Whatever your reason is for wanting to play the guitar, your excitement and passion will be at their highest when you walk into the music store and buy your first guitar. The dream has begun. But when the challenge of learning to play your new instrument begins, the dream has to give way to reality.

Many people find that it's harder to learn guitar than they thought, especially if they are trying to teach themselves. There are a number of reasons for this.

My Guitar keeps going out of tune!

Failure to prepare yourself before buying your first guitar is the first on the list. If you don't spend some time researching different guitars and what to look for, you will probably end up with a guitar that either doesn't fit you well and is not comfortable to play, or is of poor quality.

Getting the wrong guitar can have a big effect on your ability to progress. A cheap poor build guitar will not only have a poor quality sound, but may well lose tune quickly. This will be a cause of discouragement while you try to learn.

Make sure that you take time over buying your first guitar. There are many guides on the internet that explain how to go about buying a guitar, so make good use of these.

Ouch - That hurt!

The second on the list occurs when you start playing. The new guitar player will, after a while, experience some pain. The pain may occur in the arm or wrist, and if you are learning on an acoustic, you will also suffer from painful finger tips on your fret hand. Finger pain is not usually a problem on electric guitars as less pressure is needed to hold down the string.

This is just something you have to work through. You should limit your practice sessions while you go through this stage until the tips of your fingers have firmed up and become less painful. Pay attention to posture and the way you hold the guitar to help with any arm or wrist pain, and make sure that you always carry out some warm up exercises before you practice.

Faster faster!

The third problem is trying to play too fast. As a beginner learning guitar you will be in a hurry for a result. This tends to make you rush your practice, and then you get frustrated that you can't change chords quickly enough, or the chords don't play cleanly. If you practice like this, all you are doing is practicing to make mistakes. These mistakes will then become fixed, and you will have to spend time trying to unlearn these mistakes.

Make sure that you practice at a slow pace. Speed at this stage is not important, accuracy is. Once you have practiced enough to play accurately, then is the time to try playing it a bit faster. A Metronome, which beats time for you at whatever speed you set it to, will help you keep your practice at a nice slow pace.

These are just three problem areas that many beginner guitarists hit. I know that most teach yourself guitarists struggle in the early stages of learning and many give up - I was one of them! When I made a second attempt to learn to play guitar, I knew a different approach was needed if I was to succeed.

In order to keep on track, I used a number of techniques to help me stay focused. I have now written a report giving details of these techniques. If you would like a copy of this report you can get a copy free by clicking here

I hope you will take a look at this report and give yourself a better chance of success with learning guitar.

Ken

One of the most popular self teach guitar courses around is Jamorama. This course offers a lot of information for little dollars!

But what's it really like to use?

To help prospective customers decide, Jamorama offer 6 free trial lessons. The lessons are sent by email at intervals of about 4 days to allow time for practicing between each lesson. This is a great way to get a taste of the learning materials before you decide whether to buy.

The main course is supplied as an interactive application into which you download each lesson as it is required until you eventually have the full set. This avoids what would probably be a lengthy download of the complete course. It is possible to print out each lesson if you want and file this in a ring binder.

The course is well structured and follows a step by step approach, with lessons that are clear and easy to understand.

As well as the two main interactive books of lessons, you get additional interactive learning software and books. To provide further support in your learning, you get access to the Jamorama Members area, which contains Articles, Tabs/Songs, a Forum and a Help Centre.

The two main Books of lessons are well laid out and make good use of photographs plus audio and video clips, which are directly accessible from within the multi media book. The previous version of the course required separate access to the audio/video clips and this made use of the course a bit cumbersome. The new multimedia version is a big improvement.

You also receive a regular newsletter from Jamorama with more tips on playing and answers to reader's questions.

Amongst the bonuses is the Guitar Tuner Pro software. When opened, this provides a diagram of a Guitar Neck and can show the notes for 7 different types of tuning as well as bass guitar tuning. If you click on a string the note is played, so you can use this to help when tuning your guitar.

To guide you through the tuning process there is a separate ebook on Tuning. This ebook covers the tuning process well, but it is largely text based with a few diagrams. Not quite to the same clear standard as the rest of the course. I feel it could have done with a few photographs, or better still videos describing each method. This would provided a quicker way to learn how to tune a guitar, rather than reading through and trying to visualize the text descriptions and diagrams.

Perhaps this will be updated in the future release of the course. All new versions of the course are made available in the member's area for free download, so you can always keep up to date with course improvements.

This course is ideal for anyone just starting out or someone who has some skill and wants to improve or has got stuck at a certain level. It is possible to progress to a high levels of skill with this course.

Apart from my only gripe about the Tuning book, I think this is a great course.

For the current asking price this course is fantastic value for money and well worth serious attention for anyone wanting to learn guitar quickly. There is also a 60 day money back guarantee with no questions asked so there is no risk.

If you have tried other forms of self teaching and become stuck or progress has been slow, I think you'll find that the Jamorama course will help get you moving again.

You can find out more about Jamorama here.

Whilst there I recommend that you sign up for the 6 free lessons. You will be able to play a complete tune by the end of these and it will give you a chance to see the style of the teaching materials and decide if the course is right for you.

It is an exciting time when you set out to buy your first acoustic guitar, but you will find that a minefield of possibilities awaits. How can you decide which acoustic guitar to buy?

The following is an outline of the way you should approach this and offers a way to get through the bewildering choices that are available to you.

What Type of Acoustic Do You Want to Play?

There are two basic types of Acoustic - Classical/Spanish
guitars, used for classical and flamenco music, and steel string acoustics, used mainly for folk, rock and jazz styles of music.

Classical and flamenco guitars use nylon or gut strings. This makes them easier to play as less pressure is needed to hold down the strings. In addition, the size of these guitars is smaller than steel stringed acoustics. This makes them a good beginner guitar, especially for younger players. Classical guitars have a warmer sound than steel string acoustic guitars but don't deliver as much volume.

The strings on steel string acoustic guitars are held at a higher tension to produce the correct notes. As a result more pressure is required to hold down the strings. For beginner guitar players, this will cause some pain in the finger tips. With gentle practice over time the finger tips harden and it becomes easier to hold down the strings.

The body of a standard steel string guitar is bigger than the body of a classical guitar. You may find that the body is too big to be comfortable playing. You can get steel string acoustics in smaller sizes though, such as three quarters size. Steel string acoustic guitars have a bright sound with plenty of volume.

Decide How Much You Want To Spend

Acoustic guitars come in a wide range of prices. A word of caution here though. Don't be tempted by some cheap guitars, usually offered with a package of accessories. These can be poorly built. Cheap build guitars may suffer from weak sound, easy loss of tune requiring constant re-tuning and may be harder to play. This can be very discouraging for the beginner, who although trying hard, is not making a nice sound. They may think it is their playing, but in fact even an experienced guitarist would not be able to produce a good sound.

Try to get he best make you can for the money you have available to spend. Starting off with an entry level quality guitar is much better than going for the cheap package deal. You will be able to get a good sound and this will encourage you to continue.

Do Some Research of Guitars You Can Afford

The easiest place to carry out research is on the internet. There are many websites with information on different models of guitar. You can also find sites that carry reviews of different models.

Consider the construction of the guitar. For example try to find out if the guitar has a laminate top or a solid wood top. The sound produced by a laminate top guitar is dull when compared to a solid wood top guitar. A solid wood top guitar will sound much richer and the sound will improve as the wood ages. The only problem with solid wood tops is that they are more susceptible to humidity than laminate top guitars. Laminate is typically used on cheaper guitars.

Spend some time on this and use the information to produce a short list of guitars.

Audition Guitars From Your Short List

OK now it is time for you to go and audition some guitars, by visiting your local music store. If you can't play guitar yet, take along someone who can. Alternatively you can ask the salesman in the shop to demonstrate the models you are interested in.

Listen carefully to the sound of the guitar - are there any unusual sounds such as buzzing or cracking when the strings are played? You need to make sure that the guitar sound is clean. Also make sure that you hold the guitar yourself if the guitar was demonstrated by the salesman. You need to check how it feels to hold. Is it comfortable? How well does your hand fit the size of the fretboard? These things are important. It's just like buying shoes. If you get bad fitting shoes you won't be able to walk far. So with guitar, if you find the guitar is a bad fit for you, your guitar playing will not go too far.

Is She The One For Me???

Finally, if the guitar you have found is comfortable, the fret is the right size for your hand and you love the sound, you've found your dream guitar. By following these steps to make sure you get the right guitar, you have eliminated the first barrier to guitar success!

Get practicing and good luck!