Online Guitar Lessons for Kids

We are a music family. We love listening to all sorts of different genres of music and encourage our girls to pop their AirPods in throughout the day while they’re working on school work if they’d like. There have always been instruments lying around the house for the girls to pick up. We’ve tried guitar lessons multiple times over the years. Unfortunately, nothing really “clicked” with our family. It was hard to find guitar lessons for kids in our area. Even when we found them we never seemed to follow through or continue lessons for any period of time.

Recently though, both girls have expressed interest in trying guitar lessons again. So we decided to give Rock Online a try. Rock Online offered exactly what we were looking for in short guitar lessons from the comfort of our own home. It has eliminated the need for travel and the exhaustion that comes along with getting the kids ready to go anywhere. We’ve been able to get personalized teaching from across the world without disrupting our hectic homeschool schedules.

We were given a few free online guitar lessons in exchange for sharing our honest opinion on the program. We were not required to give a positive review. However, we loved the program and instructor so much that we’re going to continue weekly guitar lessons. Here’s what we loved about Rock Online and how we plan to use it for homeschooling.

Perfect for Beginners

While our girls had a little bit of experience playing guitar, Rock Online lessons are perfect for a beginner guitar player or someone that’s never handled a guitar before. Our instructor took note of how much the girls already knew about guitar and adjusted their lessons accordingly. We loved that instead of being boxed into a cookie-cutter program, James listened to them and assessed their skills.

However, if your child is brand new to playing guitar and wants to learn to play, this program is designed to give them quick wins. Instead of diving into music theory and immediately becoming something to study, the lessons start out by learning to play portions of a song. Learning to play a few lines of a familiar song will put a smile on any child’s face. (My husband and I were also very impressed by the variety of music they learned!) By immediately setting them up for success in this way, kids will enjoy the program and want to push forward and learn more.

Taking Guitar Lessons Online

I’ll be honest, here is where I was struggling to understand how this would work. I pictured online guitar lessons for kids being a total disaster. I kept thinking it would be hard for them to follow the instructor and there wouldn’t be time for them to get personalized help. But I couldn’t have been more wrong on this one! The online lesson format was absolutely amazing. The instructor was prompt, kept the class moving and on task, but took the time to recognize and work with each student.

Plus, I hate having to plan our day around packing everyone into the car and driving to guitar lessons,. Instead we just set aside 30 minutes per week to meet online with James. We did our lessons at home each week. However, the lessons are done using any device and a guitar, so we could have completed the guitar lessons pretty much anywhere!

Our instructor James created an amazing experience each week for the girls through the virtual meeting. We all felt as if he were in the room helping correct any mistakes and praising their successes. The familiar environment of our own home and the easy-going mentality of our teacher helped the kids feel more like they were playing or jamming with a friend, than practicing. This is important because more often than not, “practicing” can become mundane very quickly.

Anytime we tell the girls they need to go off and “practice” a skill, instrument, or hobby it seems they shut down and it’s no longer a fun activity. However, reminding them that they had a “meeting” or “jam session” with James was well received. They actually were asking when it was time for their session each week…that’s a win!

Easy To Start

With only a device capable of video chat and a guitar, your kids can learn to play guitar! Along with receiving instant feedback from the live video chat, there are recorded lessons for each week that can easily be accessed to watch again and again if needed. You can also download the chords and lyrics for each of the songs. We loved having easy access to these resources from our membership dashboard.

Flexible Classes

Being a homeschool family means that our schedules are a bit more scattered than those of “normal” families. So, we take advantage of programs that offer earlier times slots for scheduling classes or events. We scheduled our lessons for Mondays at 1:00 eastern time, which may seem like a strange time as it is in the middle of the day but it worked perfectly for our current schedule of multiple activities.

Our Thoughts on Rock Online

Overall, the program that Rock Online created is the perfect fit for our lifestyle. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has kiddos that have even a slight interest in learning a rock instrument. Rock Online also offers lessons on drums, bass, and vocals. You could pretty much create a family or neighborhood band! 😉

By combining children into small groups they have the ability to connect with others who share the same interest in music. We loved that the instructor was very personable and genuinely interested in seeing them progress each week.

One thing that the girls didn’t like about the program was learning just a short part of a song. Then they would move on to another song. They would become so involved in learning a specific song that they wanted to continue working on that song each week. This isn’t necessarily a negative, but if your kids are overachievers or focus very intently on one project at a time, they may struggle with this.

Here’s what the girls had to say about the online guitar lessons:

Amelia: “It was easy to follow. James helped us when we were struggling on something by giving a few different options on how to do it without getting frustrated.”

Gwen: “It was fun because I liked learning songs he had us play.”

Learning, practicing, and playing an instrument is a great way to get the kids away from unproductive screen time. Once they gain an understanding and acquire technique, the possibilities are endless. Playing an instrument is a skill they can continue to grow and perfect throughout their lives. Using Rock Online would be a great way to get started!