ONLINE GUITAR LESSONS

ONLINE GUITAR LESSONS

How Creating Online Guitar Lessons Is A Long Hard Road

Several years ago I decided to create a site dedicated to online guitar lessons and general music courses for guitarists and musicians alike. I looked at the competition and decided that rather than just create another

guitar "lick" site, I would create a site dedicated to high end guitar tuition. As well as this, I also wanted to provide courses for musicians in general such as online promotion and entrepreneurship courses.

So far so good, however, I didn't realise just how much of my time and how much effort it would take up. Two years down the line and the website is getting around five thousand visitors per month and it's making, well a little money. That is to say, not enough money to eat out on. Having said that, I never really thought that it would actually make much money so that's not so much of a disappointment.

I suppose the real issue that I have found is how people actually want to learn. Do people want to take a long term view of slowly building up their skills, or do most people just want a quick fix? Youtube videos, we are told should not be longer than five minutes long; people just don't have the concentration to last longer than that. So, I have come round to the realization, slowly, that GMI or the Guitar and Music Institute is actually a niche website within a niche! How hard is that to take! 

In It For The Long Haul

So, it's yet again another hard long haul, but having said that I am not despondent. We now have a mailing list of over six hundred students. We get regular sign ups and we have had some really great comments from people over the last two years. When people go to the site or the Youtube channel and give positive

feedback, it's little things like these that make all the difference. Would I do anything different if I was starting again? I don't think so as I feel quality of material is what we want to define us, not just how to play a guitar riff without any understanding or bad technique. 

The other area that I was not that aware of was the amount of time the actual mechanics of running a website would take up. I simply wanted to create a great site that had excellent courses for people looking for online guitar lessons. The reality of this is that you have a very steep learning curve when it comes to plugins, SEO and a myriad of other things that come with running a site like this. 

Final Thoughts

The final thoughts are now that I have spent a big part of the last two years building up GMI, I'll be damned if I'm going to stop now. I think this is probably the most important part of running a membership site. If you are considering the same, be prepared for the long haul as stated above. The get rich quick concept is not a viable reality for most of us. Love what you do and do what you love. For all of us involved with GMI, we'll just keep on going on and see where the road takes us.

Best to you all.

Ged Brockie is a professional guitarist based in Edinburgh, Scotland and runs the GMI (Guitar & Music Institute) and oversees the direction of the teaching materials presented.