Learn guitar with your child without leaving your home with Fender Play

Thank you Fender for sponsoring this post. Learn guitar at home with Fender Play.

My husband and son have this amazing new way to bond and watching it unfold has my heart all bursty. They’re learning to play guitar together! The best part is? It’s all done at our home now, when it works best for our family schedule!

Backstory: my husband learned a little guitar in school.  He’s had many, many friends who play, both acoustic and electric. He’s even got a college friend who moved to Nashville to pursue his music career. I don’t think he even realized how much he enjoyed playing until he started trying to help our son to learn.

Our son started to ask about playing guitar a few years ago, and we decided to surprise him with his own guitar that Christmas. It took a while but we were able to find a teacher for him who’d come to the house, which worked for our family, and we loved the teacher and the situation was wonderful. But that teacher got a demanding full time job and isn’t able to teach any more, so we had to look for something new. We did find a place to bring our son for lessons, but fitting times into an already crazy family schedule isn’t always easy.

What I’ve LOVED seeing as our son has learned to play the most is watching as he comes home from each and every lesson and shares all that he’s learned with his dad. Watching them and hearing their conversations about chords, notes, songs, finger positioning, etc. is just a great thing for me. But it’s also really been great for THEM. It’s a shared thing that they have, just the two of them, and it’s not tied to anything but their shared love of music and playing the guitar. Seeing them both grow as guitar players and seeing their father son bond strengthen the past few years has been really fun, and now that we have had an opportunity to start doing the Fender lessons at home, they can actually learn the same things at the same time, or do the lessons when each has availability and then discuss.

After two + years, we have a way for my boys to spend time together doing what they both love, learning how to do it better, and bring more music into our home.  The way we do this? A Fender Play subscription.

Fender Play is a guided online learning program that teaches new guitar players to get playing in minutes.  With hundreds of instructional videos and hands-on exercises, Fender Play walks new players down a learning path based on their musical preferences.  The curriculum is designed so that after a few short lessons, a player will be able to learn something new, whether it’s a skill, a recognizable riff or a full song.

This was one thing that really drew my husband’s interest, because he really wants to be able to play songs that he’s loved. Being able to learn guitar basics and skills while learning to play songs is the best of both worlds for him- which makes learning more fun and more appealing.

Fender Play is a great way to learn guitar because it’s created by curriculum experts and the leading guitar brand- you know you’re going to be learning from quality teachers! It’s also a customized curriculum- you choose your path to Play and go through the lessons on your path. Changing paths can be done at any time.

IMPORTANT: You can start learning guitar at home for FREE with a 30-Day Trial at play.fender.com

Pros and Cons of the Fender Play service: (from my husband and son)

*The program has some great potential  It’s really clear to see what is offered in the layout once you choose your music genre you’d like to play. But, it’s hard to keep track – if you click back to My Path, it shows all lessons again, so not really an easy way to keep track of what you’ve finished thus far. We’re just jotting down lessons finished in a notebook (which may well turn into a competition in this competitive house of ours) to keep track.

*The boys have said they’d love if  there were links to videos or the actual songs that are used in the lessons to get rhythms in your head when you play.

*My husband noted that he thought the program would be more progressive, like here’s how to make this chord, that chord. Several lessons they’ve done have 2 really basic skills and then songs are next- but are all varying levels and not necessarily skills that you’ve learned on your path yet. That can be a little confusing.

Overall, we’re loving the whole idea of learning guitar at home, online, together. It’s such a great thing for my husband and son to do together, and music is such an important part of our lives already. The girls and I get to benefit because we’re hearing wonderful music in all areas of the house and it’s just nice to know it’s coming from one of us!

Our son’s already experienced struggles a few times at school, and music was almost instantly an outlet for him, so we want to encourage him to use it to express his emotions, etc. Mostly, though, he LOVES it, and I hear him pick up his instrument, or the larger Fender guitar that is a little big for him but he’s still playing on sometimes because he loves using the amp…I hear him start playing when he’s upset or frustrated with something and I know that he’s finding a way to cope. These are things that will stay with him and help him later in life! I’ve read that playing instruments can help kids in many different ways- it helps them to become more confident, develop coordination and math skills, concentration and more.

Have you thought about learning guitar with your child? Have you ever considered taking lessons from home?

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.