The Six String

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During one summer, me and my family went to Paradise Island, a beach resort in Samal Island, Davao. As we were eating our dinner, a group of musicians came to our table and played pleasing music. All of us were amazed by their performance. Some of my relatives even sang together with them.

Their band was composed of five members. One woman and four men.

The woman was the lead singer and each of the men was holding a different kind of guitar.

One was using an ordinary acoustic guitar just like what we have in our house.

The other one was using a very big guitar taller then he was.

The third one was using a very small guitar and it looks very cute.

The last one was using a unique sounding guitar. The shape of its body was round and it has no sound hole.

I never knew that there are different kinds of guitars way back then.

Few weeks later, I caught sight of the very small guitar, like the one i saw in the beach, hanged on one corner of school's music ministry office. I was very excited to get my hands on it. As it was handed to me, I stared at it for quite some time.  It really got me wondering why it only has four strings. 

"How do I play this thing?", I asked myself.

Seeing the way I stared at the tiny guitar, the office in charge, a nun, then asked me, "My child, so you know how to play a ukulele?"

"What do you call this guitar, sister?", I asked again. "It's a ukulele." She replied with a smile.

I guess, she already knew that i was expecting the six string variety of the guitar.

Knowing very well that I was new to the guitar world, she taught me how to use it.

As there are different kinds of fruit, there are also different kinds and variations of guitar.

It comes in different forms and produces different sounds as well. This blog assumes that you, just like i was before, are new to the guitar world and want to play a guitar, not a banjo, ukulele, or mandolin, and we concentrate on using the six string variety like this one:

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In addition to that, this blog also DOESN'T assume that:

• You already have your guitar(I'll talk about how to buy your guitar in one of my upcoming posts).
• You already have a preference on what kind of guitar to use (Electric or acoustic).
• You already favor a certain particular style of playing (Rock, Jazz, or Country).

Stay with me and let's make cool music with your six string!

I'll teach you how to play the guitar

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Okay guys. Let me get this straight.
As I've told you in one of my previous posts, I made this blog in order to help aspiring guitarists learn how to play the the guitar.
Of course, I can start right away and just feed you with bunch of reading materials that you can read but I'd be pretty sure you probably won't even bother doing so at all.
That would be boring, don't you think so?
Who cares if your the brightest professor in the University, with a mind like that of Einstein (probably with same hair too), if you're so boring that students would often fall asleep when you teach. Right? (can you picture out someone?)

"So, how do you plan to pull this off?"


The following list tells you how The Online Guitar Lessons Blog will teach you about guitars:

1. Fun with Photos. You can simply look at these photos and form your hands as shown.
This is very useful in helping you visualize different fingerings that you need to know.

2. Audio/Video Clips. You can listen or watch these materials in order to figure out the exercises presented along with the topics. Once you begin to play, you can refer to these clips

3. Guitar Tablature (or Tab for short). Guitar Tabs are guitar-specific shorthand for reading music that actually shows you what strings to strike and what frets to hold down on the guitar for creating the sound that’s called for. Guitar tabs are much easier to read than the standard form of musical notation.

Guitar + Photos + Audio/Video Clips + Tabs = Awesome guitar teaching methodology!

What do you think? haha...

I'm just so excited about this!

Watch out for my next post. See you!

What's this blog all about

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Few days ago, I was reading about some guitar stuff over the Internet when a friend of mine chatted over facebook.
In the course of our conversation, he asked about what keeps me busy these days.
"I'm blogging", I answered.
"Oh really? What's your blog all about?", he immediately asked.
I told him that it's all about guitars and I gave him the link to this blog.
"Wow! That's Interesting, Van.", my dear friend replied.

It was already late and I wanted to keep my eyes open for a couple of hours more.
And so, after reading his reply, i went out to the pantry to make some coffee.
When i got back to my desk, my friend already signed-off and he left me with a question:

"Why did you make this blog?"

Too bad I wasn't able to answer his last question right away. But, for everyone to know why I made this blog, the following are my answers:

1. I want to help others learn to play the guitar - Whenever I play my guitar, a lot of people would often ask me questions - How did you learn playing? How young did you start learning? Was it hard? How can i play like you? Can you teach me how? For me, I really can't say that I'm good at playing the guitar. But, the thing is, a lot of people admire the way I play. Now, it suddenly came to me that it wouldn't bring any good keeping my talents only to myself. Thus, I want to share my talents and skills with you to help you learn to play the guitar too through this blog.

2. Online guitar lessons - As as self-taught guitarist, I already read vast amount of books and resources about guitars since I started learning how to play it. Some were good and very easy to understand but some weren't and too complicated for beginners to comprehend. I want to share with you the things I learned and continually learning in a manner which is easily understandable even for those who recently entered the guitar world. Moreover, this blog will serve as my review notes as well as yours wherein you can browse to look for a specific topic that you might have missed or just wanted to go back to.

3. A tribute to my father - My musical life was greatly influenced by my father and I wanted to honor him through this blog. He is my idol, my inspiration, and the unsung hero of my musical life. Learning the guitar needs a lot of dedication and perseverance. It always feels good when you know you are doing it for someone.

There you have it.