THE MUSIC scene in Manchester has always been really vibrant. As such, there are loads of new websites cropping up all the time.

Guitar playing is popular now more than ever but is it becoming a fad? there are more and more websites showing beginners how to play! Personally I just use Ultimate-guitar for tabs and my own books.

Here are a list of some of the ones that are worth looking at:

1. This one called Manchester Music is an informative site which has 10 pages and is easy to navigate as its quite basic and are also on myspace.

Content includes promotions of bands, clubs and venues.



2.Pride of Manchester Varied website including 20 pages and a guide to Manchester music with Terry Christian. Navigation is basic with a scroll bar.

The information is more varied due to it offering more on the lesiure side E.g Food, Art, Manchester Restaraunts and Live Comedy etc.

3. Manchester District Music is an online community to celebrate Greater Manchester Music, its a non-profit organisation and run by volunteers. More to with history/heritage.

Informative website but lacks flair, not very appealing. Looks professionally constructed.

4. Manchester Music Speaks is more of a current website and is very appealing due the choice and structue of visuals. Only has 5 pages but mainly focuses on podcasts which are exclusive and free by Manchester Music icons past & present.

Impressive choice of podcasts from, Peter Hook, Mike Joyce, John Robb, Liam Frost, Jenna G and Guy Harvey.

5. Jamorama Aims to teach people how to play guitar by free lessons from Ben Edwards the site founder. An exciting site full of different styles of guitarists you can learn to play like!

6. How to play Guitar for Newbies Decent site which covers all the basics for beginners, Not the most visually grabbing page but the content is.

7. Ultimate-Guitar Fantastic website to get your tabs from, You can get pretty much every song thats been written by the best bands! I'm always on it! Accurate too so if you can't be bothered working out a song go on this page.

It also has the software 'Guitar pro' and 'Power Tabs' so if you have one of two of these you can download the track you want and listen to the Tablature whilst reading it, Excellent pieces of software, it really enhances your rhytm to play a song to how it sounds.

8. 911 tabs Just like Ultimate-Guitar, Its a brilliant site to get any tab you want and has over 3500000 to choose from! Very easy to find what you want as the top of the page has Fresh, Guitar, Bass, Drum, Piano, Guitar pro and Power tabs.

9. Guitar Tab Universe Again you can pretty much find any tab you want. I don't find it as dynamic as the other two and are more random adds on it which can be irritating.

10. Guitar tricks has 45 tutors and thousands of online lessons. Great intro to the site, Opening video showing some of the tutorials in action and is impressive!

Get stuck in in straight away if your a beginner or even an advanced player!