So, let’s deal with the biggest issue first – if you want to become a good guitar player, avoid using free YouTube tutorial videos.
Very briefly, there is some great material on YouTube, but it’s generally hard to find amongst everything else… Many guitar lessons on there are quite simply wrong, or badly demonstrated/taught.
And regardless, there is a MUCH better way to learn the song.
The BIG secret is to work out the song yourself by ear.
Yes, it’s slower than a tutorial… But that’s exactly where the benefit lies!
Here are a few big reasons to use this approach:
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- Music about using your ears, and there is a much greater depth of listening involved in doing it yourself – there’s no better ear training!
- The amount of time you spend translating what you hear onto your guitar means that you ‘ll remember what you’ve learnt far better than from a tutorial video
- It also means you’ll be able to play it better 🙂
- You will gain far greater satisfaction from having done the work yourself
- And guess what, that’s how the greatest guitar players learnt (though many of them were pre-YouTube).
So, that said what can we use YouTube for?
When you’re working things out yourself, there are a couple of reasons I’d recommend learning a song on YouTube.
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- You can slow the original song down (using the gear wheel/settings icon) – this is invaluable for hearing details and being able to play along at an early stage in the process. Slow down apps/software certainly give you more control (eg. you can loop sections, change pitch etc), but for a lot of things YouTube works just fine.
- When you’re working out a song, sometimes it’s hard to hear which position it’s being played in, which fingers are used etc. This is where you should check out a live recording of the original artist playing the song – a well-filmed concert, or studio run through etc. In general, the ability to see live performances of your heroes is priceless, and the wealth of concert footage on YouTube is one of its big pluses.
But I don’t know how to do it!
Neither did I, as a kid. But I just dived and tried it, and slowly got better and better at doing it…
How to get started:
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- Pick a part of a song where the guitar is very easy to ear (maybe there are no other instruments at that point, or the guitar is quite loud in comparison to the other instruments).
- Pick something short, and within your technical capabilities (a slow, single note riff might be easier than chords to start with).
- Then dive in – listen to a small section slowed down, get it in your head (maybe just a few notes, try and sing them to yourself) and then find them on the guitar.
- Rinse and repeat – it will take some time, maybe a long time just to get a few notes down at the beginning, but that’s where the benefit is – see above!
But what if I get it wrong?
The guitar’s a funny instrument – you may end up playing the right notes in the wrong position, or use the wrong fingers, use the wrong technique, or get some of the notes wrong etc. But the process is still valuable, regardless of the end result at this stage. Over time you’ll get better at it, and you can always check your results with us in class.
By the way – the fancy word for this process is transcription – that normally includes writing it out as well, and though I’d recommend more advanced students do that, for most people just getting on the guitar itself is where the benefit lies.
Try it, and let me know how you get on 🙂