Learn Acoustic Guitar

Learning to play an acoustic or electric guitar is an ambition most of us hold at some time in our lives. Nothing to do with reality, we imagine we can just pick up a guitar and a Teach-Yourself book and away we go - in nothing flat we'll be strumming away tunefully and accompanying ourselves in a song, while lots of people look on admiringly..

If only life was like that! The reality is that we pick up the guitar, open the book, make some horrible noises, get disheartened by page 2, and give up. The guitar then sits in a corner and gathers dust until we give it to a charity collector because it's making the place look untidy. Sound familiar?

My mother gave mine away when I was a teenager. I was horrified at the time, but I guess she was right - the noise I made with it was nobody's business and sounded like a tomcat with its tail caught. I couldn't follow the manual because I didn't have one - I'd traded a pair of roller skates for the guitar and the owner wouldn't let me have the book as well. I got into trouble for that deal; the roller skates were my sister's!

My twin ambitions as a 14 year old were to be a cowgirl, and to play the guitar. I had a romantic ideal of singing "Home on The Range" while playing the guitar; with my horse gleaming white in the background. And yes, the horse was called "Silver"!

If wishes were horses, I'd surely have got one. I dreamed about that white horse, pestered my parents half to death for one and passed all my spare time hanging around the local riding school. So when I got the second-hand guitar, it seemed like half the dream was coming true - all I had to do now was learn to play the guitar. And how hard could that be?

Famous last words.

I tried; I really did. But I guess you have to be genuinely born with the talent to teach yourself guitar with no help, and I wasn't. I had no idea of the time and amount of practice that went in to making a guitar sound good.

That doesn't mean I couldn't have learnt to play the guitar well enough to accompany myself or even join a band if I wanted to. What I needed was a tutorial product that would teach me from scratch - starting with how to hold the guitar - and enough patience and commitment to appreciate that any skill is worth working at.

So if you hanker to play the guitar, and you're prepared to put aside some time to learn, I know just the product to teach you. Even if you've never held a guitar before in your life. The product is called Jamorama - come and have a look at it.

Jamorama is teaching me to play the guitar; I'll be playing "Home on The Range" soon. And the white horse is outside in his paddock, dozing in the sun. Dreams can come true. You just have to work at them a little. :)

All the best and good luck with your Guitar Playing,

Laura Rose Kemp