Jam Babble

JamBabble exists to help spread the word about how easy it is for any one to learn to play the guitar through online guitar lessons, the piano using online piano lessons and even the drums with online drums lessons.

Thanks to the Internet it’s never before been easier to learn to play an instrument or improve your current skills. It takes less time (thanks to making your own schedule of when you learn and practice) and less money (online membership websites are far less expensive then taking private instruction).

For example. Did you know that taking weekly blues guitar lessons can cost up to $30 per week? Or that taking private bass guitar lessons can run you well over $1000 a year?

When you consider the huge cost of private lessons for a year it makes that $150 guitar lesson dvd look a lot more attractive doesn’t it?

If you’ve got the passion or even just a small inkling of interest in learning to play an instrument stick around. We post frequent content about how you can use self study music courses and lessons to learn to play the instrument of your choice entirely from home.

Without a doubt blues is the most popular sub style of guitar playing. To become a master at the entire instrument can take years to accomplish, but one of the greatest things about the blues is you can get started with some simple tips and techniques. Today I have five essential topics you have to cover while learning, and if you choose to follow them you’ll be propelled ahead of the pack when taking blues guitar lessons.

The Basics of 12 Bar Blues

If there is one essential ingredient in everything blues, it’s the 12 bar blues pattern. There is a bit of musical theory behind the concept once you under it you’ll be able to quickly start playing it right away.

The twelve bar blues pattern is made up of three different chords known as the one, the four and the five of a given key, these are often denoted as the I, IV and V. If one, four, five is new to you then you may want to familiarize yourself with it first, how ever it’s not all that tough to understand.

Below is the simple pattern made up of the one, the four and the five chords for the 12 bar blues:

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 4 – 4 – 1 – 1 – 5 – 4 – 1 – 5

In the example above the 1 is for the one chord, the 4 the four chord and the 5 the five chord.

Get to Know Seventh Chords

Seventh chords are a variation of a major chord that sound great when playing a 12 bar blues progression. For example if you were playing A, D and E then change those out to be the A seventh, D seventh and E seventh chords. Generally speaking these chords are note tough to play and can be found at several places on the neck as both open and barre chords.

Understand the Blues Scales

The blues scales are basically a regular pentatonic 5 note scale with a “blues note” added in. Like a regular pentatonic scale you can play these in several positions around the neck in a different key so knowing where the root note is an important part of learning to play lead to a particular 12 bar blues progression.

Don’t Over complicate

if there’s one thing I’ve noticed beginners do is they try to make learning the blues more difficult then it has to be. Generally speaking some of the sweetest sounding blues licks are also the easiest to play. Be sure that you do take some proper blues instruction whether that be from a private instructor or you purchase a blues guitar course.

Use Backing Tracks

If you’re not familiar with backing tracks you should be because they make practicing a heck of a lot more fun. If you’re not familiar a backing/jam track is basically a full band recorded playing a song or progression but without the guitar. You play these tracks on your MP3 player or stereo and then jam along with them as the guitar tracks. This is similar to playing along with other musicians but far easier to organize.

The majority of online guitar lesson memberships offer jam tracks in their practice tools, also most DVD lessons include a CD or two of backing tracks to practice with as well.

Beginner guitarists have quite a few choices for how they learn to play guitar There are dvd courses, private lessons and of course online guitar lessons. Each method of instruction has good and bad points.

I believe that for a motivated self starter online lessons are likely the best guitar lessons out there.

Easy Access

Online guitar lessons are available more or less any where you can get access to the web. Most membership sites I’ve been a part of provide their lesson content in a low, medium and high bandwidth format. That means that you can adjust the quality and size of the video you watch based on the Internet connection you’re using to view them.

Low Time Requirement

Generally speaking most online guitar videos are short snippets about a broad topic. This makes it easy for busy individuals to watch a short video clip rather then have to commit to a 30 minute lesson when they may not have the free time at that moment.

If you only have a very short window of time and you want to watch a quick lesson then these shorter videos make that possible and you can still feel like you’re progressing with your dream to learn the guitar.

You’re In Control

Something I always thought held me back from learning more on the guitar was the fact that I was willing to put in far more work then was required for my one guitar lesson a week. I would go to my lesson on Tuesday night and practice for a couple of hours both Wednesday and Thursday night, and by Friday I was ready for something new but I still have four more days to wait until my next lesson.

Online guitar lessons provide you with lots of content right away so if you’re eager to learn quickly you can, if not then you can take your time it’s entirely up to you

If you’re excited to learn and have the time you can digest 3, 4 or even 5 lessons a week and practice them as well. Of course on the flip side if you’re busy and only have a few 15-20 minutes one week then you can watch a short lesson but not feel guilty about falling behind since you’re entirely in control of the learning process.

There are three things you must have if you want to be successful at learning the guitar. Now these aren’t concrete items you need in order to learn most effectively, rather these are elements that you must look for before you can start taking guitar lessons online.

The Right Instructor

It doesn’t matter if you’re enrolling for private instruction or joining an online guitar course, either way you need to have the right teacher for your playing style, expectations and personality.

Well you might say, if I’m taking lessons online what does it matter? Well trust me if you watch a video of someone who annoys you you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

Right Style

Do you love hard rock and metal? Or is softer acoustic and classical tones more your style?. Which every style you enjoy take this into consideration because chances are that’s the way you’ll want to learn guitar. Sure when you’re first starting out you must learn the basic chords, notes and scales. How ever learning these on an electric guitar with distortion would be ideal if you love hard rock and metal, but a nightmare if you enjoy acoustic sounds.

Right Program

So we need the proper teacher is important as well as the style of that teacher, it’s not time to consider the medium with which you will learn.

Some people like watching videos on their PC, these people would likely enjoy a online guitar lessons course. Then there are others who can’t stand the thought of watching videos online and would much rather use their TV, for these folks a DVD course would make more sense. Finally there is a group, albeit smaller, that would prefer having a book to learn from and read about the techniques and theories on the guitar, for those people an ebook or lesson book from your local music shop would serve the purpose.

Choosing your form of instruction based on your preferred style of play, personality and way you learn best will give you the best chance at success while learning guitar