Great Way to Learn How to Play the Guitar

It's hard to believe that more than 20 years have passed since my mom gave me a guitar for my birthday. She paid fifty dollars for it back then, and even got me started with a few lessons at a local music store.

I never spent enough time with my guitar to play in a band or anything like that - the most I've done is play for church youth groups throughout the years. But these days, strumming my guitar is one of the few activities that I have the luxury of enjoying once in a while. To ease back and take a break from my daily responsibilities, other than playing tennis and reading a good book, nothing beats going down to our basement and belting out a few songs.

Until recently, I used sites like chordie.com and ultimate-guitar.com to find chords to songs that I wanted to learn. And I'd try to improve my skills just by listening to songs and identifying different strumming and picking patterns.

A short while ago, I stumbled upon a site that appears to be an incredibly valuable resource for guitar players of all levels of experience - it's called Jam Play.

Jam Play is revolutionizing the guitar lesson industry. Their membership-only service provides a constantly growing library of high-definition video guitar lessons that feature a number of professional musicians.

What I like most about Jam Play is that they present their lessons in a systematic way, starting with the very basics like how to tune your guitar, how to place your fingers for different chords, how to strum basic chords, how to follow different finger-picking patterns, and a number of other techniques that previously, you could really only learn quickly and accurately with the help of a private instructor.

And with over 150 hours of expert lessons in their growing video library, they teach guitar playing skills that even highly experienced guitarists can likely use to enhance their music.

Because Jam Play is so popular within the guitar industry, they have a huge membership base, which allows them to offer their interactive service for quite a modest fee. And they even offer a money-back guarantee, just in case you find that their service isn't for you.

I like their service so much that I recently purchased a membership for my younger sister, who has been asking me to teach her how to play guitar for many years now. I've tried to teach her basic chords and strumming patterns, but because I don't have much formal training, I've never been able to address some of the problems that prevented her from really enjoying her guitar (like how to systematically learn how to strum and pick different songs - I've always just felt my way along). I'm hopeful that she'll be more successful with her online guitar lessons from expert teachers!

If you're new to playing the guitar and want to listen to a couple of songs that are really simple to play, feel free to view the following videos - they're by a young lady in the States who my wife discovered one day on YouTube - she has the most lovely voice ever, and her YouTube page says that she only recently started playing the guitar.

Cover of "The Way I Am" by Ingrid Michaelson - Take II - By Scientiste at YouTube.com.

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Cover of "First Cut is the Deepest" by S. Crow/Cat Stevens - By Scientiste at YouTube.com.

Brilliant, right? If you want to listen to more of her songs, click Scientiste, and you'll see a number of other recordings that she's produced.

Anyway, I realize that this post is a bit of a departure from our usual health-related articles and recipes, but I've long embraced the thought that we strive to be healthy to be of service to others and to enjoy some of life's greatest pleasures, and playing a musical instrument while singing along ranks right up there for me.

I'll end this post with a few suggestions for those of you who might be inspired to go and purchase a guitar:

1. Decide if you want an acoustic (wood) or an electric guitar. Generally speaking, electric guitars are easier to play because you don't have to press down on the strings as hard to get a clean sound. With acoustic guitars, you need to use quite a bit of pressure, and it may take a few weeks of toughening up the pads of your fingers to get comfortable playing one.

2. If you buy an acoustic guitar, strum it loudly at the store, and compare how clean the sound is compared to other guitars. Most beginners are too shy to test a guitar properly at a store, but the only way to get a feel for the quality of a guitar is to play it loudly.

3. Look for a guitar that doesn't have too much space between the strings and the frets (the handle that you press the strings down against). Less space translates to an easier time producing clean sounds, as well as better pitch since more space can often lead to unintended flat or sharp notes.

You can get more guidance on choosing the right guitar for you at Jam Play.

Happy strumming!

P.S. If you're a beginner and want to hit the sweet spot between getting a quality guitar and not paying through the roof, the best guitar I can recommend can be found here:

Good Beginner Guitar

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