For years people have wanted to learn to play the guitar
and have fallen prey to claims of Learn To Play In Only 2 Weeks or
You Can Play Overnight! You get the idea.
Alas,
most of these claims are a little misleading although, given the right
tools, the guitar is not that difficult to learn!
Most traditional methods (with books and pictures only)
aren't very effective in teaching many people how to play guitar. Static
images and words aren't able to demonstrate many of the subtle things you
have to know in order to learn. It's not that these subtle things are very
hard to do but in order to unlock the secrets & take
the mystery out of learning this great instrument, you MUST know these
little subtle things.
For this
reason, most people end up reaching an impasse & signing up for lessons
with a live teacher. We are the first to recommend that you get with a good teacher.
A good teacher can take you light years ahead in a short time.
Here's
the problem, it's not easy to find a good teacher!
We've seen disastrous results from many a bad teacher's influence.
In some towns, knowing how to play a few chords qualifies you to teach!
A bad teacher can discourage you, make you think you're the reason you
aren't progressing as well as allow you to develop bad technique that
comes back to haunt you later.
That's where we come in. We have developed online learning
tools like you'll find nowhere else! When you become a member of HotFrets
you get all of the following tools...
Your HotFrets Membership Gets You All
This...
PREMIUM
LESSONS
Each premium
lesson contains the following sections:
1.
The
Main Tutorial Screen: This is where you'll find the interactive
part of each lesson. You'll see a guitar fretboard that displays each
fingering of the lesson and allows you to move forward and backward one
fingering at a time. Just below the fretboard diagram is the Tab/notation
for the lesson with a cursor that shows you where you are in the lesson.
Try it out!
Click here to
experience one of the tutorial screens from the lesson titled, "Jazz
Chord Melodies I" which shows you how to play a jazz version of "Twinkle
Little Star." In fact, you can pick up your guitar and
learn it now! (If you are an absolute beginner, you might want to go
through all the beginner lessons first.)
The
Listen Button: Click this button to hear a high quality
audio file of how the lesson should sound when played correctly. Listening
is one of the most important things you can do to pick up on the subtle
nuances of various playing styles.
Click the listen
button to the right to sample the actual audio file found in a Jimmy
Page lesson.
Click this Listen Button Sample
3.
The Info Page: This is one of the best kept secrets of the lesson system! Here is where you'll find all kinds of tips on playing-techniques as well as anything else that can be explained in greater detail.
You'll find everything from small video clips, images, interactive flash files to detailed text explanations. All of this is to help you to gain a better understanding of the lesson.
To view a few sample INFO pages click the links listed below:
The
Hands Page: Ever
wish you could have a really good player who is also a really good teacher
just sit down with you and show you
how to play something and explain it too?
That's the purpose
of the HANDS page! Many of the lessons have QuickTime movies with a teacher
who has guitar in hand and explains and shows you how to play the lesson!
Check out the 2
HANDS videos from the advanced lesson entitled, "Building Solos With
The Pentatonic Scale." That's right! There are two videos for this lesson.
They're a little big though, so give 'em a little time to download.
This
is an advanced lesson. If you are an intermediate or advanced
player, check out the INFO page linked above titled, "Building
Solos With The Pentatonic Scale" before watching the video. That'll
give you a head start on understanding what the teacher is talking about
in this lesson.
If you're a beginner,
don't let this lesson frustrate you. Just watch the videos and enjoy the
fact that you'll be able to understand all this pretty soon if you go though
the lessons that precede this one!
If you don't have the free QuickTime Movie Player get it here.
The Notation Window:Click the Notation Button and you'll see a midi powered notation window pop open with the ability to play back the lesson at any tempo and in any key!
We use Sibelius 2 and G7 from the Sibelius company to create our notation files. You can play them back using the free Scorch 2 plugin. Click the Scorch 2 logo below to get the free Scorch plugin.
The Practice Player:This is another very cool part of each lesson. You can actually use this as a jamming tool! Click the Practice Button and up pops a small window with 2 buttons- Play and Rewind. Click the Play button and you'll hear a short count-in followed by the background music for the lesson.
Most of the Practice player files contain drums, bass and rhythm guitar depending on the lesson. And, this is actual audio of drums, bass and guitar, not cheesy midi imitations!
You can play along to your heart's content because the music loops up to 50 times before it stops. If you get lost, just click the Rewind button and start over! We've had several members tell us that this is one of their favorite parts of the site because they'll many times open an old lesson just to jam with!
Click here or the screenshot image to the right to sample
one of the practice player files.
The
Online Tablature Player & Practice Aid Tab Alive! is an awesome new tablature
tool that allows you to paste tablature straight from notepad or
any tab file into a simple web form and, with the click of a button,
immediately view it on a playable guitar-neck interface!
See and Hear each note of tablature
on a guitar graphic! - As a cursor moves from note to
note (or chord to chord) you'll hear notes sounding (including
bends, etc.) and see the corresponding notes on a guitar neck graphic!
Real
Guitar Sounds - We recorded every note, hammer-on, slide-up,
slide-down, pull-off and string bend on an old vintage Epiphone acoustic
guitar made in the 1950's. None of that cheesy midi junk here. More
guitar sounds coming soon including several electric guitars!
Shows & Plays
Common Guitar Techniques such as hammer-ons, pull-offs, string-bends
and slides! - Again, these are real guitar sounds so you
can enjoy learning any tab you want! Get tab all over the Internet
and then just paste it in and convert it to real guitar sounds!
Full
Control Over Playback - Step through your tab one fingering
at a time, select an area to indefinitely loop, or play through each
section from start to finish. There's also a speed control for the
loop and play feature!
Looping
Feature - Check
out this simple example and be sure to turn on the looper. Click
the image to the right and follow the simple directions to try it
out right now!
Playback
Speed Control - Playback control speed with a simple slider.
Works for the looper and for straight playback.
Your membership also gets you 24/7 access
to the complete HotFrets Riff Archive! Sometimes you just want to learn
a cool riff quick. The HotFrets Riff Archive has many very popular song
riffs. Each riff uses the interactive HotFrets interface and includes a
video of someone actually playing the riff!
Most of the videos include close-up views of the riff
played slowly and then at normal speed. Below is a link to a riff from
the archive.
Every membership gets an automatic discount
on every item in the bookstore!
there are over 40,000 items in the bookstore including
Book/CD packages, DVDs, Videos, music software and more! If you are planning
to purchase instructional videos and other items, your membership might
just pay for itself in bookstore discounts! Here is a brief list of some
of the areas you might be interested in checking out.
You'll
pay anywhere from $40 to $100 per month for a live teacher good or
bad and you get maybe 30 minutes to an hour once a week. Remember,
a good teacher is a good thing but your HotFrets membership is only
a fraction of the cost of even a bad teacher. The annual membership
is only $50 which comes to less than $5 per month. You have access
to all the members content 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for an entire
year. That's less than $1 per week. That way you can keep your good
teacher and get all this for pennies a day.
Many students have
a tendency to become extremely nervous during their lessons with a live
teacher resulting in great frustration. If you have or have ever taken
lessons from a teacher you've probably experienced this in some form
or fashion. You can experience the interactive lessons and learning tools
here in the comfort of your own room and on your time schedule. As a
matter of fact, many of our members have seen an improvement in performance
and confidence in front of their teachers after spending a few months
as a HotFrets member!
But if you're still
not convinced, we have weekly, monthly and quarterly memberships available
for $5.00, $9.95 and $15.00 respectively. Try it out for a week, a month
or a quarter.
Get your membership
now!
"The More You Learn, the Easier it is to Learn More!"
