https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/

I watched this video and find myself agreeing with their points and perspective.
It is entirely a mixed bag and pluses and minuses.

also, sadly for me , all the watching, all the reading NEVER improved my playing much
Only more playing (with the instrument under my fingers) improved my playing

RrR

Being from the old school I agreed with everything except when they said the first thing in learning guitar is to learn songs. The first thing, IMO, is to get a good teacher and learn proper technique. YMMV

cranky old men.

sorry i wasted the time to listen

Mario,

I agree. To that I would add: LEARN HOW TO SIGHT READ. It really helps to speed things up.

For example, if you have BIAB and you can sight read, and you just study a Brent Mason solo in notation, as one example, you can clearly see what is going on, and take a master class every day of your life. Or look at some of the acoustic players. It is all there in front of your face.

A lot of guitar courses don't seem to be about guitar per se, and remind me of a class I was force to take in church of all places, while I was in the band at a mega church. They had a "guitar clinic master class." The guy came in with a pedal board with like 50 pedals on it. He played no notes whatsoever but wanted to make sure we knew how to play a dotted eighth with a pedal.

When I told him I didn't need a pedal to play a dotted eighth he laughed and said that was impossible.

I said it wasn't, we played dotted eighths in classical all the time with no pedal.

He gave me a blank stare. And said that was impossible without a pedal.

It was pretty funny. Kind of like a Simpsons episode. Some guitar classes on line seem to have that vibe to me.

And I'm a cranky old man!!!!!

No you are a musician! If you can't play a dotted eight without a pedal you are not a musician.

PS - I have never heard of playing a note duration with a pedal!

Plus dotted eights are in all genres of music!

I 100% agree with David Snyder that learning to read music on the guitar is a cornerstone skill to improving your guitar playing.

I am a poor sight reader. This has definitely slowed my advancement. I've played for 50 years. I'm a semi-pro level player.

David's example is a good one. It takes me a long time to learn a new melody because my sight reading is so poor. I can read a chord chart or real book lead sheet chords no problem. I can improvise over the changes. Just don't ask me to play the head. Unless I've memorized it.

I've tried reading a few times over the years with limited success. Each time I get a little better. But I still suck.

So, taking David's advice I'm getting ready to try it again.

I've owned the Berklee Guitar Method (Levy) for a decade or two.
I've also become familiar with Tomo Fujita, an interesting and inspiring Berklee instructor.

He created a project to act as a work along to the Berklee method.
I plan on giving it a go and see if it sticks a little better this time.
Here's a link to his approach if others are interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFhSawP4uXQ

Hey There,

I would highly recommend Guitar Pro.

It has a really easy to use interface for adding notes, creating scales, downloading exercises, viewing fretboard, tablature etc.

You can create C position or G position scales, as just one example, and spend months on just the key of C and G. (ascending and descending scales with low C on 5 string, low G on 6th.)

If you only do these two scales you will eventually memorize chunks of notes in the fretboard, and musical notation will become second nature.

You will also have an explosion moment where you finally see the fretboard math, and go "Oh I get it...." and smile, and all other scales become down hill sledding.

But, if you only know the key of C, you can still run Brent Mason solos in notation in the key of C and realize in an instant what he is doing. "Oh! He slides into the high E on the 12th string from the 11th fret and then bends up to the F. Clever!" Let me practice that a hundred times.

Also, Guitar Pro will import into BIAB if you save as midi. And a huge chunk of the world's rock and pop catalog is out there in Guitar Pro Land.

https://www.theguitarlesson.com/guitar-pro-tabs/

Just sayin'.

Good input from they who know.
Ray Charles remarked, "If you can count, you can play." Now, that's a pretty strong comment, especially considering the man.
I found myself just this morning counting aloud the notes of "Amazing Grace" [ A - ONE - two and - Three - HOW ] I do stuff like that a lot, lately.
What a way to greet the day! In the olden days, a metronome was a fixture on the piano. Wait..there is hope. Band-in-a-box is the best metronome ever, but, you have to use it.

Rhett "Shill" annoys me far more than Rick.
The internet has promoted lead playing, though these days it's referred to as shredding - well doing anything musical or otherwise that is fast and with overt emphasis seems to be considered shredding these days, and pushes doing that to to backing tracks because that's where the centre of the universe abides...profit opportunity. Playing to backings is fine - now more than ever particularly in isolation times but there seem are fewer and fewer competent rhythm players "out there"...mind you that may be a case of rhythm players not being the sort to tout their wares via Utub & the other social media platforms.

Not much call for "Here's me playing the rhythm part to Hotel California..."

As an now old man who first learnt five guitar chords in 1976 and didn't add to that list until several years later - and has not progressed beyond a dozen open chords since then - I also see some value in working with what I have and learning to use that as best I can. I've absorbed a bit more music theory through learning cello but am careful not to let theory get in the way.

I have a nephew who learnt guitar via tabs and videos through the internet 15 years ago. He could play what he could play quite well BUT he couldn't really jam, he was very poor at rhythm and he needed to be the star.

It is much easier today to mimic other guitarists and when one does that then they are like your nephew: I also have a 16 year old nephew exactly like yours. Back in my day you mimicked guitarist via vinyl. I wish I had some of those early Chuck Berry albums I scratched all to hell!

Playing via tabs only does not make you a guitarist! You must learn to read music. However I do have one variant to that rule in that if you are older and just want to strum a few chords then that is OK. YMMV

I completely agree, Mario. Still, I have been amazed lately how easy it appears to have been for guitar players to pick up cross-picking, aka Travis Picking, (John Prine, Merle Travis, The Carters, & so many folk icons) off the internet with seeming little effort. Again, counting is in the middle of things, esp striking that target note on time and playing the decent walk-up-down.

I read music, tab chicken scratch on a napkin. I learned to play songs lifting that needle up and putting it down hundreds of times. I learned technique sitting with someone who knew. Now with YouTube you can actually see what they are doing. I think it makes it easier than lifting that needle, but your ear training suffers.

Ear training requires that listening and figuring out what is going on with out the visual aid. Once you can develop the ear, a lot of stuff opens up.

If only I could have watched Chet Atkins videos when I was a kid! I learned those songs by ear, and when I watch him play them I realized there were much easier ways to do what I was doing! He always seemed to find the easiest, most efficient way to play everything he did. Easy being a relative term!