Learn to Play Guitar TV is a site dedicated to offering you teaching and tips as you learn to play the guitar. The mission here is to provide you with educational resources to help you get where you want to be in your guitar playing. Whether it be through our video lessons, blog posts or other great content we’ve found, the site is here to share them with you and help reduce the overwhelm and feelings of not knowing where to turn to get better at guitar.
How I Started to Learn Guitar
Hey there, my name is Andrew Hand, for those of you who don’t know, and I’m the founder of Learn to Play Guitar T.V. I started out at 26 with a guitar in my hand and no idea how I was actually going to learn to play it, but somehow I managed to figure it all out…and perhaps we share a common story.
When you first start out, holding your guitar, it can feel a little bit overwhelming. On one hand you feel so excited, yet on the other you feel uncertain what you’re going to do with this thing and if you’re ever going to be good at it. You want to be good RIGHT NOW, I sure did.
I knew that I wanted to be able to make music, even before I was given the guitar. It’s like it was calling to me. I was so passionate to learn that once I had that Washburn acoustic in my hands I just began playing it immediately, before I’d even started to learn anything about it really. Thankfully, my cousin Nick showed me a handful of chords on Christmas day and the journey began. I was so inspired that now I could create music, on my terms and it fueled me along to learn to play the guitar better.
I literally didn’t know a single thing about music. I’d heard of chords and knew there where notes that got put together to create music, but I didn’t understand any of it. I’d previously been making music with audio loops and relying on expensive music producers to make tracks for me. Having spent two years doing things this way, it was a breath of fresh air to feel that the power lay in my own hands…I could actually learn to play this thing!
Now If I Could Just Figure this Whole Guitar Thing Out…
My first year, how I went about learning guitar was to play a lot of power chords (that’s just two strings and two notes, the 1 and the 5 of your chord’s scale) and writing and recording a ton of songs with my trusty Mac and Apple’s GarageBand. This combination would prove to be the juice that continued fueling my desire even more to learn and master this beast.
Since I now had the power to record my own sounds and was learning how to effectively make them (with that trusty Mac and GarageBand program), I became really focussed on figuring out how to take music and make it into something that was enjoyable to hear. The quest to really learn guitar was yielding some fruit!
I Thought If I Got Really GooI’d Score a Record Deal and Have It Made!
If you’re like me, then you want to be great at guitar, you want to learn to play the guitar and be able to play like your music heroes. Maybe, just maybe, you could get as good as them, have your music out there and be able to play guitar for a living. That would be cool! So that’s something like how my brain was working on me as I kept going in my journey of learning, kept playing, and kept recording. I’ve spent many years and a lot of money chasing that dream, but you know what?…
To Learn to Play the Guitar Well You’ve Gotta Put In Time
What I’ve found is that no matter how many songs I write, no matter how many chords I know or how fast I can play a lead guitar part, or how great someone says a tune is…I keep wanting to get better at playing the guitar. This is the common plight of being a guitarist. Guitar is in your blood. Music is in your blood. Maybe you don’t know it or totally feel it yet, but as your journey continues, as you continue to learn, you keep coming back to this guitar and what it all means. How do I get better?
In the beginning your toe is in the water, you’ve just started to learn how to play your guitar…you want to see what this instrument is about. You keep going, deeper and deeper. You keep learning, more and more. You keep getting better and better, until you’re submerged. You couldn’t get away from it if you wanted to, but you don’t want to. You want to keep learning.
Learning Is Everything and Practicing Can Be Fun
To get where you ultimately want to be, you’ve got to keep learning. You’ve got to put in the work as you learn to play guitar (Yes that dirty word, that isn’t really all that hard) and practice your craft. The idea of practicing guitar used to just put me off. I didn’t want to take the time to learn scales or chord charts. I just wanted to play. The truth is though, that as I kept playing I found myself being drawn to what I didn’t want to do at first. The fear started to go away, the complexity seemed to go away, and as I started practicing, I started having more fun, writing better songs and feeling even more enthused about guitar: Wanting to learn to play the guitar even better.
No Really, Practicing CAN Be Fun…I’m Serious, Don’t Feel Down!
I know that if you’re still reading, then you’ve flirted with the idea of practicing guitar more and learning more. You’re just looking for information that makes it EASY right? The truth is is that it really isn’t that hard to learn to play the guitar. Once you start picking up on the building blocks it becomes like a being a kid in a play pen, with infinite blocks! You can build anything, you can create anything.
It wasn’t until I started learning these little pieces of knowledge that the guitar and music started opening up for me. When I realized that playing guitar was about some simple patterns, the doors opened and I REALLY started having fun just playing away on my guitar. I felt free to start unleashing my soul. It’s as if the guitar became an extension of my voice, my body and I could just zip around it expressing what felt bottled up inside of me.
Once this door opened and I felt that freedom, I began to realize that my favorite rock stars and songs were all pretty dang simple. They weren’t doing anything that I couldn’t do. You can learn to play the guitar this way too. That is what you are capable of, TRUST ME. If I can do this, YOU can do this. To be a 26 year old kid with absolutely no experience or knowledge of guitar, to now being able to play anything I want and actually be able to help other people learn guitar is very rewarding.
Being A Rockstar Guitarist Isn’t that Hard…Especially When You’ve Got FREE Lessons
So we’re both here. You and me. You in the role of student and me here to teach you, to share as much as I can to help you become the guitarist and musician you dream of being. Remember that it ISN’T THAT HARD and together we’re going to keep getting better and better at playing guitar.
My hope is that I can pass on what I’ve learned and help “speed up” your learning as you learn to play the guitar. It’s been six years since I was given my guitar and I wouldn’t trade it in for anything. Music has meant more to me in my life than perhaps anything. I’m so very thankful to have found music.
If you would like to have our help in your journey then go ahead and get started by signing up for our Free Lesson series. You’ll get some immediate video training and downloads. I look forward to hearing your story and helping you to achieve all your goals as you learn to play the guitar.
To Your Success,
Andrew Hand
