There are many hundreds of guitar lessons here, most with video and audio, and as you can imagine it's taken quite a lot of work for me to put it together. It's important to me to help everyone that want to play guitar, not just those with money, so I run it on an "honour system". It relies on the honesty and integrity of it's users. Donations from people like your good self allow me to keep it free, so if you like what I'm doing here then please support the site: make a donation or buy some products... at least read the donate page! ;)

Donations keep the site free for those that can't afford to donate!

CLICK HERE for details on how and why to donate. Thanks. J

Wishing you love, peace and happiness (and many years of guitar fun!)

Justin

Come from YouTube??? Get the Lesson ID at the start of a video - look it up in the Lesson Index and you'll find the lesson. USTREAM TV - Live Weekly Broadcast OH HOLD I'm away until late Sept - will try & do some mobile shows - follow me on twitter. Justin's Album - Small Town Eyes My album is vocal driven alternative pop folk, 13 songs (2 solo acoustic instrumentals) all song based. Less than 50 copies left of the Limited Edition which comes with a "Making Of..." DVD - or it's available digitally on iTunes worldwide.

What am I up to???

Latest 10 Lesson Updates

I'm away until late September in Australia, catching up with my family... so please forgive me if I don't get so many updates done, I will be working on the site still on my laptop and the rest will give me new energy to come back and go crazy before xmas :) see you all real soon, take care, J.

11-08-10 • NEW THINGY: Justinguitar Ear Trainer is now live :) fun, addictive and educational.
10-08-10 • NEW LESSON: Using a Practice Timer and a cool Justinguitar Practice Timer!
09-08-10 • NEW AREA AND LESSON: Practice Time Area and Goal Setting
30-07-10 • NEW EBOOK: Understanding Rhythm Notation is out now!
23-07-10 • NEW SONG VIDEO: Nothing Else Matters, including the solo.
17-07-10 • NEW LESSON: Superimposing Arpeggios
16-07-10 • NEW LESSON: Beginners Guide To Arpeggios
15-07-10 • NEW LESSON: Melodic Percussive Fingerstyle
14-07-10 • NEW LESSON: Mini Sweep Picking Arpeggios
06-07-10 • NEW LESSON: Arpeggios: Why? How? Which? When?

Brian May digs justinguitar.com!

It is a real honour for me when someone I have a huge amount of respect for likes what I do, and little while ago the legendary Queen guitarist, Brian May, mentions my site in his online blog, Brian May's Soapbox. It took me a while to add a link here, because I thought it might make me look a bit full of myself, but hey, I'm proud of this! Click here to go to his web site and see it (it was posted on 29th May 2008) or click the image on the left to see a pic of it!

Latest News - August 2010

This year is just flying for me. Too fast actually, needs to slow down a bit so I can soak it all in...

Been in the studio the last week with pop songwriters Cathy Dennis and Jonas Jeberg which has been great fun. Pop music is simple, but not easy and it's great fun getting creative with simple ideas and getting it right. Also meant I was back in the studio recording lots and exploring electric tones. Hopefully I will have good news about the artists releasing them soon! Also inspired a couple of new lessons I'm writing on songwriting and the music business...

Proir to that I had been practicing and playing lots, really into guitar at the moment, it's almost like the last few months I have been re-discovering the musician in me and it feels great. I have so much to learn it's both scary and inspiring. Socretes said that the more you know, the more things you realise you don't know. And right now I'm staring at all the things I left by the way and never bothered to learn, and just getting stuck in and checking them out: sweep picking, economy picking, hybrid picking, country licks, flamenco tricks, guitar percussion, odd rhythmic groupings... all on my practice shedule, and will turn into lessons as I get them together enough!

I have a new artist deal with Two Rock Amplifiers which is very exciting, my Custom Reverb Signature V3 arrived a few days ago and it's amazing. Really wonderful sound and it does a real special thing I love which is that it's very sesitive to volume, picking a note softly can get you a clean tone, and playing it hard it starts driving the gain up and become more dirty. I love that about it. Not many amps can do it, thought I did have some luck with an old Fender Twin and a Zen Drive Pedal (excellent pedal btw)... coming to think of it, I've not put the two together yet ;) going to check that out tomorrow! I also got an MXR Carbon Copy delay pedal which is excellent. As cool sounding as my old rusty analogue delays without the noise!

I finally got Understanding Rhythm Notation finished after more than a year working on it with Justin Scott (drum guru). It's only ben out a few days and it flying off the virtual shelves and getting great reviews. It's come in at over 200 pages and covers a lot of groud, will keep you busy for quite a while me thinks!

Only a week until I am off to Australia for a few weeks, first a hang out in Sydney, then down to Tassie for a couple of week, seeing family, hiking, chilling, etc. then up to Queensland for my sisters wedding and scuba diving on the Barrier Reef (really excited about that), then back to Sydney for a couple of days teaching. Going to be quite a trip, just hope I can make enough time to practice! Will be doing some private lessons, if you want one, get in touch. I'm not going to have a lot of internet connection while I am there (mum had dial up and I'll be camping a lot) so if you need to contact me urgently leave a message with Jed at Customer Services!

Take care, be safe and be kind, J.

Need more lessons than you find here? try JamPlay...

The guitar lesson web site JamPlay have been offering a 7 Day Free trial to my visitors for a couple of months now, with some very positive reviews. There really is a lot of information there if you need more than you get here, lots of teachers and many different subject areas. You don't have to give your credit card number or any of that, so go check it out and see if you can find some useful information to help you develop your playing. Of course I think my method is best, but different strokes for different folks and all that - you might find a teacher there that you really understand and connect with. Of course after the 7 days you have to pay a monthly subscription, but it is reasonably priced. You'd be crazy not to check it out! Just click this link to get your free 7 day voucher code.

Sounds I make with the help from...

Justin plays Maton Acoustic Guitars, TC Electronic Effects, The Gig Rig Pedal Switcher, Mesa Boogie Amplification, AER Acoustic Amplification, DR Strings, The G-Lab Wah Pad and Kyser Capos. Thanks. Check them out, all seriously great tools for making happy sounds in your ears!

Global Issues

I'm just a guitar player, but I also care deeply about the state of the planet and maybe I can introduce you to some things you are not aware of, or just things that I care about. So take time to read the articles if you are interested, otherwise just turn the page and ignore...

Malaria - The quiet killer
I wonder how many of you ever thought that in the time it takes to watch one of my 10 minute videos that 20 children in Africa will die from malaria. Shocking isn't it. There are over 1 million deaths around the world from this killer, and it is preventable and curable. 90% of all malaria deaths are in Africa, and 70% of those are children under 5 years of age. The best way to prevent malaria is for children to sleep under treated mosquito nets. When I volunteered at the orphanage in Ghana early last year, none of the kids had nets. They all do now, but there are many hundreds of thousands of kids with no nets and no protection from the little buggers while they are asleep. If they do catch it, they can't afford treatment, a simple case of taking a tablet for a few weeks. There are many organisations that are working on distributing nets and I would urge you to support them, financially and by talking about this problem. Please check out the following sites: Malaria No More UK, Malaria No More US, click on donate, and help save a child's life. Thanks for taking the time read this, and I hope it moves you to act.

Zeitgeist - The Movie
I am sure that this is not the whole truth, but it is certainly interesting, and if you have not seen it then you should certainly check it out. If 10% of the film is true then we live in a very scary world indeed. A very thought provoking movie. It talks about religion, 911 and the way that we are ripped off by governments: Take money from the poor (collecting tax) and spend it on war (give the money to corporations that make weapons). Be prepared to re-think some things... Watch it here!

Darfur
Nearly two years ago now I found myself nearly in tears reading an article about the situation in Darfur in the New Internationalist magazine. I mentioned it in my 100th YouTube video and I hoped that it would make the video out of date very quickly. But it hasn't. More than 300,000 people dead and 2.5 Million people displaced. It is just disgusting that nothing is being done by international governments. Guess there is no profit to be made there... no oil to plunder. Read more about it - The Darfur Genocide and write to your local senator / MP.

Ghana
I spent Christmas and New Year 2008 in Ghana working in an orphanage. I met some amazing people and it really changed my headspace. It is a year on now and I still think of them often, and help them financially from money I make on this site. I maintain a web site for them - if you are interested in volunteering somewhere, then I highly recommend it. Just get in touch with Venus, his details are on the web site. You can read about it and see some video of our adventure in my blog, here. I raised quite a lot of money through this site and it really helped the kids, we got them new cloths, a bed, painted their room, bought medicines, paid for schooling, bought them chicken, but their expenses are ongoing and I send money to them every few months (from the donations received from this site). If you would like to help please see their web site (Ryvanz-Mia Orphanage).

 

This site is free for peace loving people - let's make this world a happy and safe place!

 

Morality is doing right, no matter what you are told.
Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.
H L Mencken

 

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism.
Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.
Noam Chomsky

 

You can find the REAL news (not the rubbish that the big media evils show us) by visiting:
The Information Clearing House

 

If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward,
then we are a sorry lot indeed.
Albert Einstein

 

Many people die with their music still in them.
Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live.
Before they know it, time runs out.
Oliver Wendell Holmes