About Center Stage Guitar Academy | Center Stage Guitar Academy

Our Features

We offer a variety of additional features to help in your guitar learning journey. From scale diagrams to jam tracks, we do our very best to provide the essential tools you will need along the way.

Online Guitar Lessons: Learn Guitar and Unlock Your Potential

Center Stage Guitar Academy offers a method of learning guitar through video based, online lessons which aim to inspire and educate at the most economical price.

Since its 2012 inception, Center Stage Guitar Academy has served over 50,000 aspiring guitar players with high quality video lessons. Always keeping the students’ needs in mind, lessons are produced with multiple angles giving the student maximum exposure to the instructor, as he teaches you how to play guitar.

Beginner lessons start with easy step by step goals that give the student confidence and reduces the amount of frustration that can come with learning how to play guitar. While most online guitar lessons throw the student into overwhelming chord fingerings from the get go, this program begins with simple single note techniques and build progressively, giving you the solid foundation you will need to advance and achieve your guitar playing goals.

Advanced lessons focus on skill, genre specific, and song study material. Once you have completed the beginner program or join as an intermediate player, you can focus on developing specific skills or styles that you enjoy. Study rock, blues, jazz, classical, flamenco, bluegrass, country, fingerstyle and more. Develop skills such as improvisation, lead playing, and music theory. Learn from the over 150 song lessons provided, complete with accurate tabs. Dive into one of the artist study volumes and learn the style of guitar heroes such as BB King and Jimmy Page.

Learn Guitar Online vs. Private Lessons

Is there a big difference between private, in-person, guitar lessons and learning guitar online? Well that depends on the individual and how far along you are in the process of learning guitar. First, if you are a beginner and not a very disciplined person then online lessons would not be the best choice. However if you are disciplined and can hold your own feet to the fire then I think you could benefit from online guitar lessons. Online guitar lessons offer a lot of benefits over private lessons. For starters, it is way cheaper. Learn guitar at Center Stage Guitar Academy and pay just $9.99 a month or $99 a year. Learn from a private instructor and pay a minimum of $1200 a year! Big difference. Two, you can learn how to play guitar at your own pace with online lessons. You can go as fast or slow as you want. Three, you can do it from home at your own convenience. If you are already playing and just want to expand, then online lessons are great because you already know the basics. If you need someone to hold you accountable for learning then private lessons are the answer. However, if you are not motivated enough to keep yourself accountable then you are probably not going to see it through anyway. And in the process waste a lot more money on private lessons. Be wary of any site that makes claims such as “play a song in the first 10 minutes”. This is completely false. Learning an instrument takes work and the more work you put in, the better you will be. There is no short cut! Its all about you and your desire to learn how to play. We can provide you with the tools and instruction, but ultimately you have to put them to use.

Can You Teach Yourself Guitar with Video Lessons?

The good news is, you can absolutely teach yourself to play guitar! It may have been hard to learn on your own time 20 years ago, but now great information is everywhere. The power of the internet has created an awesome database of resources for those who really want to learn. However, learning to really shred a guitar is a process. It takes a lot of hard work, determination, and proper technique. I hope you have the determination to make it happen, but we are here to help you with the proper theory & technique. Once you break out that guitar and start the learning process, here are a few tips to guide you along the way.

About the Instructor

While having many different instructors seems appealing, it can actually be quite confusing to the student, especially beginners. At Center Stage Guitar Academy you will have one instructor in a systematic approach that takes you through the process step by step covering many styles. Why pay a high price for thousands of videos that are essentially repeats taught be a different teacher?

Center Stage instructor Bryan Billhimer is a 20 year guitar veteran with experience in teaching, live performance, and studio recordings. Bryan began his guitar playing career at the age of 14. Over a few years he learned all the fundamentals necessary to further his craft via self teaching and motivation.

During high school and college Bryan performed in several bands on a regular basis playing blues and rock. In this time he earned a Bachelors degree from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. Upon graduating college he worked in a local studio where he met producer Emosia (produced Blessid Union of Souls, Lakeisha Berri, etc.) and members of Blessid Union. After a year or so he was asked to join the band and toured for nearly ten years with the international recording artists covering the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Afghanistan.

Throughout his career in music, Bryan has also taught multiple students. Beginning in college and to the present, he has taught over 50 students in private lessons.

Testimonials

My name is Everett Ritenour and I have been playing guitar on and off again for about 15 years. I have always been able to hold my own but I have never been able to grasp just how music works. I have been on the fence about taking lessons because as an active duty Soldier my hours are never consistent ( I have been in the Army for 8 years and two deployments has hindered my ability to take lessons on a schedule). I have toyed with the idea of online lessons but was concerned that even though I have the ability to learn at my own pace that it may be hard to learn from a recorded video. Well this is not the case with center stage guitar academy AT ALL!

I can assure you that I will be remaining a student, even after my year subscription is expired. I started the videos from lesson one, I did not let my ego get to me and even though I am a very experienced self taught player I gave you the respect of starting from video one. I have never been this excited about anything guitar related since I was a kid. I have even taken in depth notes on all the videos so far and thats something I never even did in grade school haha. I have finished module 1 and I am half way through module 2. I can honestly say that I have learned more about guitar in THREE days then I have learned in 15 years. I can say with confidence that not only do I know scales but more importantly I understand why they are used, how they are used, and the magic behind them. The best part is that I am only on module 2!!!

Your teaching method is perfect, your customer service is unmatched and I can say this because I received a personalized email 12 hours after I submitted my song request, and your videos give my everyday noodling a purpose.

I will forever be grateful to the center stage guitar academy, but more importantly to Bryan Billhimer. I finally understand the guitar well enough to have that drive to play for hours without sleep.

SSG Everett Ritenour III - Fort Bragg, NC

I’m a 63 year old, retired marketing executive. I played drums in a rock and roll band until I was thirty five and my son is a professional jazz pianist…but, I always regretted not learning how to play guitar. Finding myself with a lot of free time, I bought a guitar, and decided to check the internet for information. I tried a bunch of guitar learning web sites/youtube videos and then found The Center Stage Guitar Academy. I took the free lesson, was impressed, and signed up for the ongoing series.

The key difference from the other guitar playing sites is CSGA’s building block approach to learning. Most of the other sites start with learning chords. For a drummer, that would be like learning beats without first practicing rudiments. With CSGA I didn’t play a chord until lesson eight. By that time, about a month and a half in to the lessons, I was playing single note runs and clean double octave scales at 150 bpm up and down the fretboard. In the process my fretting fingers became limber, calloused and without pain!

If there is one thing I have learned in life it is not to take shortcuts, especially when learning an instrument. The Center Stage Guitar Academy’s crawl-before-you-walk methodology follows that thought process. Plus, the videos are great, the instruction easy to understand, the downloadable material indispensable and the responsiveness of the staff whenever I have a question…remarkable. I’m not John Fahey yet, but I am thoroughly pleased with the CSGA method and highly recommend it to anyone who want to learn the guitar the right way.

Rob Sanders - New Orleans, LA

Center Stage Guitar Academy’s online guitar lessons have been the best tool for my guitar learning process. I used to browse through countless you tube videos looking for certain lessons only to find they were incomplete. Center Stage takes me through the process in such a way that I am always prepared for the next lesson or technique. Everything I need is right there in one place. It also teaches me the theory and tools I need to be creative and come up with my own songs.

Jeff Poe - Boca Raton, FL

Having very little experience with guitar, Center Stage Guitar Academy has been a great way to learn! Bryan introduces music concepts while keeping it interesting with new songs along the way. I have learned more about guitar in a month than trying to play on my own for 2 years. You also can’t beat the price!