Online lessons for intermediate players?

[bloodjunkie]

I've been playing for 17 years but probably stopped progressing in skill/knowledge about 10 years ago and have always just learned everything by ear... I can tell you what a 4th or 5th is, all the major/minor chords/keys and the minor pentatonic scale and that's about it... are there any good youtube channels or sites that don't talk to you/treat you like you're a beginner but just get to the point if you know what I mean? Good warm up exercises would be appreciated too. Thanks!

 

[JustinRhoads1980]

I would like to know about this too. I would like both free online lessons (not full entirely) and paid for as long as they are quality

 

[projectjetfire]

Uncle Ben Eller is your starting point dude

 

[Stilicho]

I've been playing for 17 years but probably stopped progressing in skill/knowledge about 10 years ago and have always just learned everything by ear... I can tell you what a 4th or 5th is, all the major/minor chords/keys and the minor pentatonic scale and that's about it... are there any good youtube channels or sites that don't talk to you/treat you like you're a beginner but just get to the point if you know what I mean? Good warm up exercises would be appreciated too. Thanks!

Troy Grady's website is incredible for working on your picking technique and understanding picking mechanics, can't recommend it enough.

On YouTube, Signals Music Studio is good and I'm also a big fan of Chandler Guitar's lessons on the modes of the major scale.

In terms of theory the book "Jazz Guitar: Complete Edition" by Fisher is very direct and easy to learn from. It's not an online resource, but still worth checking out if you want to learn more chord fingerings, harmony and improvising techniques.

There's just a few I know of, hopefully there's something you'll find useful.

 

[KJGaruda]

Uncle Ben Eller is your starting point dude

+1 for this, Uncle Ben is legit. I love the Weekend Wankshop series and the previous "Why you suck at ____" series he puts out. In a similar vein, Chris Zoupa is also great with lessons and solo builders.

 

[Drew]

I've been playing for 17 years but probably stopped progressing in skill/knowledge about 10 years ago and have always just learned everything by ear... I can tell you what a 4th or 5th is, all the major/minor chords/keys and the minor pentatonic scale and that's about it... are there any good youtube channels or sites that don't talk to you/treat you like you're a beginner but just get to the point if you know what I mean? Good warm up exercises would be appreciated too. Thanks!

I think the easier way to go about this question is to try to figure out what your goals are and what you want to learn, and then find lessons for that.

A general search for "intermediate guitar lessons" isn't going to yield much... But "six string sweep arpeggio patterns" on YouTube would probably yield some pretty cool stuff, if that was one of the things you wanted to learn.

 

[narad]

I'm in a similar spot (call it NY resolution time), but what strikes me is how unstructured guitar learning is. As I'm studying Japanese a lot, I've come across options that are sort of unstructured ("You want to learn X? Go here and search X") and structured ("You're Level 15. When you score 90% on these kanji you go to the next level of kanji, that we decided on."). Obviously guitar players have different goals, but is there nothing that tries to structure lessons this way for let's say a "modern" guitar player?

 

[grail21]

Another nod for Ben Eller and Chris Zoupa. My two favorite youtube guitar teachers, great style and info. Easy to follow along with. The Troy Grady stuff is good too but you've got to be really locked in to it, he gets really in the weeds (which is great). Production value on his vids is awesome. Another thing I've found helpful: downloading tabs off of songster, throwing them into guitar pro and slowing them down to learn difficult riffs and techniques. You can find a bunch of exercises (or varying quality) up there, but it's free so no big loss if a tab sucks.

 

[Drew]

I'm in a similar spot (call it NY resolution time), but what strikes me is how unstructured guitar learning is. As I'm studying Japanese a lot, I've come across options that are sort of unstructured ("You want to learn X? Go here and search X") and structured ("You're Level 15. When you score 90% on these kanji you go to the next level of kanji, that we decided on."). Obviously guitar players have different goals, but is there nothing that tries to structure lessons this way for let's say a "modern" guitar player?

Is that some sort of Yamaha method thing? I'm familiar with stuff like that for the classical world - I have a classically trained violinist friend who learned that way - but even that has its pros and cons, and is geared to producing very particular results. For example, she can't improvise at all - like, cannot conceive of sitting down with no music and just playing a melody off the top of her head to go with a particular set of chords.

So, I think the approach here is to just get a lot better at defining your goals. "I want to get better at guitar" is massively open-ended, and accordingly doesn't really suggest much in the way of approaches. "I want to get better at alternate picking" is a step in the right direction since it targets the intent into a focused area of expertise. You can go way down beyond that - again, I think the Troy Grady Cracking the Code stuff is paradigm changing as it really breaks down the systematic ways in which guitarists tend to solve a lot of the problems posed in alternate picking, particularly with changing strings, so if this is an area of interest that might be a good way to start.

You can go even further than that, though - maybe try to learn a particular solo, and then as you go through that, be very self-aware of the challenges and areas of weakness you're butting up against, and start deconstructing those and looking for ways to solve them.

tl;dr - guitar is very unstructured because it's an instrument used to play a massive number of genres, and the right way to learn how to play most of the things required to excel in any particular genre is going to vary widely, just as the skills needed for a violinist to play in a classical ensemble are going to be wildly different than those need to play bluegrass fiddle. there are some areas where guitar technique IS highly codified - gypsy jazz, for example - but for the most part, you're better off identifying specific goals and working for ways to address them.

 

[Metropolis]

Chris Zoupa.

I can't take a player who plays with a finger nail seriosly, really sounds like shit in some places and very inappropriate in terms of attack and dynamics. Teaching on the other hand is another thing, he's good at it. For example this.

 

[DeanLamb]

Hey man,
As someone else mentioned, Troy Grady's Youtube channel is amazing. I subscribed to his "Masters in Mechanics" series for a month and found that to be awesome. I also love Rick Graham and Marshall Harrison for inspiration/practice ideas. Additionally, if you're looking for some exercises to work on, I have some tabs available here:
https://deanlamb.bandcamp.com/
Best of luck! \m/