental to the western harmony in music, it would be the major scale. 

You most likely even know it already! If you’ve ever heard the famous Sound of Music song, then you’ve been introduced to the major scale. If you aren’t familiar with the tune, then you can listen to it while you read the rest of the post. 

What Makes the Major Scale Special? 

You might be wondering what is so special about the major scale. The answer is: quite many things. All the other scales will be presented in relation to major scale, so if you want to master playing the guitar, you need to learn the major scale. 

As it is the basis of western harmony, you can’t play many genres without understanding how the major scale works. In fact, many famous songs sound good with the major scale. For example, Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. 

What is Major Scale? 

To understand the major scale, it is important to understand what a scale is. A scale is simply a group of seven notes, which usually follow each other by the octave of the root note. 

For example, the C major scale is the most common example and the one used in the Sound of Music song. The C major scale looks like this: 

            C – D – E – F – G – A – B – C 

You can also use a scale formula for the major scale. This will help you work out all the notes in specific scale patterns if you just know the starting note, for instance. 

            T          T          S          T          T          T          S

       1         2         3          4          5          6           7         8                          

 T stands for tone (whole step) and S stands for semitone (half step). The numbers one to eight represent the notes. 

The numbers also have names, which are mainly used in classical guitar lessons. These are: 1=tonic/root key, 2=supertonic, 3=mediant, 4=subdominant, 5=dominant, 6=submediant, 7=leading note, 8=octave. 

If you look at the C major scale, you can see it starts with C and moves whole step to D. Then another whole step to E, with a half step from E to F and so on. 

This same patterns works for all major scales – make sure you memorise it! 

Using Chords 

You can also use specific chords in the major scale. For example, if you look at the notes of the C major scale, you can make a set of chords such as triad chords and quadad chords. 

For example, the triad chords you can make by using the notes of the C major scale are: 

 You can build hundreds of chords with the above tips in mind. All you need to know is the major scale you are using and then the different chords you can make. Just start experimenting and you’ll be able to play some amazing solos. 

It is essential to learn the major scale and how it works, as it is the building block of most western harmonies. If you want to be a guitar hero one day, this the theory part you need to nail!