Hi Paul,

The short answer is...yes...I think a person can benefit from online instruction and make good progress. I think 95% of it is desire and determination...the other 5% is from where you get your material.

We of course live in a different day and age than the way it was in the 50's, 60's, 70's, etc. In those days...I'm dating myself a little bit here...CD's didn't exist...much less home computers, DVD's, online instruction, etc. It was much harder then...you had to "pick up the needle" and move it back on the record to re-play a lick until you got it down. Talk about a pain in the...ummm...oh well...you get the idea!

In my own case, I never had a guitar lesson in my life until only recently when I decided to check out material from players I thought were way ahead of me...there are lots of people way ahead of me, by the way. Different people will respond to different things and different teaching methods. For some people, learning online is the way to go. For others, learning with an instructor is the most beneficial for them with perhaps learning online as a good supplement. Perhaps in your case, you might be able to find a really good instructor in your area and perhaps quarterly or every other month or so sit down with him or her and have a half-day session so that he or she could monitor your progress and give suggestions. Of course, you would have to be able to think in a 2 or 3 month time frame...not a one week time frame.

It's kind of like anything...I don't know very much about piloting an airplane...in fact, pity the person(s) who would fly with me while I was behind the controls! But even though I don't know much about it, I know there are certain basic principles...certain basic rules that if you violate, you're going to be in some pretty deep yogurt pretty quickly.

The same principle applies to learning guitar...until you understand basic concepts and know your way around the guitar pretty well, you're just memorizing a bunch of things about which you don't see the congruity.

In my own case, I started learning licks and chords on the guitar and learning things about the guitar very quickly...the only thing was I didn't learn with congruity...it was like making a quilt that had nice pieces sewn into place here and there but there were big gaping holes in the overall quilt. Eventually, over time, I was able to fill in the holes but it took me a long time because I learned in a hodge-podge fashion.

Things that help tremendously are learning how major scales work, what they are for, learning your intervals, learning what intervals sound like, learning about the circle of fifths, learn the names of notes on the guitar neck (it's not as hard as people make it out to be)...these are the big things...there are other things to learn as well. You can learn about all these things on GT.

If you have the desire, if you practice almost every day, if you ask lots of questions (the instructors here at GT are a valuable resource for that) and if you give yourself some time and don't quit, you will make sure and steady progress.

Now, for no extra charge :-), here are my first three tips for you:

1. Don't try to practice while you are tired...it's a waste of time. Get some good rest, then practice while you have the energy to do so.

2. Make sure you have a guitar that you like and that is easy for you to play, most guitars that come off of the rack at the music stores are difficult to play, IMHO anyway.

3. Make some guitar playing friends in your area. I know that you are gone a lot but as much as you are able, try to put yourself in the company of other players whose playing you enjoy listening to. Don't pester them but show genuine interest and I'm sure most will be happy to answer your questions.

I hope this stuff helps. Let me know if it does.

Best wishes,

BH

P.S. Oh, I forgot one thing...one more point...if you can earn a college degree online...I think you can learn the guitar!

BH