Guitar Lessons Online - What is the best choice for you?

If you are looking for a guitar course online, the election may be overwhelming. There are seemingly hundreds of online guitar courses available at different price levels all claiming to be the course that will turn you from a complete novice into the next guitar god! Choosing the right course for you can be a minefield, but in this article I'm hoping to give you a few pointers to help out. First you need to exactly understand what is a guitar course on-line. Put simply, online guitar courses are learning materials to teach guitar playing techniques on a computer. These consist mostly of text - usually in an eBook format (the look of a traditional book, but on your computer). The lessons are often accompanied with audio examples and video tutorials to help you hear and see how the exercises and songs sound and are to be played. Many courses also come with software. Some are provided to help with certain learning tasks or utilities such as tuners and metronomes. The courses can be downloaded online or the downloadable courses are downloaded to your computer. This may take a lot of time if they contain audio and video files and you are on a slow connection. Some online courses allow access certain areas that offer free lessons prior to purchasing the course. But why would you choose an online guitar course over traditional teaching books and DVDs? Comparing them to traditional guitar course books and DVDs that you might find in your local music shop, the main advantages are technology and cost. The technology of online courses can often be more comfortable and usable to print books and DVDs. The best courses are fully integrated with the text, audio and video so that you can read the text and instantly click to hear the audio or watch the video - no more scrabbling around to find the CD of audio examples that's got separated from the book! Many commercial guitar tutor DVDs don't even come with printed material, and those that do often have tiny and unusable books, sized to fit a DVD case. Compare that with eBooks that are able to be searched quickly. Also, many courses also come with additional software packages to make learning more fun and productive. The low cost of digital distribution over the cost of printing books, printing on the DVD and distributing to shops means that online courses can be considerably less than books and DVDs that the same amount of material covering the costs. A typical instructional DVD might cost $20-30 and give you 1-2 hours tuition. Manuals with a CD would cost $ 15-25. An online course retailing at $40 might contain the content of several books and DVDs and throw in some additional software as well. Some courses even include free updates as they become available to owners and subscribers. In addition, strong competition in the online guitar course market, means that prices are lower today than ever before, as each provider tries to control the battle for the market. So now you understand the advantages of guitar courses, how do you go about choosing one? The first step is to be clear about your ability level and goals. Write what you want from the guitar of course and what music you want to know. For example, are you interested in Rock lead guitar or acoustic finger-picking? Is your aim to become a musician in a band or just to strum chords to accompany your singing. Knowing what your goals are to learn the guitar course online will make it easier to choose a course with content that offers the best coverage of the techniques that you want to learn. This is important as it will be very de-motivating to follow a course that teaches lots of techniques that, while useful, may not be directly relevant to your personal goals. The next thing is to consider the format you prefer to learn. Many online guitar courses include video and audio so if you learn best from seeing and hearing the examples then it's important for you to choose courses that include a lot of video and audio examples to go along with the lessons, or possibly a course that is primarily video based. However, if you are a person who learns best by reading, then choose a course that provides high-quality written material to study from. Once you're clear on your goals and the kind of course that you're looking for, then start researching the available courses on the internet. Beware of the review sites - some may be honest, but some of them are only advertising for the courses that they pay the most commission. Take all posts with a pinch of salt. Even if reviews are honest, remember that the reviewer may not have the same goals and learning preferences that you do, so be sure to research the course as much as possible to ensure that it is the online guitar course that best fits your needs.

Mark Powe is an amateur guitar player and internet product reviewer. He can be reached at: markpowe@BestOnlineGuitarCourse.com Learn How To Play The Guitar is just 15 minutes a day. Visit: http://www.BestOnlineGuitarCourse.com