Learning to play an instrument takes significant time and effort, especially when learning independently. As a mostly self-taught guitarist, I have found the internet, particularly YouTube, to be an excellent resource; watching another musician explain how to play a song allows me to grow as a musician by learning music I could not have figured out on my own. I like to follow tutorials on YouTube in conjunction with a tab on Ultimate Guitar, my go-to website for chords and tabs of almost any song I want to play. The following musicians are a few of my favorite YouTube creators who teach acoustic pop songs for solo guitar.
Marin Music Center
The creator behind the channel Marin Music Center is named Stuart Alexander Lehman-Brown (as he will likely tell you multiple times). He blends clear and thorough explanations of chords, picking patterns and strumming with idiosyncratic humor that never fails to keep me engaged. I found his channel through his tutorial for “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, and later I picked up “Cool About It” by Boygenius more quickly than any fingerstyle song I’d tried to learn before thanks to his video on the song. As a guitarist who is relatively new to fingerstyle, I appreciate his note-by-note descriptions of picking patterns. The comedic energy Stuart brings to each video makes for an entertaining as well as an educational experience; I often find myself laughing in front of my laptop at gems like “You know, this song isn’t that popular, so maybe with some of your stupider friends, you could pretend that you wrote the song and they’ll be very impressed with you.”
Nena Shelby
Nena Shelby was one of the very first YouTube guitar teachers I followed. Her channel is an absolute treasure trove of beginner-friendly tutorials for Taylor Swift songs, as well as songs by similar artists such as Gracie Abrams and Sabrina Carpenter. In each of her hundreds of tutorial videos, she carefully explains the chords needed, the strumming pattern and the structure of the song. She supplements almost all her tutorials with separate play-through videos that give the learner the opportunity to play along with the entire song from start to finish. During her tutorial for Taylor Swift’s “Begin Again,” the first fingerstyle song I ever learned, she teaches both a picking and a strumming version of the song, allowing viewers to choose the style that best suits them. More recently, Nena’s video on the song “22” was a lifesaver when I was struggling with the song’s tricky strumming pattern.
Jerry’s Guitar Bar
I discovered the channel Jerry’s Guitar Bar from this playthrough of “Alice’s Restaurant” by Arlo Guthrie. This channel has been consistently uploading instructional guitar videos for 13 years and counting, so there is a huge selection of songs available to learn, especially songs by artists like the Beatles, James Taylor and John Prine. The high-quality, close-up visuals the creator provides give the learner a clear view of what each hand should be doing throughout the song; I find that being able to see a real hand helps me understand the transitions between chord shapes much better than I do when simply looking at a tab. Though his channel focuses more on play-throughs than tutorials, he posts lessons for a select few songs, with even more content available at low prices from the channel’s website. Jerry’s channel was a great help when I was learning “If We Were Vampires” by Jason Isbell, which is now one of my favorite songs to play.
Simple Guitar Tabs
If you’re a beginner guitarist more interested in plucking than strumming, try Simple Guitar Tabs. This channel has over 100 videos, each one demonstrating a different short instrumental song (often from a movie or video game soundtrack). I enjoyed learning the Harry Potter theme. Though there are no verbal explanations on this channel, I find the visuals easy to follow, especially with the line of tablature that scrolls across the bottom of the screen in time with the guitarist’s playing. In the early stages of learning from this type of video, I like to make use of YouTube’s playback speed adjustment settings. Slowing the video down makes it much easier to play along and get the notes right before working up to full speed. Even when I’m not trying to learn anything, I enjoy listening to a playlist of these videos as background music for studying.
The challenge of learning a new song and the satisfaction of finally getting it right are part of why music is so fulfilling for me. In addition to helping me learn to play specific songs, following tutorials helps build skills that make it easier to learn other songs in the future. Thanks to the wide selection of guitar lessons available online, and to these channels in particular, I have been able to expand my musical horizons farther than I ever would have hoped when I was just starting out.
‘Are You Still Watching?’ is a column spotlighting what the Cornell community has been streaming. It runs every Wednesday.
Raina Lockwood is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at rl978@cornell.edu.
