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Get online to learn guitar
By JOHN TORRO
As a teenager teaching myself to play the guitar in the 1970s, I had few instructional resources available other than to pay for formal lessons. Of course, I was able to buy a Gibson Les Paul (plus case!) for only $315, so all was not bad. Today, thanks to the Internet, there are many resources available -- most of them free -- that cover just about any style you're looking for and just about any range of experience, from beginner to advanced. Here are some of my favorites: Riff InteractiveIt's possibly the best such resource on the Net, and it's free. Riff Interactive offers live guitar lessons covering a variety of styles from blues to metal, from classic rock to jazz. Each week several lessons include video, a virtual animated fretboard (the neck of the guitar), jam tracks and live chat with the instructor. Each lesson is archived when complete and made available in the archives list. A small browser plugin is required (installation is automated once you click on the link in the Downloads section) to enable the virtual fretboard, which is one of the best examples of creative software I've seen anywhere on the Net. My SongbookA close second to Riff Interactive is MySongbook.com. MySongbook contains more than 7,000 tabs. (Tabs are a special notation that shows string and fret location instead of traditional notes.) This site is also free and requires a free download of GuitarPro software (www.guitar-pro.com). The software plays the downloaded .GP3 files from MySongbook.com (you'll need to unzip them first) while visually showing the tablature along with a marker that moves along with the current notes. Digeventwww.digevent.com/events/consumer/music/guitar_mania This site used to be free but has recently gone to a $10 a month subscription. It offers video lessons from Marc Seal covering rock, classic rock, blues, metal and music theory. A long list of archived lessons is kept on the site for viewing at any time. Marc is a good teacher and a great guitar player. If you don't mind paying the subscription fee, these will be among the best lessons you'll find. GuitarLizardThere are thousands of sites across the Internet with libraries of tab files. For one-stop shopping, try the tablature finder at GuitarLizard. It contains a special link to a Google search engine that scans the Internet for tab files or sheet music that matches your search criteria. GuitarLizard also contains a handy chord finder that visually displays the fingering for any chords that may have you stumped. Guitar Worldguitarworld.com/0100/framesets/lessons.html Here's a good site with lessons in the style of various guitar players such as Jimmy Page, Dickey Betts, B.B. King, Chuck Berry and others. The lessons are free, and new ones are added each month from the Guitar World contributing staff of Joe Satriani, Betts, Steve Vai, Brad Delson, Warren Haynes and Zakk Wylde. Fender Players Clubwww.fenderplayersclub.com/jump/jump2.htm This free site has lessons arranged by style, complexity level and artist. Lesson text is in PDF format, along with accompanying MP3 audio examples. For some reason, this site, as well as Fender's main site, is very slow. However, the content is good and worth the wait. WholeNoteHere's a good site for beginner to intermediate level players. WholeNote.com contains more than 1,600 lessons that cover almost every style. The best feature is a "riff search engine," which returns a list of available lessons based on popular guitar riffs matching your search criteria.
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