Attention all air guitar practitioners and wannabe Guitar Hero gurus:

It's time for lesson two.

In cooperation with the folks from GuitarInstructor.com and Hal Leonard Corp., OnMilwaukee.com is offering a series of free online guitar lessons in an effort to get people jamming.

We know a lot of people out there have guitars sitting at home, the cases caked in dust -- perhaps a string or two is missing and was never replaced -- because they bought them on a whim or received them as a gift and became frustrated trying to learn the basics.

In order to make this endeavor more fun and interactive, we asked for some beginning-level players to join the effort and provide us with weekly updates on their progress to help keep everyone motivated.

Our course will run for about two months, culminating with three song tutorials to help get everyone jamming.

We ran lesson one last week. Before we begin Lesson 2, here is what our panelists thought of the introductory riffs in the first lesson.

BRYAN
It took a little while to get up the courage to do the first lesson, as it can also be viewed as the first step to failure at something I intend to be so superior at. I realized I needed a longer guitar strap and fixed that, still needing to get past the first 2 minutes of the lesson. I got through the rest tonight and finally realized what I have always searched out and it was never clear to me. The different notes come from putting each of the four main fingers on the backside of the frets and then strumming. I didn't figure out the very simple notes, what I am referring to as the intro to "Louie, Louie," or something like that, until after the lesson while just trying it out. I guess that means I take the small steps during the lesson and practice as much as I can. I'm pretty excited now for the next lesson and I thought I was going to be worried!

KRIS
Lesson No. 1 is in the bag. It was mostly review, but important nonetheless. Considering how well things went, I'm fairly confident that by next weekend I'll be doing that crazy finger-tapping thing and changing my name to Yngwie.

SETH
I knew some of the guitar parts, but I'd never heard of the nut or the headstock. I never heard someone call a pick a plectrum. I'm glad most people call it a pick, since that sounds so much cooler. The guitar riff was not that hard, but I still enjoyed it!

MARCUS
It was short and sweet with a bit of a PBS feel to it, but it works for a guitar lesson. It was titled "Essential Knowledge for the Aabsolute Beginner" and that is exactly what it felt like. Doug Boduch, and his calm voice, gave a quick explanation of the guitar and its parts followed with our first actual playing. The lesson left me pretty confident about learning to play the guitar and a little nervous about what's to come. This update is going to be short and sweet, just like the lesson cause I'm still a little off after what happened to the Packers Sunday evening. I guess I'll throw in a DVD of "Major League" and play along every time Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn is summoned from the bullpen.

MIKE
The first OnMilwaukee.com guitar lesson was a basic overview for a student of any age, whether myself at 47 or my son at 15. We've both played just enough to be dangerous, so it was a good review to get started. However, I think we're ready to move on to some rock or blues chords or riffs like the one demonstrated by Greg Koch in the other GuitarInstructor.com video. While it would be nice to learn to tune the guitar, neither of us can do it and just use the automatic tuners. I'd add comments from my son, but he just nodded and said it was "OK," which is pretty much what he says about everything these days.

JOE
In the past when I have picked up my guitar with an interest in getting started again, I had always put myself in a room, shut the door, and sat in a chair.

Instantly, bored.

I have tried something different this time. Just like the old days, it is me, couch, guitar, coffee table and TV. One thing that is way different now, though, from when I was playing in college is the laptop computer sitting on the coffee table in front of me. Having an online guitar instruction program is WAY better than printing out pages of tabs and having paper scattered all over the place.

The first lesson from Guitarinstructor.com was as basic as it gets. The E string two-note ditty was a nice little drill to help with finger dexterity. I was quickly past that and went back to a blues scale that I burned into my brain years ago. Getting the right and left hand working together with different jobs is going to be the biggest hill to climb.

Bring on lesson two.

You got it, Joe. Happy jamming!