Our Promise to You
At Beginning Guitar Online we promise to not only focus on flashy licks, but focus on the techniques and the context around those techniques so you’ll be able to understand how to use what you learn. We start with the ‘“boring stuff” because it’s absolutely fundamental to establishing a good foundation to build upon no matter what style you want to play or how technical of a guitarist you want to become.
In addition, we promise to be a resource for guitar teachers and students alike. We’ll provide the tools and the resources to be able to teach yourself guitar or help you spread the love of guitar playing to your students.
Please help us live up to this promise by contacting us with your feedback, lesson ideas, or questions about the materials you find on the site. Thanks!
About Beginning Guitar Online
The idea for Beginning Guitar Online was born through experiences teaching in-person guitar and music composition lessons. There were three elements that brought on the idea: conversations with students on how they got interested in playing, conversations with teachers on how they utilize online lesson videos, and working with a student who used videos to help learn guitar because dyslexia makes reading sheet music difficult.
All of these things came together to show that there was a need for online guitar videos that didn’t just focus on flashy licks that are out of context, but showed proper technique and how to utilize the tips and tricks one finds to bring their playing to the top levels.
That’s why the BGO promise includes not focusing on only fancy licks but providing the absolute fundamentals for guitar playing so that no matter what level or style of playing you aspire to you’ll be able to get there with the confidence that you know what you’re doing.
Conversations with Students
Over the course of teaching in-person lessons, students would come in saying that they had started teaching themselves guitar by watching YouTube videos. While it’s great these student’s took initiative, the videos they would watch were mostly how to play flashy licks or advanced techniques.
These students would come in with bad habits that would have to be undone and gaps in their knowledge that could lead to poor technique and prevent the students from reaching the level of playing they wanted to get to. This can be very disheartening when you want to progress as a player but everything that you’ve taught yourself needs to be unlearned.
One of the other issues with many of the videos students would bring would be that the person in the video wasn’t necessarily someone who has experience as a teacher. That’s why we want to make sure that you get information from experienced teachers and you’re provided the context around how to use a lick or a phrase so that you’re able to actually use what you learn.
A Resource for Guitar Teachers
As great as teaching guitar is, there are some frustrating realities of teaching. Having a student miss lessons because of homework, soccer games, or during their summer break can be frustrating when that student was making great progress before the time off.
One of the things that many of the teachers would state was that it would be great for a reputable source of lesson materials that could be given to the student when they miss or when the teacher is unavailable for that week. We want to be that resource for guitar teachers. Whether it’s taking lesson videos a le cart to meet the student’s needs that week or taking a student through our curriculum we want to help facilitate learning guitar however we can.
If you’re a guitar teacher and have any feedback on the lessons or have a request for specific lessons that we don’t have please contact us and let us know!