My guitar-playing education got off to a rather poor start. Not knowing any better, and being unable to pay for a tutor, my father bough the lowest-priced guitar he came upon. I had to bear down on the strings extra hard because they were too far from its neck for a beginner – a neck that eventually fell off (it wasn’t reinforced). But that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn guitar without spending a lot of money!
You should allocate at least $100 US to get a guitar that’s worth having. But there’s no reason to spend more than $200 if you get one from a major guitar manufacturer. In reaction to other companies making bargain basement-priced, Money-Saving Ways To Start Playing The Guitar Articles substandard copies of their best-selling products, Fender, Gibson, Ovation, and Takamine developed the Squier, Epiphone, Applause, and Jasmine lines, all of which offer inexpensive guitars for beginners that don’t abandon quality. Now then, what should you spend on guitar instruction? First of all, make sure that your teacher really IS a teacher, and not just some “starving” musician who teaches as a sideline Voice Lessons. You need someone who can show you basic music theory and have you reading your guitar’s fretboard like a book, not simply duplicating what he can play. A teacher like that is well worth the standard price range of $20 – $40 US per half hour per week…if you can manage it. But what if you can’t afford it? Well, for the price of about weeks’ worth of classes, you can take introductory guitar lessons online. You can pay a one-time or month to month tuition for an online guitar learning software program and get formal video lessons, musical tracks to rehearse with, and supplementary online resources. One of the most popular online programs is Jamorama, with more than two hundred thousand students to their credit. What Jamorama does exceptionally well is look after their novices, even teaching them the correct way to sit and stand while playing. They offer ten free basic lessons you can evaluate when you sign up for their e-newsletter. Jamorama charges $99 US for online-only access and $299 to have the course shipped to you on DVDs. But if that’s too pricey, you still have a chance.
For only $20 US per month, you can join GuitarTricks.com. For nearly a decade, they been maintaining a collection of thousands of guitar learning software videos from nearly four dozen teachers, and organized them by genre and skill level.