Learning Guitar in 2021

Learning guitar online in 2021 is COMPLICATED. With so many beginner guitar courses available, how do you know which one to choose?! Worry not, in this video I break down your options so we can decide not just what's best, but what's best for you!

Some of the options review include Yousician, Rocksmith, Artistworks, Justin Guitar and more! Which are worth it? SHOULD YOU GO TO GUITAR SCHOOL? SO MANY QUESTIONS. EVEN MORE ANSWERS.

Enjoy :)

[fathertoes]

Justin guitar definitely will always be the best free option

[HerrMeier]

Ok as somebody who literally went through all of these lessons, here’s my feedback to all of the different options (starting in the way I took them):

1. Online lessons

My first contact with guitar about 4 years ago. I’ve got myself a cheap very old and crappy acoustic guitar and wanted to sound like David Gilmour. So I checked out how to play Wish you were here and found a video from MartyMusic. As a start it’s super useful and I caught up pretty quickly and was able to play a few songs.
But there were some drawbacks. The first time I tried to play, the guitar was terribly out of tune and I didn’t realise it. So I thought I’m just to dumb to play a D chord. I thought you tune your guitar once a year like a piano, so that really threw me off. A simple mistake that could have been easily avoided by instead taking:

2. Private Lessons:

Yes, it being incredibly expensive is the big downside and that’s also why I took only 20 minute lessons in the beginning.
20 minutes are probably never enough time, but it’s enough to accompany your online lessons and getting feedback. Basically we barely ever learned a song for a few weeks and stuck with it. It was more like that, that I practiced like 10 songs in between lessons with the help of Marty, Justin and co. and just asked the questions to my teacher at the next lesson that had been bothering me. The one thing I learned is, that it’s mostly about just being motivated anyways, so no matter which method you'll choose in the end, you have to be the one to put the time in. That’s also when to use a private teacher: if you really want to take it seriously.
In the end I even had 1 1/2 hour classes because I knew that it was what I wanted and that it was the passion I wanted to pursue in life. It’s really really effective, but mostly just for the feedback and for being forced to actually practice. For the knowledge only you could also simply use:

3. Online Courses and Master Classes:

I somehow fell in love with the concept of theses online courses. “Just finish this course and you’re as good as you could ever imagine”. The first one I took was just called electric guitar masterclass (it was German) and I did actually never completely finish it, but still learned some of the most essential techniques in there. The good thing about courses you have to pay for is, that they keep you motivated and they are usually actually giving you all the necessary information that you need for a specific path. You just have to actually do it. The other course I can actually recommend is NextLevelPlaying from Paul Davids. It is really expensive but does cover all the basics and even more. As a kind of general foundation it’s really really good!
And definitely better than:

4. Guitar Games:

I fiddled around with yousician in the beginning as well and even tho it might be fun, I don’t think it’s really useful to learn anything on a fundamental level. So if you want to learn something more substantial I definitely wouldn’t recommend any of them to you, but it might motivate you to practice at all, so maybe try it for a while.
Obviously the last online thing missing is:

5. Online private lessons:

I was forced to do some with my guitar teacher because of Corona and obviously it was not as good as in person. But the opportunity it does give you is to take lessons from artists you love. So I did take a few lessons from one of my guitar hero’s who was giving lessons since he couldn’t tour anymore for a living. Since he lives in a different country it would have never worked out otherwise and that way I got some incredibly useful tips, that I would have never gotten otherwise and that were custom made for my playing. It doesn’t make any sense to take only lessons like this, but it does make perfect sense if you have specific questions and problems to work with and know what you want to get out of the lesson. The one thing that trumps all of the previous tho is:

6. Music School:

Pretty much one year ago I passed the audition for my music university. With the joined combination of all the previous things I actually got good enough in only 3 years that people thought I can study it now. Big disclaimer: since I live in Germany studying is free. Or technically costs 300$ per semester but you only pay that for a train ticket. So it’s not even for the school itself but you still have to pay it. So probably the experience in the US is much more stressful especially on your bank account. But if you ever get the chance to do it cheaply: take it!
Being surrounded by all kinds of musicians all day long, having band class, private classes and other incredibly useful stuffs is literally the best way to actually master your instrument.
It’s soooo much fun and I’m incredibly thankful for this opportunity.
It made me realise one last option tho, that seems to be overlooked nowadays:

7. Playing along to records:

Honestly, just do that. It’s for free and even if you mess up, you develop your own style. And if you don’t, you learn the in’s and outs of somebody else’s style. It’s the most useful thing for phrasing, your ears and technique. So if you only do one thing, do this one.

I hope this was useful to somebody. I’m definitely a child of this generation of learning guitar and fell victim to the many different options a couple of times, but in the end I do think I would never study it right now, if it wasn’t for all of it. We do live in the best time to learn guitar, you just sometimes need to realise which option works and which doesn’t and you’re gonna end up having an amazing time!

[daddydroii]

me: **Looks at my guitar**
Guitar: YES YES YES
me: nah
GUitar: well, shit

[quiet_owo]

Justin Guitar is literally the only motivation i need to play. what a wholesome guy

[littleredruri]

About a year ago I started learning using Andy Guitar's 10 episode beginner's course on youtube. After about 4 episodes I got bored, figured I got the basics, and just went on to the ultimate tabs website and learned every Wilbur Soot song. Now I'm about moderate at guitar. Not a bad way to learn as far as I'm concerned, do it at your own pace.

[TheRockinDonkey]

Your channel is great. I went from an intermediate guitar player to a beginner in two days. (I switched from right handed to left handed)

[toothpick]

Started guitar at 27 years old on August 28th 2020. Started with rocksmith, yousician and YouTube videos . Now i just learn songs, techniquies, a bit of music theory and jam along with people who are better than me, which helps a lot. I’m glad i picked up a guitar and hope whoever is out there knows that if they put in the time and effort you can do it. Good luck to all the beginners.

[yface]

find a friend who knows how to play and get the basics down from them or if that's not an option get a teacher. Then it gets easy. YouTube and Guitar Tabs are the number one way for learning songs that you actually want and like. I don't know why some guitarists shit on tabs. It's fast, easy and free

[ivanlagayacrus]

Im personally taking a "learn on the job" approach. I learn chords and techniques as they become relevant to what i care about playing. Im not in a band, im not doing this seriously, its just for me, so why stress over a million things that dont matter to what i want to play

[wezzlyn]

The best way to get good at guitar is to never be satisfied with what you know. Never stop learning.

[thornwivans]

Justin guitar for theory and how to play...Marty Music to learn some cool riffs when you just wanna have fun....thats the main thing rocking out and having fun!

[anakinskywalker]

My guitar teacher teaches me for free. What a g

[azizaziz]

Dude… I don’t care what you talk about. Your style is just hilarious. I wish i can deliver my presentation at work this way

[Fezezen]

My parents got me Rocksmith this Christmas, I've been playing already for like 2 years. It's pretty fun anyway since I like how it ranks me and tells me how accurate I am when playing a cover

[SomashreeSaha]

Start learning with free videos on YouTube. Once you got an idea what you are doing then you can decide by yourself whether you should enroll in a course or not.
Trust me if you are dedicated then you don't need to spend even a single penny to learn something new. Everything is out there for free to learn. All you gotta do is spend some time to find the right materials for you to learn. Take it slow and steady if you want but don't get overwhelmed with so many options. Try some techniques and then decide which one is right for you.
That is how you learn basically anything by yourself without spending a single penny.

[eoin]

Shout out guitarlessons365, I just know with him that I'm learning the song as accurately as possible

[maciekjankowskitomkow]

Justin guitar and a guitar teacher after completing the course is the way to go imo

[snater]

Scott Paul Johnson has some great stuff on music theory for guitar on YT, but way more on his Patreon. Also probably has the best camera set up.

[Queasy.]

Up until now I’ve been learning beginner songs suggested by random blogs through ultimate guitar and sky guitar

[ultimatepatriot]

I’m 43 and started playing a year ago. I have picked up my guitar every day or night except for maybe 2 weeks total. Nothing but rocksmith, tabs and free people on YouTube. Rocksmith is hard to beat, and awesome way to visualize tabs with background music.