To suggest that you can learn guitar online and have fun is like saying you can have fun going to watch Van Halen play, or Joe Frusciante, Johnny Greenwood or Tom Morello. These are great guitarists, and if you want to be like them you must have fun while you learn to play guitar. Of course you should have fun learning to play guitar online.

A lot depends on your outlook, attitude and expectations. You must never expect anything, but wait and see what transpires. Much also depends on your preconceptions. Many think that learning guitar should be all fun and no work, but if you set off with that attitude then you will likely fail. There is a lot of hard work, and learning scales and chords can be a grind, but it is one you have to tolerate.

So let's get back to basics and have a look at what it takes to be a good guitarist, and decide if it is possible to have fun doing it. Let's break it down into sections, starting from you knowing nothing about a guitar and then all the steps you have to take to learn guitar online properly. Assuming that there was a site that can teach you all of this, then first you have to know your guitar.

Your Guitar

You can't learn guitar online without understanding your instrument and how it works. Everybody likely knows that you change notes by pressing the strings down on the different frets. However, what notes are you playing on each fret, and how do they relate to each other? That comes later. First the components of your musical instrument, because that is what a guitar is: a musical instrument, just as a violin, trumpet or clarinet is a musical instrument.

If you have a good online guitar site teaching you, you will learn the importance of the strings, and what they are made from, the way they are finished and tied onto the rings that hold them to the bridge or string pegs. The fretboard should be perfectly smooth and the frets of the right height to catch the strings without touching them through normal vibration. Other important parts are the nut, at the top of the fretboard, and the rod that passes through the neck to give it strength.

The choice of strings can be critical, as can the type and placing of the pickups. In an acoustic guitar the sound board and body are of extreme importance to the end result. Learning all of this can be great fun, because you are getting to know the instrument you are learning to play.

Learning Chords

However, to learn guitar online you eventually have to start playing it, and the best way is to be shown a few chords that you can string together. Many beginners think chords are only for rhythm guitarists in a band that can't play lead, but they couldn't be more wrong. The chords are the technical part, and all the best guitarists can play a wide range of different chords at will when needed.

Every solo guitar player has to know all the major and minor chords, and blues players the sevenths. Nobody can get by without knowing chords, and they definitely are not just for the 'rhythm players'. They are an essential part of many guitar solos.

The Benefit of Scales

Scales are the same. You won't become a good solo guitarist without knowing your scales. Most famous guitar solos are no more than scales being played up and down the fretboard, and they can be a lot of fun to learn. If you learn the pentatonic scale needed to play the solo from Bohemian Rhapsody or Freebird, then what more fun can you want when you learn guitar online?

Learn a few scales and then show your new found skills? Easy man - you are having fun and have hardly even started to learn about guitar harmonics, trills and vibrato (no, that is a guitar term!). If you get the right online guitar teacher you can have even more fun, and if you find an online guitar membership from which to learn, they you will be in a dream world!

The Guitar Styles and Genres

Just imagine: you are learning basic guitar online, and are getting better. You decide you would like to try jazz guitar or learn blues guitar. No need to carry out another online search: it's right there on the same website and you don't pay any more. Your monthly membership allows you to try any guitar genre you want 24/7.

You can learn guitar online and have fun trying out fingerstyle or Hawaiian slack key. Or go for rock or even heavy metal. Learn all the various tricks that the greats use to make them look good - once you master them you won't only have fun doing it, but will be able to run of a 5 minute lick on pentatonic without raising an eyebrow. Fun or what?

Yes, you can learn guitar online and have fun, especially if you find the right site from which to learn.