LEARNING GUITAR
GUITAR LESSONS FOR BEGINNERS
If you are a beginner guitarist you have no doubt explored your way through at least some YouTube guitar lesson channels. You are probably wondering how to really learn guitar, which guitar lesson YouTube channels are the best, and how to make sense of it all?
Rick Baker, of Guitar Stories USA and Winter Park Vintage Guitars, vintage guitar expert, professional guitarist and bassist since the late 70s, and retired music attorney is taking on guitar students who are just starting out or intermediate guitar players who want to advance their rock skills. Rick’s playing and historical knowledge can greatly help you make sense of this guitar thing and who else to listen to learn what you need to know.
If you ever wanted to learn to play guitar by someone who can actually teach effectively, you know this to be true:
Knowing how to play guitar is one thing; knowing how to teach someone to play guitar is quite another.
LEARNING GUITAR - MY APPROACH
I believe the best way to really learn to play guitar is by learning to play songs. If these songs are songs that you love and feel passionate about, you will be motivated to learn how to play it on guitar. In the process, you will pick up guitar playing techniques that you can apply in other song related situations. Building your guitar skills by learning from the masters who wrote and played a song you love and learning what and how they did to make you feel the music just makes sense.
Therefore, learning guitar is a journey, learned by studying the masters through their songs, taking away what can serve you on guitar in many songs you play or perform in the future. So we start with the student requesting to learn a specific rock guitar song or us recommending a good place to start, based on the student’s interests and their current guitar skill level.
A GUITAR LESSON PLAN PAGE
I next prepare a webpage on that guitarist and that particular song, with a few video guitar lessons from my most highly rated channels with guitar lessons on YouTube that match that song lesson request. The purpose of creating an online guitar lesson plan is to inform the student about more than just a simple “how to” guitar lesson; it’s to approach it from a perspective of learning about guitarists they should know and study what made them great, in a playing and in historical music context.
Then we approach song specifics from good lessons currently available on YouTube as a starting point using our recommended channels for YouTube guitar lessons. After the student does this “homework” we meet in person (or Zoom, etc.) for our live lesson to help the student with refining the playing of the song and incorporating guitar parts with the specific guitar playing techniques within the context of playing the song all the way through and memorizing the song.
WHY THIS METHOD OF LEARNING GUITAR WORKS?
Learning guitar through guitar lessons based on learning songs is the way to keep the student’s interest and use those songs and their guitar part techniques as teaching points of not only the song, but the style that can be used in other songs.
GUITAR LESSONS ARE LIMITED
I’m interested primarily helping younger beginners who love classic rock and want to really improve their guitar skills and also learn the history of rock guitar of the golden age of rock. Anyone of any age however, who wants to learn the art of rock guitar and how to play guitar by learning great guitar songs to become a confident guitar player who can have fun and express themselves better, just shoot Rick a message. Rick only takes a few students at a time so let him know what you’re into and want to learn.
Rick prefers in-person guitar lessons if you are in the Central Florida areas of Orlando, Winter Park, Oviedo, Maitland, Casselberry, Altamonte Springs, Longwood or Winter Springs.
If not, no problem, we just do it online video chat.
For those about to Rock, we salute you!
