Hello!
Someone asked us a while back if we knew of any good free guitar lessons on Youtube. If anyone else is looking to start playing the guitar or simply looking to learn a few new songs to strum along to, we highly recommend giving Marty Schwartz's videos a look at! His channel is guitarjamz.com.
We're pretty sure he's a massive stoner but that doesn't subtract from his ability to not only play the guitar like an absolute pro but he is also a great instructor. Marty also sells DVD box sets which can be purchased from his website. I bought a few DVD's a few years back and pretty much nailed every song. He teaches simple techniques and simple embellishments that can add a whole new element to your playing.
Do you ever get that feeling that you're bored with what you can play & feel as though you've hit a plateau? I get it all the time & I've figured out that the best way to get over it is to be taught something you don't already know i.e a brand new song. You all of a sudden get that same knock of inspiration that you had when you first nailed 'Don't Look Back in Anger' by Oasis or
Marty Schwartz is just one example of guitar lessons on Youtube but if you do a simple search you will find plenty! By subscribing to their channel you'll also get immediate updates when they add new content.
Another excellent solution is Strummingly, with access to free content owned and curated by Ben Tanner, who has been playing guitar for over 20 years. The premise for Strummingly is to help other experience the joy of making music and playing guitar. Did you know that playing 'Stairway to Heaven' in some guitar shops is actually banned?
Another great way to learn other than Youtube is an iPad (or any smartphone) app called Ultimate-Guitar. The app mirrors the website where they have thousands upon thousands of tabulators for almost any song you can think of. They also have bass tabs, drum and ukulele. The tabs are also rated by other users so you have a pretty good idea of which is the correct one to choose.
The iPad app is subscription-based. I recently decided to rather pay a once-off fee of around R300 and have the app for life. It also includes a scrolling feature where the iPad will scroll the tab for you as you play and on certain tabs, you can also play the tab so that you can hear how the riff will sound.
Other great nice-to-haves is that the app is low on data and stores your favourite tabs for a quick view and even off-line view.
There are other free tab applications but I don't suspect any are as good as the Ultimate-Guitar one seems to be. It has inspired me all over again! As I sit here writing this blog post I'm racing through songs I want to learn how to play as soon as I get back home!
Whether you elect Youtube guitar lessons or a tablature program I am confident you will be happy with either, or both!
Also look at www.justinguitar.com Free lessons and you can learn alot there too.