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The importance of video in learning guitar cannot be overemphasized. I remember the old days when the only guitar tutors you could get were books with pages and pages of chord diagrams, giving the name of the chord and where your fingers should be to play it. You would then be given a song with a few of the chords and that, basically, was it. You were a guitar player.

If you were lucky you would be shown some written music, with the chords to play above the music. There was very little, if any, tablature except for that showing how each chord should be fingered. Learning guitar using these books was a chore rather than a joy; and if you managed to reach the end, then you had to be very, very keen.

There was no mention of the various parts of your guitar, why they are shaped that way and what part they play in producing the sound you are making. Nothing about fingering in respect of how you should finger the strings: can you imagine trying to learn how to hammer-on through somebody explaining it in writing? How about your other hand: nothing about how to hold the pick, or plectrum, and certainly nothing about how to manually pick the strings.

As for the sound: it's amazing how many different people could get so many different sounds by following the same instructions! If you were lucky and you were the one that accidentally held the guitar properly, held the pick properly and fingered the strings properly, then your sound would be good - as it should be. The rest of us believed we sounded fine, but the invention of tape recorders soon told us the truth. Learning guitar is more than just knowing finger positions.

Actually I am not that old! But you get the drift. How could people that couldn't properly hear their own sound learn how to play? On the other hand, how could some of these people learn to make the guitar sound so wonderful? People like David Williams, Chet Atkins and Andres Segovia made beautiful sounds without the benefit of audio or video aids while learning.

Perhaps that was a good thing in that it led to a marvelously varied range of playing styles and the development of some fabulous guitar players, but it was a matter of hit or miss if you got it right. I suppose it would have been pretty boring if everybody learned to play the guitar the same way. However, it would have been a darn sight quicker!

Then came audio, and at least you knew what your guitar should sound like. You also knew what the music should sound like and found that you were playing it far too slow because it was easier that way. Let's face it - most budding guitarists have no interest in learning about real music. They just want to do what Slash or Hendrix do or did. However, even to do that takes a lot of time and a really deep understanding of music and how your guitar works.

That's where the importance of video in learning guitar becomes significant. Not only can you hear how your music should sound, but also you can see how that sound is made. Learning guitar, particularly solo guitar, involves the use of many different techniques. It used to be said that you can't learn how to be a solo player: you just picked it up. That is no longer true.

Take the technique already mentioned: the hammer-on. Once you see it being demonstrated, and how the finger must move crisply and hard onto one part of the fret from the other in order to get the second note, it becomes much easier. Other techniques such as spider walking, slides and pinch harmonics would be extremely difficult to get across without demonstrating the concepts on video: then they become easy. Well . . .

Let's say a lot easier! The answer to the question of what is the best way to learn guitar is that it must be a video-based system. And it must also cater for a number of styles. How do you know what style of guitar you ultimately prefer to play unless you have tried a range of them? Guitar membership sites are probably the most useful since they can cater for all levels of expertise.

There is no disputing the importance of video in learning guitar, and that, I believe, is where we come in. All you should do is to choose the best video guitar teaching site you can find, and I can even help you with that!

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Andre Sanchez,