Fender just made teaching yourself guitar SO much easier
Being a fan of music is one thing. I’m always jamming to my records, or going to shows and consuming it at every possible moment. Being a fan is easy. The electricity in the audience while watching your favorite band or singer kill it on stage is a feeling like nothing else on this planet.
But have you ever thought about possibly picking it up for yourself? If you’re like me, you’ve often imagined how it might feel to be on the other end of the experience but have never actually pursued it for various reasons.
I’d been circling around the idea of picking up the guitar for a bit, but every time I got the nerve to vocalize my growing interest to someone, I would remember all those times my little sister would make up excuses to get out of her guitar lessons growing up. I figured obviously learning guitar must suck, and it was intimidating af!
This was my rationale until this year when I turned 21 and had an epiphany (READ: existential crisis): I can do anything I set my mind to. What did I have to lose? The only person keeping me from being able to play like the gods of rock n’ roll I’ve always worshipped was myself. So I resolved to do it. I wasn’t just going to learn a couple of sing-songy chords either — I was going to shred.
After telling my sister and mom about my plans to become a guitar goddess, I panicked. How in the hell do I even go about teaching myself? My sister recommended that I take classes, doubting my ability to do it on my own, so I reminded her of how many times she quit them and that shut her up real fast.
Truthfully, I wanted to do it on my own, on my own time and for as cheap as possible.
Well thanks to our friends over at Fender, there’s a solution for teaching yourself how to play. They’ve just created a new online learning program called Fender Play that’s ridiculously easy and simple to use, and you’ll see the results instantly.
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Before even starting, Fender Play asks you a few questions about your music preferences so your learning path is more customized. For example, if you’ve got an acoustic guitar and are planning on becoming the next Taylor Swift, you might want to pick the country or pop paths.
Or if you’re like me and bought an electric guitar with the hopes of becoming a shredding qwine, spin kicks and all, you can pick the metal or rock or paths.
First they teach you a few basics, like proper techniques for fretting or strumming. Then you can jump right into learning chord shapes and all the other fun things like how to do a hammer-on or a bend which are used for soloing.
Within minutes of using the program, I was already playing the opening riff from Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock N’ Roll” like a pro!
And that’s not even the best part. You can stick to the curriculum they build for you, or you can browse the song library and learn the iconic riffs from some of the greatest rock n’ roll tracks in history, like ZZ Top’s “La Grange” or the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.”
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They have pop music too, like songs from Shawn Mendes and Meghan Trainor if that’s your cup of tea. And they are continually adding new songs to the library, so you can learn more songs and riffs that are popular.
I’ve been using the program for a few weeks now, and I’m already a much stronger player. I’ve got the majority of the chord shapes memorized, and once you know them, you can basically play anything. Just google your favorite song + chords and voila! I can play all my favorite songs, and when you know what a certain chord sounds like, you’ll start picking apart all the songs you listen to on the radio to figure out what chords they’re using.
When you sign up, you get a free 30-day trial, and then after that, it’s only $20 a month which is MUCH cheaper than lessons with an instructor which can run for hundreds of dollars.
So what do you have to lose? The world always needs more music, and rock goddesses to play it. Get shreddin’.
