Break Away II

When learning the guitar, the best approach is definitely an active method.  You must constantly stretch and push yourself forward in your training or you will grow stale, playing the same tunes over and over, and your talent won’t really improve.  You have to drive yourself to constantly learn new songs, chords, and techniques.  

There are lots of different means to getting this kind of training – online guitar lessons, books, videos, and private guitar lessons.  Private lessons has traditionally been the go-to method, but recently online guitar lessons have been giving guitar teachers a run for their money.

There are many benefits to having one-on-one instruction with a live guitar teacher.  You get a kind of hands-on training that can never really be replaced by guitar lessons online – a teacher can actually position your hands correctly, demonstrate the techniques for you up close, and give you real time feedback while you’re playing.  A guitar teacher can adapt their lessons in real-time to handle your most pressing issues and force the student to do the exercises that they might not want to do.  Last, but not least, a live, private lesson gives a student the emotional support they need to handle learning such a challenging instrument as the guitar.  Often, all that is necessary is the student see someone playing at  a higher level to inspire them to continue on.  

With all of these advantages, its easy to see why one-on-one instruction has been the old stand-by for learning the guitar for so long.  But as technology increases, internet learning gets wider, and as the prevalence of online video spreads wider and wider – online lessons for guitar are becoming more and more popular.

Guitar lessons online have many benefits over one-on-one training.  First, there is the breadth of learning.  A good online guitar course, such as Guitar Alliance, will have over 1,000 different lessons, covering every aspect of learning the guitar: chord charts, contemporary tablature, techniques, etc.  It would be virtually impossible for a private teacher to cover such a wide breadth of material, even over years and years of lessons.  A private teacher is very good at providing a deep understanding of a few techniques, but can’t compete when it comes to extent of techniques of guitar lessons online.

The other way online guitar lessons are superior to a guitar teacher are in convenience.  One-on-one guitar training are structured around the teacher’s schedule, not the pupil’s.  If the student can’t practice because of their schedule or their life gets busy, they’ve just wasted money on another lesson because their teacher is not able to roll with their lifestyle.  A good online course for guitar, on the other hand, is always available for lessons 24/7, whenever the student needs it.

But really the key way that online lessons for guitar are superior to private instruction is price.  A good guitar teacher will cost at least $50 for a thirty minute lesson. That comes to $2600 a year.  A good online guitar course (for example a course like Guitar Alliance Online Guitar Lessons) costs only $30 year.  With all the money you save, you could buy a new guitar EVERY YEAR.  This is the true driving reason why more and more people are learning the guitar online – especially in this economy.

In the end, learning the guitar online is changing into a more prevalent choice.  The scope of instruction that it affords is so much wider than one guitar teacher could ever offer.  Its so much more convenient, being available whenever you want to learn and not only when your teacher is available.  But most of all, the cost: $30 a year versus (the price of a yearly subscription to Guitar Alliance Guitar Lessons) $2600 is a big difference to consider.

Tags: guitar lessons, guitar lessons online, learn guitar, online guitar lessons