My Online Guitar Learning Plan

People have asked how I’m learning to play the guitar right now. For the last couple years, I’ve been playing very much on-and-off as I was in school. Now that I’m out of school, I have a little more time on my hands and have jumped into learning the guitar more aggressively.

While in school, I used mostly books. My favorite were Guitar From Scratch, which brings you through all the basics, and the Fretboard Workbook, which helped me learn how to easily find any note on the guitar fretboard in record time. I highly recommend both these books.

Last year, I went to a guitar school and took four lessons (they were a birthday present for me). While it was a good experience, it was expensive (about $100/month) and it wasn’t extremely structured. There were times I came home wishing I knew exactly what I was supposed to practice for the week. I didn’t extend my learning there.

Now, I’ve started learning how to play the guitar almost exclusively online. I’m currently enrolled at 8 Chords 100 Songs, which is a Christian-song based school taught by worship leader Eric Roberts. I’ve been learning to play praise and worship music on my acoustic here. I’m about 1/3 of the way through his course, and will provide regular updates of my progress here.

If you’re looking for good online guitar instruction, I also recommend two other stellar schools taught by guitar professionals: Jamplay and WorkshopLive. Both are comparable. Jamplay has better video and a really cool MySpace-like community. WorkshopLive has a nicer 3-part interface, more instructors and therefore, more lessons. But really, they’re both about the same as far as learning good content. I recommend signing up for both and seeing which one you like best. Happy learning!