Original Articles

First you should learn about your instrument. A rock guitar is no different to any other type in it’s basic construction. It can be acoustic or electric, and many rock guitarists play acoustic guitars fitted with pick-ups. It is important that you understand those parts of your guitar than can affect the sound, such as the string eyes and the way the strings are tied off, the strengthening rod in the neck, and the positioning and type of the pickups.

When you learn rock guitar online you must first learn those things that many guitarists hate: the chords. However, keep in mind that many of the greatest rock guitarists ever are acquainted with guitar chords, and have made a point of learning the common major and minor chords, and many of the others also. Blues guitarists have to know how to form chords with a lower pitched note, and the difference between the majors and the sevenths.

They also have to learn how to tune their guitars properly, and modern blues guitarists tend to tune their guitar to allow a maximum of chords to be played with open strings, just as Hawaiian slack key players do. All of that is basic stuff that has to be learned when you are learning rock guitar online.

Don’t forget the scales. That word brings thought of endless practice of repetitions of notes until you are dreaming about them, but that is exactly the point. The pentatonic scales in particular are of critical importance when learning rock guitar, and are used by practically all soloists and lead guitarists in their riffs and fast solos. Many are simply a pentatonic scale repeated up and down the frets with some extras thrown in, two of the more famous being Hotel California and Freebird. Without learning scales, you would find it very difficult to play either of these.

Once you have learned the main chords and at least the pentatonic scale, then you are ready to learn rock guitar online. If you use a video membership site you should be able to choose a rock guitar teacher that suits you, and work your way through the lessons. Don’t miss any out because you think you know it, since you likely won’t – at least not as well as you have to in order to progress to the next lesson. Each lesson is designed to teach you what you have to know to proceed to the next.

It won’t be long till you are ready for the real meat of learning rock guitar. All the techniques needed to play with the minimum of effort and fingering, and to speed up your playing for these solos that you so much want to be able to play. Techniques such as hammer ons, pull offs, trills, and guitar harmonics. Each of these is difficult to master, but once you have succeeded they will be with you for life.

Blues is also at the heart of rock: the blues developed into rock and roll that then developed into rock, then heavy metal. All of these genres require a knowledge of blues and sevenths. If you practice 12 bar blues, you will soon be good enough. Learning rock guitar online can be great fun because you are combining so many different styles into one. You could even learn a few jazz progressions, and spend some time on a fingerstyle lesson in order to expand your capabilities.

That’s one of the benefits when you learn rock guitar online using a guitar teaching membership site – you can expand your knowledge by taking a few lessons from some of the other genres. You can’t do that using a book or a an individual guitar teaching video.

Once all of these techniques come together, you will be an accomplished rock guitarist, and you can either go on to learn a bit more about jazz guitar, or try heavy metal. Each of this will not only improve your abilities as a general rock guitarist, but also might interest you enough to change your specialty. Many do, so you won’t be alone if you did so.

In conclusion, it can be great fun to learn rock guitar online, especially if you do so using an online guitar membership site, but make sure you don’t specialize too early, and that are competent in the basics before you try the more difficult techniques.