Acoustic Blues guitar lesson spice up that bluesy playing

The internet is a wonderful and magnificent thing. Young people today don’t all appreciate how lucky they are to have the worlds knowledge and skills at their fingertips via the internet.

I started playing in the 1970s with the famous Bert Weedon’s ‘Play in a Day’ book. I couldn’t afford guitar lessons so I would avidly watch the fingers of every guitarist I could, trying to pick up playing techniques, riffs and licks.

Todays technology has transformed the way that people can learn to play guitar. Tuition DVDs, for example, can be played repeatedly, unlike face to face guitar lessons. And the internet provides an ideal platform for the presentation of guitar tutorials.

While there are many guitar tuition websites by far my favourite resource is Youtube. You can find instructional videos on everything from choosing guitars to making your own electric guitar. There are some excellent videos for all levels of learning, from complete novice through to extremely advanced.

Learning some new techniques, tunes and licks has become my favourite hobby. If it’s raining outside then you will find me scouring Youtube videos for blues tunes to learn and techniques to master. I can safely say that I have learned more from the internet over the past five years than I learned from books and from watching other guitarists in the preceding twenty years.

Another thing to remember is that the system is interactive. When I find a video that I like I will always make it one of my favourites and maybe drop the performer a comment to say thanks. Also, I like to ask the odd question and invariably the person who created the video will respond with an answer. Youtube is a bit like having any number of personal guitar consultants who are always happy to answer your questions.

These days I find myself feeling a little bit envious of the young people learning guitar with all these great resources available to them. I like to think that if I had been born at a time when the internet was available, providing this wealth of incredibly valuable instruction and guidance, who knows, I might have become the next Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan.