Hi, my name is Kinley McFadden, and I will be your host of Guitar Tricks Review. I love playing music, and I am already an accomplished piano and flute player. However, a few months ago I decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. I’m a full-time working mom, and I don’t really have the time or money to spend on expensive private guitar lessons. What I really wanted to do was find a place where I could learn guitar at my own pace and on my computer at home. So as I searched around, looking for the best guitar courses online and I came across a site called Guitar Tricks.

I read many of the Guitar Tricks reviews online, and everyone seemed to like it. Guitar Tricks has a really good free trial where you can sample 24 of their video guitar lessons. After watching a few of beginner guitar lessons and I was so impressed by the guitar instructors and how quickly I was able to pick up the basics. I was hooked!

I am now a full Guitar Tricks member, and I am enjoying it a lot. The community is great and I’m slowly working my way through the different guitar lessons as I attempt to master playing the guitar. Learning to play guitar is really a fun hobby and even my kids are impressed by my progress so far. My 8 year old son wants to play now!

I know there are a lot of people like me who are looking for a great guitar course to join. So I’ve setup this Guitar Tricks Review site that will hopefully give you all the information you need to know about the Guitar Tricks course. I’m going to try and be as detailed as possible, and I hope some of you will eventually drop by and join our great community!

In the meantime, watch this Guitar Fingerpicking lesson by my favorite Guitar Tricks instructor Lisa McCormick. It really gives you a real taste of the Guitar Tricks experience.

Ready to try Guitar Tricks? Signup for the FREE Basic Membership

Have you always wanted to learn how to play guitar, so you can sit in with your friends on jam sessions and rock out? Or, have you been playing the guitar for a while, but want to learn more to advance your skills and maybe become good enough to start playing professionally, or even teaching guitar to others? If you answered “yes” to either one of these questions, you need to check out the cool guitar lessons at Guitar Tricks.

Learn How To Play All of the Popular Guitar Styles

Guitar Tricks is the place for guitar players of all levels to go if they want to learn new techniques, chord progressions, styles and more on the guitar. If you want to learn how to rock out, there are some awesome rock and heavy metal tutorials. Or, if you are just picking up a guitar for the first time, you will probably want to take advantage of the Guitar Fundamentals 1 course, and then move on to the subsequent Guitar Fundamentals 2 course. Both will teach you all of the basics, so you can move on to more advanced guitar techniques, and learn how to play all the styles you love. Lessons are offered in many styles of guitar, including rock, blues, bluegrass, country, world, jazz and classical.

Learn About Your Favorite Artists

There are many lessons at Guitar Tricks that are devoted to the styles of your favorite artists. If you are interested in learning more about how to play like B.B. King, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Zakk Wylde and more, you will find Artist Studies about each of them. By studying their lessons, you will learn how to incorporate their styles into your own personal style of playing the guitar.

Learn From The Best

One of the strengths of Guitar Tricks are the great guitar instructors they have employed who devote their time and skills to teach Guitar Tricks subscribers how to play the guitar, and play it well. No matter what style of guitar you are interested in learning to play, there is an instructor for you. And, you can visit the forums, and ask the instructors questions about their lessons, so you will feel like you are actually getting one-on-one guitar lessons, right in your own home. Some of the excellent musicians that are offering lessons at Guitar Tricks include:

• Lisa McCormick
• Bobby Howe
• Forrest Lee Jr.
• Tom Finch
• Christopher Schlegel

Download Everything You Need

All of the tools you need to become a great guitar player are available at Guitar Tricks, and you can download many of these tools, so you can use them any time, in any place. Some of the awesome tools you will find at Guitar Tricks include the Ultimate Chord Finder, the Ultimate Metronome and the Reference Tuner, which will teach you how to tune a guitar by ear.

For more information about all of the lessons, and the instructors, at Guitar Tricks, stop by their website and sign up for the free basic membership and sample what they have to offer. If you want to learn how to play the guitar, what’s stopping you? Visit Guitar Tricks now, and start enjoying learning how to play the guitar, and play it well.

Ready to try Guitar Tricks? Signup for the FREE Basic Membership

When you first subscribe to Guitar Tricks, you may be wondering how to jump in and get started with the site. Before jumping in head-first I would suggest that you go to the Guitar Tricks homepage and find the icon that says “Where do I start?”. Click on this icon, and you will be taken to the Where Do I Start Page, where you will find all the information you need about which lessons you should be taking.

Guitar Tricks For Beginning Guitarists

The first section of the Where Do I Start page on the Guitar Tricks website is for those of you who have never played the guitar before, or have very little experience. Read this section and then decide whether you should start out with Guitar Fundamentals 1, or Guitar Fundamentals 2. For instance, if you have never played the guitar before, or if you have played, but have not gotten past the beginner stage, this section recommends that you take the Guitar Fundamentals 1 course before trying anything else. If you have some experience, but still not confident with a technique like switching between barre chords, it is recommended in this section that you take the Guitar Fundamentals 2 course. This is also the course recommended if you are trying to learn to read music and understand music theory.

Guitar Tricks For Intermediate Guitarists

If you have at least a basic understand of music theory and how to read music (not just tablature), this section of the Where Do I Start page recommends that you use the Guitar Fundamentals 2 course. This is also the section where you will figure out which courses are best for the style of guitar and music you want to concentrate on, such as country, rock or blues. Intermediate guitarists interested in these styles should try the Country Style Course Level 1, the Rock Style Course Level 1, or the Blues Style Course Level 1.

Guitar Tricks For Advanced Guitarists

You don’t have to be a novice or intermediate guitar player to get something out of Guitar Tricks. In this section of the Where Do I Start page, you will learn about how to find the right instructor, trying new and different styles of playing, and how to use the advanced search to find tutorials that will advance your guitar-playing skills even further. Who knows…you may even find that you are much better than you thought, and are able to put your own slant on the styles that are taught at Guitar Tricks.

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Often, when you are learning how to play the guitar, you may feel information overload. You are learning so many different techniques, chords and songs that many times you will forget some of the things you have learned. However as a Guitar Tricks member, you will find many great tools that you can use to improve your guitar-playing skills and knowledge.

Ultimate Chord Finder

If you want to get a quick reminder of how to play every chord, Guitar Tricks has the tool for you. When you are in the Guitar Tricks website, you will notice a group of icons in the top right hand corner of your screen. One of these icons represents the Ultimate Chord Finder. This is an awesome little tool that shows you every chord you can possibly want, displaying them in a really easy-to-read manner. You will see the correct finger positions marked out on the neck of a guitar, and, you will find three variations of each chord, farther up the neck of the guitar. All of the root notes, from A to G, are there, including the sharps and flats, and you will see all of the variations of each chord (major, minor, dim, aug, etc.). Play along with the Ultimate Chord Finder, strumming the chord at seven speed levels.

Keep Perfect Time

Sometimes when you are practicing, you tend to play songs either too fast or too slow. Many musicians find that it helps to have a metronome, a device that helps keep time, to practice with. At Guitar Tricks, you have access to the Ultimate Metronome which gives times from two to ten beats per measure. You can have an accents and beats that are either a Click, Side Stick, Bass Drum, Snare Drum or a Hi Hat. And, if you really want to challenge yourself, try the Speed Drill, where you can increase the beats per measure.

Tuning Made Easy

Many beginning guitar players find that one of the most difficult things to do is to tune a guitar without an electric tuner. If you want to learn all of the proper tones for tuning your guitar, you can use the Guitar Tricks Reference Tuner. Here you will be able to listen to the tones of all tuning sequences: Standard Tuning; DADGAD Tuning, Open C Tuning, Drop D Tuning, Open G Tuning and Open D Tuning. This is a super-easy way to learn how to tune by ear.

Download All of These Tools

When you visit Guitar Tricks you will find that you can download all of the tools you need to be able to practice anywhere, any time. If you are a subscriber to Guitar Tricks, you can find downloads for Windows and Macintosh, for each of the Guitar Tricks tools:

• Ultimate Chord Finder
• Ultimate Metronome
• Full Control Video Player
• Reference Tuner

Ready to try Guitar Tricks? Signup for the FREE Basic Membership

If you have decided that you want to learn how to play the guitar, your first step is to find yourself a good guitar instructor. If you use the lessons offered at Guitar Tricks, you will have the opportunity to learn from more than 30 experienced guitar instructors, all teaching a variety of musical styles, including rock, classical, country, blues, bluegrass, jazz, metal and more.

Some of my favorite instructors I’ve learned from at Guitar Tricks include Forrest Lee Jr., Lisa McCormick and Don Madison.

Forrest Lee Jr

Here is a musician who has been practicing his art since he was two years old. Forrest Lee Jr. grew up in a family of musicians, and spent many years singing and playing lead guitar for his father’s band, Forrest Lee and the Shenandoans. Lee is an experienced session musician, and has recorded six independent albums, in addition to producing other musicians. Some of the techniques that you will learn from Lee include a hybrid style of picking blues and country, where you will learn how to pick with both your fingers and a pick. Lee also teaches the “Baritone Electric Guitar Style”, a country style that involves the use of tremolo licks.

Lisa McCormick

Hailing from the northeast US, Lisa McCormick began playing the guitar at the age of 10. As a teen, she studied a variety of musical styles, including classical, folk, blues and acoustic rock. McCormick is a full-time musician, receiving regional and national recognition for her music and performance abilities. Lisa loves sharing her knowledge and skills with others, and has been a music instructor for many years, bringing with her not only her talent and experience, but also a university education that includes music theory. At Guitar Tricks, McCormick offers more than 200 lessons for everyone from beginner to expert, including Acoustic Finger Picking For Beginners, Level 1; Easy Folk Guitar: Zillions of Songs, Just 3 Chords; and Acoustic Core Concepts: Making Faster Chord Changes.

Don Madison

If you are eager to learn how to play heavy metal and rock styles, Don Madison offers many lessons that will have you rocking out in no time! Madison comes to Guitar Tricks from Detroit, Michigan, and, after being inspired by the likes of KISS, Blue Oyster Cult and Judas Priest, to name a few, began playing the guitar himself in 1984. Madison has worked as a musician since high school, and in 2007, he recorded the music for the “Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection” video game. Some of the lessons that you will find from Madison include: 3 Note Per String Shred Licks; Rock/Metal Tapping: Beginner To Advanced; and Mondo E-String Death Chunk.

These are just a few of the talented instructors that I’ve had the pleasure to learn from at Guitar Tricks. Each is able to share their many years of experience and knowledge of the guitar. No matter what style of guitar you want to learn how to play, there are instructors at Guitar Tricks who are offering exactly what you are looking for, and all of the lessons are created to be easy-to-use. This means that even if you have never played the guitar before, you will be playing great in no time at all.

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