Learning guitar online

by Roy
(Kolkata, West Bengal, India)

Question: I don't have much time to learn guitar. I have found so many essential subjects on your site. Can learning from the internet make me a good guitarist?

One more thing, my fingers are short so will this make it difficult to learn guitar?

Answer

Time constraint is a problem for many guitarists. In my opinion, the internet has really helped these guitarists learn in their own time and at their own pace. As long as you have access to the internet during your free time, I think it's a valuable resource for learning guitar.

I honestly wouldn't have set up a guitar lessons site if I didn't think it was a useful medium to learn through. Streaming video has certainly helped make the internet a great learning environment.

Guitar Tricks is, in my opinion, the best online video guitar lesson site. There is a small monthly fee (much less than what a private tutor would cost), but it offers far more than any free site could (over 3000 lessons last time I checked).

So yes, learning online CAN make you a great guitarist, but a lot of it is down to how you personally use what you learn. 50% of your practise time should be devoted to exploring the concepts you learn independently.

Short fingers

Again, this is an obstacle many guitarists face. If you have small fingers, you may simply need to adjust your fret-hand position so you can get a good purchase on the fretboard.

Guitarists with small hands tend to move their thumb more towards the centre of the back of the guitar neck. This gives their fingers more height to fret the strings without collapsing back too much.

There may also be the issue of playing wide fret intervals, especially lower down the neck. This effects both chord and lead playing.

For chords, try cutting down the more awkward chord shapes to 3 or 4 strings so you're using your fingers more economically.

For lead, the most effective way to overcome this is to make use of finger slides. In fact, this can give your lead playing a very dynamic quality.

Pick-hand technique should not be affected by having small hands.

Hope this helps and please, enjoy the site because you will learn a lot! I'm always here if you need any help.