Friday, March 03, 2006
What About All the Other Guitar Sites and Systems Out There...
Yeah, I keep hearing that one.
Frankly, they scare me - a lot of them do anyway. When you have a computer situation as tenuous as mine has been (three wipe-outs within a one-year period), you tend to get a little cautious in how you surf.
But, as I was firing up Guitar-eze again for its re-launch, I surfed a lot of guitar sites to get a feel for what was what on online guitar.
I was frightened. I say so right on my site homepage. Without going into a lot of name-detail (do any search and you'll find them all yourself), too many (if not most) guitar websites are:
1) hopelessly cluttered
2) filled with ads
3) have scary pop-up your machine prefers to block or at least warn you about
4) are generally filled with lots of graphics but little content
5) offer "free" lessons
5) offer tabs
(By contrast, Guitar-eze has none of this, although the site's sole raison d'etre is to sell my books and promote open-D tuning. More on this later.)
Some of the forums I've surfed have continuous entries which have nothing to do with guitar, like porn, and other assorted spam. Some of the forums, on the other hand are amazing.
Some of the sites I looked at are a one-page advertisement for a guitar self-teaching downloadable system, which you scroll, scroll, scroll down, until you get a price (anywhere from $29.99 and up) and a buy button. They tend to be filled with incredible testimonial claims.
I find it all a little frightening.
One common search result, which I have not quite figured out yet, offers a "comparison" of four different online downloadable guitar learning systems, and rates them, and offers a link to them.
I've tried many of the sample lessons offered on the guitar sites I've researched. Some of them are actually pretty good guitar lessons. In fact, so as not to appear like I'm bashing all guitar sites, some of them are very good, informative websites. By that I mean there is less clutter, less advertising, no pop-ups, etc. The lessons found on these sites tend to be good. But they seldom, from what I've seen, offer much for the absolute beginner, or for someone who has been struggling on guitar. For a "guitar player" with some experience, there's a huge range of good material, and the range of free stuff is really cool, too.
Conclusion - there are tons of guitar sites on the internet. Some are good. Some are awful. Many are trying to sell you something. If they're not trying to sell you something they are attempting to make money with advertising they hope you will click on.
Guitar-eze does none of this. But I am selling something, aggressively.
The purpose of my site is help anyone play guitar more easily, in open-D (something many guitar sites mention, but seldom promote). I offer information on the site blog as well as this one, but the idea is to get people to take up guitar in open-D through the purchase of the Guitar-eze books (that's right, no downloadable stuff, for now, anyway). I offer after sales support, naturally, for any aspiring guitarist who buys. I also offer a free evaluation before purchasing. Prospective buyers can tell me their personal guitar situation and guitar aspirations, and I'll reply with a custom commentary and strategy based on their input. This is different in the world of guitar websites, and I'm proud of it.
My site blog also answers any questions and comments received, so the whole world can hear the answer - the assumption being that many people think of the same guitar questions, but few actually have the nerve to ask (by the way the e-mail is info@easierguitar.com ).
There you go. Some thoughts on online guitar. Happy surfing and check out Guitar-eze if you can.
http://www.easierguitar.com
Frankly, they scare me - a lot of them do anyway. When you have a computer situation as tenuous as mine has been (three wipe-outs within a one-year period), you tend to get a little cautious in how you surf.
But, as I was firing up Guitar-eze again for its re-launch, I surfed a lot of guitar sites to get a feel for what was what on online guitar.
I was frightened. I say so right on my site homepage. Without going into a lot of name-detail (do any search and you'll find them all yourself), too many (if not most) guitar websites are:
1) hopelessly cluttered
2) filled with ads
3) have scary pop-up your machine prefers to block or at least warn you about
4) are generally filled with lots of graphics but little content
5) offer "free" lessons
5) offer tabs
(By contrast, Guitar-eze has none of this, although the site's sole raison d'etre is to sell my books and promote open-D tuning. More on this later.)
Some of the forums I've surfed have continuous entries which have nothing to do with guitar, like porn, and other assorted spam. Some of the forums, on the other hand are amazing.
Some of the sites I looked at are a one-page advertisement for a guitar self-teaching downloadable system, which you scroll, scroll, scroll down, until you get a price (anywhere from $29.99 and up) and a buy button. They tend to be filled with incredible testimonial claims.
I find it all a little frightening.
One common search result, which I have not quite figured out yet, offers a "comparison" of four different online downloadable guitar learning systems, and rates them, and offers a link to them.
I've tried many of the sample lessons offered on the guitar sites I've researched. Some of them are actually pretty good guitar lessons. In fact, so as not to appear like I'm bashing all guitar sites, some of them are very good, informative websites. By that I mean there is less clutter, less advertising, no pop-ups, etc. The lessons found on these sites tend to be good. But they seldom, from what I've seen, offer much for the absolute beginner, or for someone who has been struggling on guitar. For a "guitar player" with some experience, there's a huge range of good material, and the range of free stuff is really cool, too.
Conclusion - there are tons of guitar sites on the internet. Some are good. Some are awful. Many are trying to sell you something. If they're not trying to sell you something they are attempting to make money with advertising they hope you will click on.
Guitar-eze does none of this. But I am selling something, aggressively.
The purpose of my site is help anyone play guitar more easily, in open-D (something many guitar sites mention, but seldom promote). I offer information on the site blog as well as this one, but the idea is to get people to take up guitar in open-D through the purchase of the Guitar-eze books (that's right, no downloadable stuff, for now, anyway). I offer after sales support, naturally, for any aspiring guitarist who buys. I also offer a free evaluation before purchasing. Prospective buyers can tell me their personal guitar situation and guitar aspirations, and I'll reply with a custom commentary and strategy based on their input. This is different in the world of guitar websites, and I'm proud of it.
My site blog also answers any questions and comments received, so the whole world can hear the answer - the assumption being that many people think of the same guitar questions, but few actually have the nerve to ask (by the way the e-mail is info@easierguitar.com ).
There you go. Some thoughts on online guitar. Happy surfing and check out Guitar-eze if you can.
http://www.easierguitar.com
