If you've ever searched for guitar lessons on YouTube, chances are you've came across Marty Schwartz.
Marty's road to teaching guitar online is an interesting one. After college, he was working in a music store, where he taught some lessons. He got laid off from that job, and started teaching guitar full time on his own. Years later, he taught elementary school music, while continuing to teach guitar lessons on the side. Then when the economy crashed in 2008, he got laid off from the school job, and private lessons started to dry up, as people didn't have the budget for them as they were getting laid off from their jobs as well.
Basically not knowing what else he could do, he started uploading a few videos to YouTube - with the idea that maybe they'd help promote him a bit as a guitar player and local teacher. People slowly started liking his videos, and following him on YouTube. That resulted in launching a website and business called Guitar Jamz, which has since evolved into Marty Music.
Marty Schwartz is amazing at teaching well-known songs. Learning popular songs is one of the best ways to learn guitar and music (as the goal as a guitar player ultimately isn't just to know a giant library of scales and chords - it's know how to play and write actual songs), and he does a great job properly breaking them down.
In a world where so many instructional videos now feature flashy sets, fancy production, and over-the-top editing, Marty's videos stand out due to them basically being the opposite of that (in a good way!). Marty comes off as your friendly neighborhood guitar teacher, and his videos make you feel like you're in the room with him, getting a one-on-one guitar lesson.
With well over 4 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, Marty has had a big impact on many guitar players, and offers premium guitar courses through his own website (MartyMusic.com) that offer a deep dive into topics such as blues guitar, acoustic guitar, and much more.
Check out Marty Music and his YouTube channel
