MAMEWorld Forums - The Loony Bin - Re: Best Online Guitar Lesson site I've yet found

> www.cifraclub.com.br
>
> Even ignoring the fact it's in Portuguese, because it doesn't matter because they
> have the video demonstration embedded, also embedded original music video clips
> (under "clipes"), they have the tabs, the chords, the sheet music, everything. The
> embedds float, so you can scroll through the tablature or the sheet music, and still
> see the vids. You can pick versions of the lessons, including Bass (baixo). If the
> song has piano, ukulele, or even violin accompaniment, they have that too (under the
> buttons labelled "teclado", "cavaco" and "vialoa" respectively), It's the most
> complete, comprehensive library of lessons I've ever seen... and it's free.
>
> I've found all kinds of music, all genres, all eras. It's pretty awesome. My boys are
> using it now (maybe they'll even learn some Portuguese while they are there... by
> accident, you know... they don't want to learn it.)

It's pretty cool, especially to have the video demonstrations to go along with the TAB and sheet music.

Two things, though, for anyone who is serious about learning an instrument:

TAB is a great shortcut, but it is really worthwhile to sit down with a recording and learn it on your own. The ear training you get from it is invaluable and makes you a better musician in the long term. I got started when TAB first started really becoming mainstream, in guitar mags and books. Being a lazy-ass teenager, I relied on it almost exclusively and missed out on a lot of ear training, which would come back to bite me later. Digital recordings these days are so easy to work with (compared to records, cassettes, and even CDs) there's really no excuse.

Online lessons are great, but almost all of the ones I've seen focus just on teaching you a particular song, with basically no discussion of the underlying music theory. That's fine if you just want to learn a few tunes to play at parties, but if you really want to learn the instrument, there's no replacement for studying with a real teacher. Learning the chords is great, but understanding how they work is even more important if you want to be able to improvise, pick up new songs quickly, work with other musicians, write songs, etc.