If you have ever typed the phrase online guitar lessons into 'Google' then you are probably feeling a bit frustrated right now yeah?

What you’ve found is mostly of no use whatsoever for learning guitar.

• You’ll have been offered an various ebooks with 100,000 chord diagrams in…..totally useless.

• Maybe you bought a ‘How to play guitar in 3 days’ ebook? Did you find it a bit disappointing?

• Or did you sign up with one of the latest guitar gurus? You know the ones? They dash through a million notes in 20 seconds and tell you that you can do the same in less than a week….yeah right.

My website has been running for just over two years now.

I know I’m not perfect but I do have a big following so I can’t have got it all wrong can I?

Well I’d really like to know what YOU think would be most helpful to you in learning guitar.

Those of you who know me, have bought from me, have called me or have emailed me will know that I am constantly looking for ways to make the guitar learning experience better.

My whole business is built upon the foundation of listening to the people who know best what it takes to learn guitar.

THAT'S YOU I'M TALKING ABOUT!

Here is another opportunity for you to tell me.........tell me what?

• Tell me what guitar lessons (online nad offline) you’ve already tried. What has worked for YOU. What was a waste of money/time, why?

• Name and shame the guitar charlatans out there if you want… I think we should rattle a few of their cages, don't you?

• Tell the world how long you’ve been playing guitar and what sort of progress you’ve made.

• What is your favourite piece of guitar music? Can you play it? Would you like to?

• If you could give just one tip to newcomers who are learning guitar.....what would you tell them?

• If you were starting from scratch again...what would you do differently?
  

This is your chance to ask me publicly, for something that will help you to learn guitar.

I can’t answer everything or promise that I can do what you ask, but I’m certain that there are some amazing ideas out there that people have for guitar lessons, guitar videos or anything else that is related to learning guitar..

Post your comments, questions, ideas, thoughts, life history, guitar playing career…or anything guitar related …..click below where it says Post a Comment

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Mike Herberts

From Byron....

Hi Mike,

Yes, my fingers are getting there. I've been practising lessons 1 + 2, never
thought I'd be able to pick, but here I am, amazing myself even. I think
what you're offering to us mid-life crisis, second childhood wanabees is
priceless, thankyou. I'm 46 years young this year, and been hunting for a
guitar tutor locally in Tenby, Pembs, before my fingers get too arthritic,
I'm not hunting any more. A mate, down from Liverpool for the weekend
pointed me in your site's direction, and I don't think I'll be looking back,
I'm hungrier than ever before to play this instrument well. I'm getting to
grips with co-ordination between the hands at the moment, but, as you say,
it's only practising every night, even for 10 mins, that'll get you there,
so that's the philosophy I'm working on. My current ambition is that by next
year, I will be good enough to play a gig with some other local musicians at
my local pub. Thankyou Mike, looking forward to lesson 3.

I get a lot of email. Most days I get something like this.
==============================================================================
Thank You, thank you, thank you, ==============================================================================
Thanks Paul....I'm happy to be helping.
Mike Herberts

This is a question that gets asked fairly regularly.

The first part of this article is from one of the posters (Tim) from my forum.
The second part is from me (also from the forum)


This is Tim
I personally think the time a piece takes you to learn depends on what style of guitar you start with or prefer. I only started playing guitar a few months ago from an excellent instructional dvd that covered acoustic fingerstles because i like folk music and especially fingerpicked music. i learnt several picking patterns within a couple of days and my speed was good within a week because i learnt to use the correct fingers straight from the start and practised for 3-8 hours a day depending on whether i was at work or not to really make progress quickly. When Mike put up the classical gas pieces i was fine and have learnt the 4 parts pretty easily (about a day for each part except part 4 which took about 30 mins beacuse we could all see where it was going in part 3!) because i didn't have to spend anytime working out where my fingers go and which strings they will pluck it was just a case of chord shapes and tempo.

But my strumming is a different matter! i had pretty much only learnt chords that were used in the fingersyle dvd and really only knew A,E,C, AND D well. The last month and a half i have mostly been practising changing between chords and strumming patterns and i have found this quite challenging, even a simple sounding piece like the times they are a changin proved initially challenging because i had mostly neglected strumming, changing chords and practising with picks. i couldnt hit the bass note of the c chord without catching the 6th string so the tune sounded terrible. Thankfully i can play it pretty well now but it took me a week's hard practice to be able to play it well! I think in the future fingerpicking is going to be 'my thing' and i will use strummed pieces to broaden my style of playing. my friend at work started a month before me and his strumming is really really good but he can't pick to save his life he could learn times... in a few mins but it would probably take him a long while to learn classical gas part 2 or 3.

keep at it, correct and precise practice is the only way, oh and visualise the chord shape you are about to go into this has helped me a lot, see it in your mind and your fingers will start to get there quicker and more accurately!        

__________________
Tim

And this is Mike
Hi...

I reckon I'm a fairly 'natural' guitarist so I'll give you an idea how long it takes me to learn a new piece.

Obviously it depends on the difficulty of the piece but....out of the starting blocks for a moderately difficult piece, I will practice for say three to four hours a day and I reckon 5 or 6 days to get the piece right.

There are some pieces that have taken me three months to learn and some that I don't suppose I'll ever know perfectly.

In all of this you have to remember that it is the journey not the destination that gives satisfaction. In all these years of going through the "I must learn that!" to the "Well I can play it now so what next" I still forget that I will want to move on to the next piece as soon as the last one is learned.

Your audience have no idea how long it takes which is why they say....oh I'd love to play the guitar......

If only they knew.
Mike

So what do YOU think?
How often and for long do you practice?
How long does it normally take you to learn a new piece?

Oh Bugger....

I didn't expect such a big response. Could any of my long term (or short term) subscribers help me by replying to some of the posters asking for help?
Lots of the questions there can be answered by any number of you, who have a bit of experience.

I will be answering some of the posts asap.

Thanks in advance if you can help.

Mike