Playing Rock Guitar Lessons

I found that with Playing Rock Guitar, it was very hard to get beyond being a beginner. After having taken some great guitar lessons, I would now class myself as an intermediate guitar player. And I aim to improve my guitar playing more towards intermediate/advanced and then advanced playing.

Click here to visit the site where I got my Guitar Lessons.

Before that it wasn’t so easy learning. I would be totally embarrassed as soon as someone asked me to play the guitar in front of people. I also found it hard to learn the correct techniques (especially string bending) as I hadn’t got good instruction. There is no set way of learning or lesson plan laid out there so I didn’t know which thing I should learn next. There is so much information out there but not much on the type of rock I wanted to play. By the way, free information will only do you as a beginner and not much of it is based on playing rock music.

I had tried a few ways of learning to play the guitar. First I bought tab books. I couldn’t hear what I supposed to play or understand how it was supposed to sound or even see what my hands were supposed to do. I just found the books too advanced. I bought videos and DVDs, which had no books. I found these were very expensive and you had to buy a few videos in the series to get any progress at all. I also needed to use the sitting room to watch the videos instead of my computer which was awkward.

On the videos I found the guitar lesson difficult to learn as the instructor was a great player who I couldn’t follow or keep up with. Next I got one on one personal tuition from a guitar instructor. I wanted to learn to play rock guitar, but he didn’t know the songs I wanted to learn and to find this out, I had to buy 10 guitar lessons upfront for over $250. He wanted to show me strumming and older stuff which I knew a bit of already.

In the end I got a Guitar video course from Guitar Superstars. I started taking the lessons in a structured manner and my playing improved so much. Basically they have a online members areas where there hundreds of videos. All the videos are downloadable so I have been able to save local copies to my computer as well.

Learn to play rock with Guitar Superstars

The course covers all styles of music and both electric and acoustic guitar and even bass guitar. I got the course more for the Rock, Hard Rock and Metal lessons but I have tried a few of the blues and acoustic guitar lessons too.

There are about 7 or 8 instructors in total, but for the most part I prefer to stick to watching Gene and Ben for the rock and metal. I will probably try more instructors later on.

How I use it is, I watch and learn each lesson on my computer, learn the technique taught, practise it and then move on to the next lesson. When I know enough to tackle a song, I learn one of the rock songs. Then I move on with next set of lessons and next song. The videos and lessons are so clear and easy to follow. I have learnt quite a few songs by now.

New videos appear fairly regularly on the site so there is still much more for me to learn in the future.

Click here to visit Guitar Super Stars video website.

The one thing I would like to see in the members area, are more rock songs in the library but they have actually taught me how to learn songs from just listening to them on CDs or MP3, so it is not a major drawback. You do actually need to follow the program and work at your playing. It is not a magic bean but is easy to follow and is a very enjoyable course.

The Guitar Superstars program has improved my playing more in the last few months than all the others courses have in the last few years. I have even begun playing rock guitar with friends and other people and actually enjoy playing a few songs in front of people. I wouldn’t have done that six months ago.

Click here to visit Guitar Super Stars.

There is a little secret to playing rock guitar or guitar lessons.  In fact this little secret applies to learning anything.  It is the one thread that ties the 3 steps to success together.  It can really improve your guitar playing.

The secret thread is focus.  You need to focus on your lessons when you want to learn to play guitar or learn anything else.

Focus is not just about concentration, as I said there are 3 steps where you use focus to progress and improve your guitar playing.

First you need to set your goals and targets.  What you are trying to achieve.  The type of music, in this case your goal is probably to learn to play rock guitar.

Choose your style. Rock?

You also need to look at how good you want to get.  Do you want to play for fun, play at parties in front of friends, or play guitar professionally.  (Sorry to dampen your dreams but you also need to be realistic about the standard you want to play at also.  Some guitarist have extraordinary natural talent and practise for hours every day.  You will need time to reach a certain standard of playing.)

Which bands do you want to learn?  What songs do you want to learn?  What type of guitar?  Acoustic guitar or electric guitar?  The electric has a rockier sound but the acoustic is also good to know.  (Although once you can play one type it is easier to pick up and learn the other.)

Write your goals down, make them solid, tangible, visible to you.  Now you have your goals you set targets now to focus on your goals. 

You can also break your goals down into smaller steps or targets to reach your final goal.  This makes it easier to attain.
For example, smaller steps would be:
Play your first guitar note.  Then your next note.  Learn and play your guitar chord.  Then a second and a third chord on the guitar.  Learn your first guitar riff and the your next riff.  Learn different rhythms.  Learn small lead guitar parts.  Learn a first guitar song in full, then the next song and so on.

As opposed to a very big single step:
Become a guitar rock god, master shredder after 1 lesson.  Maybe not a realistic step but with time and building on smaller steps, you could become very good at playing rock guitar.

In the next part we will look at the next 2 steps to using focus to achieve your goals of practise guitar lessons.

In the last part we set goals and targets and broke it down into steps to get playing rock guitar.

Second step you need to get a system to gain your goals to learn to play rock guitar.  In this case, the best system would be rock guitar lessons.  Pick the best guitar lessons you can get or afford.

Choose your Guitar lessons

 The focus part comes in here.  You need to stick to your chosen guitar lessons and keep your focus on learning from them.  Do not change programs from lessons to lessons, you will not progress your guitar playing and only become frustrated.  This is because you will not be following a structured approach to learning guitar music.  Each lesson should build on the last lesson.  This way you will improve your guitar technique and guitar playing.

Chopping and changing from a different program to program or a different system to system will impede your playing.  Your will not be learning the guitar lesson with the proper foundation of the correct lesson before it.

Final third step of the focus is to practise.  You need to give focus and dedication to your practise.  As a total beginner you should practise 5 to 10 minutes every day.  Use a stopwatch or clock to time yourself.  5 minutes can be a very long time but is good enough to begin your guitar lesson practise sessions with.  Make sure you are actually 100% doing and practising what is in your lessons for the 5 or 10 minutes and not just sitting watching TV while half strumming the guitar or messing on the guitar.

Doing this focused guitar practise will train your fingers, they get a memory of where to go on the guitar strings.  5 or 10 minutes with total concentration is much better than a 30 minute half hearted practise session.

As you learn more guitar chords and guitar riffs, you should increase the time to 20 or 30 minutes active practise time.  As you become more proficient your guitar practise session will be become easier and you may even spend hours playing guitar and learning guitar lessons.

The playing will become more enjoyable as you get better and learn more lessons.  At the end of the day that is why you are playing rock guitar, to have fun and enjoy it.  With the added practise you should be picking up new techniques such as hammer ons and pull offs, string bending, tremolo and vibrato, picking techniques.

Remember to keep your focus and you will learn to play guitar surprisingly quickly.  You will also as you get better, be able to pick up songs by yourself by ear and play them.

3 keys to focus:
1. Pick and set goals and objectives.
2. Pick program for guitar lessons and stick with them.
3. Practise.  Keep 100% focus during practise.
Result:  Success in your goals, playing rock guitar songs.

These can also apply to learning anything not just playing guitar music. 
So good luck with your playing and your lessons and rock guitar playing.

This is a website I set up to give some information on Playing Rock Guitar.  I love the sound of any rock, hard rock or heavy metal guitar playing.  I wanted to play the songs that I loved and listened to. 

I started to learn to play rock guitar when I was 18 or 19.  At that time, I did not do any guitar lessons or approach it in a serious way and found that I did not progress in my guitar playing at all.  When I was at college, I only messed around on the guitar and learnt a few riffs and chords, I didn’t even know any full songs. 

I struggled to pick up new songs and guitar riffs.  Basically, I became stuck in a rut with my guitar playing.  Most of my other friends were much better at playing than myself.  After I finished College, I did however improve and that is why I have set up this website to help others who are stuck in the same situation.

Rocky Guitar pick

There is more information on playing guitar music in the posts and articles to come in the future.  So please bookmark this page and visit back for more information on playing rock guitar.  Especially if you would love to play rock music.  You should get some tips here to improve your rock guitar playing. 

For a start you need the right sound for Rock Guitar music.

Drop me an email for anything you would like to see added to the site.

Thanks,
Steve.