Lots of people today are making use of the high availability of online sites that promise to help you learn to play the guitar. The internet has given us a whole new media when it comes to learning to play the guitar, whether you are an absolute beginner or a seasoned pro.

Streaming videos now allow people to learn in the comfort o their own living room, at any time, whenever they like. Online guitar tutorials are now a huge industry - there are a massive amount of sites, and a lot of them will teach you how to play the guitar to very high standard. Here, we have explored some of the advantages of these sites for you, and taken a closer look at what they can offer you.

1)    The convenience
We are lucky to live in a time when convenience and easy availability of goods and services is part of our social make-up, and when it comes to learning to play the guitar, this is no different. As we stated earlier, by learning to play the guitar online you can learn wherever and whenever you want. More and more everyday activities are becoming more and more convenient (like shopping, for example).

Nowadays, you can learn at your pace - a few minutes here and there if you so desire. You can even fit learning to play the guitar around other activities. In the past, guitar students would have to travel to the instructor’s studio for a lesson. This involved often inconvenient travel times, and more often than not involved setting aside a whole afternoon or evening for a lesson.

2) Choose your own instructor
The majority of online tutorial sites give you the advantage of being able to choose from a wide variety of instructors. This means that instead of just finding someone who is close to your home, you can browse through a number of biographies and see sample lessons before you decide. The biggest advantage of this, of course, is that you can find someone who is specific to your needs.

Taking lessons from two or three instructors will give you a good sense of balance and you may even learn better doing it this way - don’t have to stick to just one instructor. Some of them are more hands on, whilst others favor a more visual approach, it’s worth trying out different instructors to find one that best suits your learning style.

3) Its flexible
The courses are completely flexible in that you can choose what you want - in a more one-on-one situation you will often fin that you are learning only what the instructor wants (or is able to) teach you. When you choose an online program, you are in the driving seat, and you get to learn what you want to learn!

4) Its affordable
For the online tutorial, the business premise is relatively simple: they can provide more lessons for less money. You probably don’t want to spend a great deal of money in order to learn to play the guitar, and in this you are not alone. If you look at the math its simple: if 100 members of a particular site pay $10 each, then the site generates $1000. This revenue can then be used to film and produce even more lessons.
A lot of the websites offer membership for around $40, which represents great value for money when you consider how many lessons are open to you when you join up. With a one-on-one instructor you will be looking to pay something between $30 and $60 per half hour lesson. So the value of the online training is clear.

It can seem a little frustrating at times when you come across something that you don’t understand. The only significant downfall when it comes to online learning, is that there is no-one there to ask a question to when you get stuck. This, however, is a pretty small disadvantage when you consider all the benefits of learning to play the guitar online.

Copyright 2009 Liam Gibson