Finding good quality Spanish or flamenco guitar lessons on the web is not really that easy most because it’s a rather specialized style of guitar which not too many teachers understand or know how to play that well.

Up until recently there wasn’t that much available online so my main recommendation was to go the route of buying DVDs from Amazon or Book/CD combinations. In other words, to go “offline” when it came to Spanish guitar courses.

Recently however this course has come to my attention and I bought it, tried it and found it excellent.

It starts off with exercises to train your fingers first then goes into a collection of easy Spanish guitar pieces. The best thing is that the pieces or songs are suitable for intermediate players, even those just making the transition out of beginner guitar will find this course within reach.

You can try it here.

The best way to learn barre chords on guitar is to start by forming your major chord shapes, the open position chords you already learned as a beginner. For example, if we form a C. major chord that you merely to place your fourth finger down upon the fourth string third fret in order to produce a C dominant seven chord which can then become a movable shapes across the fretboard. While this is not strictly classify the as a true barre chord provides an invaluable little steppingstone which will help you get used to the idea of moving chord shapes up and down the guitar neck.

From there the next step would be to form an E major chord however you need to form its using fingers 2, 3 and 4 instead of what is normally used (fingers 1, 2 and 3). This means you will be holding an E major chord which will sound perfectly correct however your first finger is now left free. The next step is to move that entire E chord shape further up the fretboard, say to the 5th fret, and then put your first finger across all six strings along the third fret. You can find a free barre chords chart online to help you find all the shapes available.

You will find that your first attempts may sound pretty awful especially if you have not yet developed enough strength in your left hand in order to push all six strings down at the same time while also having the necessary dexterity in your fingers in order to stretch the distance is required to form the typical kinds of Maj barre chords.

As always however there are plenty of free guitar chords online to learn from and the answer is to simply keep trying even though at first it may seem like an impossible task. With regular practice these chords will become much easier to do.

Try not to become too emotionally involved in your practice time. The trick is to simply do your daily practice and regardless of whether you notice an improvement or not to simply forget about until the next day. It’s only when you start to invest your emotional self into your practicing to become open to disappointment which in turn will lead to a significant drop in motivation and if at that point that you are in danger of giving up.

Many people give up on guitar with the false belief that they have the talent for playing it simply because they could not make the progress expected as quickly as they wanted it. Even the most talented of guitar players must work extremely hard in order to become good on guitar. It’s something which everyone has to earn, it cannot be simply bought that matter how rich you are.

Learning to play classic country songs on guitar is a popular pastime for many people especially older men. However there’s not too much help in terms of learning how to play it if you’re searching for lessons on the internet. The style is very easy going and sounds cool even today, I guess it’s true that good music never dies.

If you love this kind of music (as I do) then my best advice is to buy DVDs and books from your local guitar store or failing that there’s actually a ton of them on amazon.com. The last book I bought on country guitar was downloaded in PDF directly off the publishers site Mel Bay.

It’s called The Complete Country Guitar Book and I’ve linked it here so you can check it out for yourself.

I like it because the sample pages where exactly what I was looking for and it’s great value for the price – it’s completely jam packed with information. I’m still learning from it and getting a lot out of it.

The official description says it’s an encyclopedia of Carter style bass runs, chord fills, flatpicking, travis picking, rockabilly and Nashville lead styles.

All the examples in the book also come in audio so you can hear exactly how it all should sound. Gets my recommendation.

Most beginners find that they are able to learn the typical beginner guitar chords in Spanish guitar lessons with relative ease. After all, it’s really just a matter of memorizing where each finger goes. Soon after you’ll probably get around to learning a few strums and then the next step is to put both your chords and strumming patterns together.

So far so good.

Aside from being able to connect your chords together smoothly while strumming the first really big challenge will come when you attempt to play your first songs on guitar. This unfortunately is where most people fall down.

A classic mistake that many beginners make is to immediately try to play their favorite songs. They ignore the fact that these songs may be virtually impossible for them to do considering their current technical level on guitar and instead rush madly into trying to play them.

What happens? A week or so later they are completely frustrated at their lack of progress and have all but convinced themselves that they simply must not  have any talent for playing guitar.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

With all of that in mind let’s look at how you really should go about taking guitar lessons and learning your first songs. It’s easy… just forget about what you’d like to play and instead concentrate of what is easiest to play. That’s how you’ll make some measurable progress, trust me.

The first song I’d like you to try is below, it’s a classic beginner tune called “Stand By Me” by Ben E. King. Here’s a youtube video to help you through it.

Know Any Christmas Songs?

The second video this series is here, at time of posting it’s just before Christmas so I hope you’re reading this with enough time to get practicing some easy Christmas guitar songs!