Hey, My name is Chris and i started this site because i LOVE playing GUITAR!!

What can i say, the instrument just spoke to me.  Since i was 8 years old, i’ve been in love.  Not only do i play guitar, but i teach guitar lessons locally, in my town.  I’ve taught for about 9 years now and I gotta say, it’s really rewarding when your students get to learn and play what THEY want.  It makes us both happy!

Back to this site….

Everyone learns differently, and everyone has different playing styles and goals.

Which is why I created this site, To Help YOU Find

The BEST Guitar Lessons That Fit Your Unique Playing And Learning Style

That’s why you will read about me describing which style of learner this lesson style suits best.

• Some have a short attention span and want to jump right in and start learning and playing
• Others like to have a book and organized lesson plan
• Most people love dvd’s: some lessons are far better than others, and give many different views
• Some people only want to focus on playing solos and improvising leads and melodies

What you WON’T find in this site:

A bunch of typical links for Jamorama and all the other regurgitated guitar lesson reviews that you have seen on countless other review sites.  I was shocked when i found out most of those guys don’t even PLAY the guitar!!  They just refer people to high converting offers, so they think everyone gets what they want.  Well, the result usually ends up in disappointment for the student because they took advice from someone that doesn’t play, and certainly doesn’t even teach guitar lessons.

So take it from me when I say THANK YOU, for visiting my site.  I recognize your talents and desire to cultivate them into a tremendous passion.  Who knows, you might even teach me a thing or two on the guitar one day.  We are all learning to play the instrument in our own unique way, that may influence countless other players and musicians some day.

Who I Am and How I Become The Guitarist I Am Today

Ive been playing guitar for 21 years now.  I started out with a cheap Epiphone guitar and Crate amp that i obtained from trading a my brand new Sega Genesis gaming system.  It wasn’t much but it got me playing.  Man, i must have broke 3 different whammy bars on that guitar!!  I loved doing dive bombs and experimenting with feedback.

A year later i had saved enough money up to buy a guitar that i felt fit my playing style and hoped i wouldn’t snap the whammy bar off of.  It was a 1991 Fender Heavy Metal Strat.  Here’s a picture (yup i still have it and still play it all the time).

Man, that guitar still WAILES!!  I love it.  It’s got DiMarzio pickups that really light this Strat up!  I played so many of them, and they were all too twangy for me.  I was 16 and it was 1991, so i was looking for a heavy full stadium sound.  Today, i can appreciate a classic strat sound.  Hey-I really dig the sound of different guitars -using different guitars for different songs.   That Epiphone i had sounded REAL MUDDY.  It served it’s purpose, got me playing and taking lessons, but eventually things change.  Your style changes as you evolve and mature as a player.

So there i was, cranking my solid state Fender M-80 up, knocking pictures of my parent’s walls shredding this ’80′s rock guitar!!  Man i loved that raw metallic sound it gave me.  I didn’t see the point in ever playing another brand of guitar.  I took lessons for about 6 years.  I learned a lot and highly recommend some lessons for everyone.  At least for a while.  Taking lessons really made me a better player.  I got to learn all the songs i wanted every week AND didn’t get stuck in that rut of playing the same thing OVER AND OVER, which we all know leads to never getting better.  Unfortuantley you just stay at the same level.  Kind of like a kid that stops growing and stays the same age.

AS I got older and continued playing, i went into my local music shop one day and decided to plug in another Epiphone.  Now, the one i had as a kid was probably 12 years old then and didn’t sound good at all.  I had read some good reviews on Epiphone Guitars, but also wanted to see what all the talk was about.  I plugged an Epiphone Les Paul into a crappy little crate practice amp, and i was BLOWN AWAY by the sound.  It was PUNCHY, CRISP, and i was able to get just as good pinch harmonics out of this as my Fender Heavy Metal Strat!!

I ended up playing a bunch of different Epiphone Les Paul models that afternoon.  Two weeks later i bought an Epiphone Les Paul Classic.  Had the intonation done right there, put some DR Strings and went home to jam.  I noticed right away that i had an even clearer sound on my own amp than i did on using my Fender.  Plus, I could really get some sick sounding artificial harmonics/pinch harmonics and bends from that thing.  Never before had i been so surprised from the quality of sound i was getting.  I mean, i had wrote that brand off years ago.

I now had a new sound and was playing about 8 hours a day.  I was getting good and progressing quickly.  I started teaching lessons and loved it.  It never felt like work.  Well, except for when i would figure out a student didn’t want to play anymore and their parents were forcing them to practice (or get grounded).  That’s when i would tell the parents up front, “this isn’t for your child, i won’t be coming back”.  I mean, why take something so beautiful and make it so horrible??

Eventually i bought a Gibson.  I got a Les Paul Classic in 2000 and it was AMAZING!!  It sounded even better than the Epiphone.  Words can’t even explain the creamy, flowing tone that was oozing from my strings.  It had the ceramic enclosed pickups, slim neck, push/pull pots on the volume and tone controls…it was the best guitar i had ever played on…and i OWNED it!

A couple years later i decided it was time for a change.  I decided i needed to slim down on my collection of guitars and add something fulfilling to my life.  I sold my Gibson Les Paul and bought a dog, a Boxer.  I never once regretted my decision as i still had 3 electrics and 2 acoustics to play at any given moment.

After a few more years of playing and teaching i was in the position to buy another Gibson Les Paul.  But which one?  I had to drive 60 miles to the nearest music store that carried Gibsons.  They had a ton and i played 7 different ones, on MANY different brands of amps before i decided on one.  There was one Les Paul Classic that sounded different, more ALIVE than any of the others.  I even played some of the Gibson Les Paul Customs, and none of them sounded as good as this one.  They had some better looking ones, but nothing sounded like this one.  I bought it, along with a new TUBE AMP,  the Mesa Express.

Turns out, the staff at the music store didn’t even know what they had.  They told me all the pickups were the same..but they weren’t.  The pickups in this one were actually Gibson’s 1958 Patent Applied for Pickups with a few modifications made to them- to make em even HOTTER!!

Plus  i really liked how this headstock was different than my last Gibson:

That’s my FAVORITE GUITAR ever, i have NEVER heard anything sound SO GOOD and SO ALIVE before!!  Honestly, it’s the only guitar i want to play when i want everything to sound perfect.  I can dial up any sound on that guitar -  Hendrix, Zeppelin, Classic Appetite for Destruction Guns N Roses tone, Dimebag, Government Mule….ANYTHING is Possible with this guitar.

But once in a while i still have that craving to WHALE on a WHAMMY BAR and experiment with CRAZY FEEDBACK!!!  That’s why i had this Ibanez gutted and replaced with Steve Vai’s specs for his “Flow” guitar.  WOW – when you play this thing people think you have some magical guitar!!  I mean, feedback that’s INFINITE, at any level of volume?!  Crazy, right??

It’s got a Sustaniac Pickup  in it and man, those things are AWESOME!!  If you ever get the chance to play on one, DO IT!  You will be floored! 

Now that you know more about me, lets find out about you.  Everyone learns differently, some do best reading about the lesson before they play, others can’t sit still long enough and need to begin playing and learning immediately.  If you don’t know how you learn new things the best way, i suggest you try to learn two different songs with two different approaches and see which one works the best.  Otherwise, read all the details in my reviews about the different lessons to determine which style of guitar lesson will benefit you the most.