As a beginner guitar player, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months scouring the web for the best online guitar lessons for beginners. This page is a running list of the best guitar-teaching websites and apps that I come across.
Because of their interactive and visual format, modern guitar-teaching apps and websites are probably the most efficient way to learn guitar if you’re teaching yourself. Some people also find that supplementing online lessons with a guitar method book can be helpful, especially if they have a background in reading music or want to learn how to do so.
I have found the Hal Leonard method to be super easy to follow, and I’ve also compiled a list of the best guitar books for beginners based on user reviews. If you prefer video lessons, there are also DVD guitar methods available for beginners.
Coming up in this post (click on one of the links below to jump to that section):
- How much do online guitar lessons cost?
- 6 best websites for online guitar lessons
- What is the best website for online guitar lessons?
- What is the best website to learn guitar for free?
- Can you learn guitar online as a beginner?
- What are the benefits of online lessons?
How much do online guitar lessons cost?
Most guitar lesson websites and apps cost $20-$30 per month (about $250-$300 per year for an annual subscription). In-person private guitar lessons, on the other hand, often cost $30-$60 for a lesson of 30 to 60 minutes (about $120-$240 per month).
Online private guitar lessons – via Zoom or Skype, for example – are comparable in price to in-person private guitar lessons.
YouTube guitar lessons are obviously free, and some of them are excellent. However, they lack the structure, interactive technology, support, and progress reporting features that are built into modern guitar-teaching apps and websites.
The best websites for online guitar lessons
Below are six of the top websites and apps for online guitar lessons. There are other websites online that teach guitar; however, I shortlisted these websites based on the following criteria:
- An established user base (many thousands of users in most cases)
- Positive feedback from users on sites like TrustPilot and Reddit
- Quality and diversity of guitar lessons and instructors
- Affordability (one of the sites is free, and most of the others offer a generous free trial period and/or reasonable refund policy)
According to the above, here are the best online guitar lessons for beginners.
Guitar Tricks: Best guitar lesson website for song tutorials
https://www.guitartricks.com/trial_splash.php
Styles/genres: Acoustic, rock, jazz, blues, country, classical, funk, soul, bluegrass, metal, rockabilly, surf, world, Celtic, and more.
Skill level: Complete beginner to advanced.
Does Guitar Tricks offer online bass guitar lessons?
No. A company rep has stated, “We primarily focus on six-string electric/acoustic guitar, but many of the theoretical concepts we teach can also be applied to bass guitar.”
(If you’re a bass guitarist, check out TrueFire, JamPlay, or ArtistWorks, reviewed below!)
How much does Guitar Tricks cost?
A full-access membership to Guitar Tricks costs $19.95 per month. Compare pricing plans here.
Does Guitar Tricks offer a free trial?
Yes. Go here to try Guitar Tricks free for 14 days.
About Guitar Tricks
With over three million users, Guitar Tricks is one of the most popular websites for beginner online guitar lessons. The site was started in 1998 with the goal of giving guitarists of all ages and skill levels an easy, fast, and fun way to learn guitar online.
Guitar Tricks offers over 11,000 easy step-by-step video lessons taught by top-notch instructors. The award-winning curriculum is designed to be accessible to beginners, with video lessons showing the instructor playing the guitar from multiple angles. Guitar tab and notation are included to aid with instruction.
In addition to the video lessons, Guitar Tricks has a huge library of over 1,000 song tutorials spanning a wide range of genres. Each song is taught slowly in step-by-step detail. After you’ve learned a song, you can jam along with a professional backing track. Easy versions of songs are available for beginners, and all songs include accurate guitar tabs and music notation.
One of the site’s top features is its Core Learning System, a comprehensive guitar course for beginners. Through a step-by-step series of video lessons, you’ll master the fundamentals of guitar, including how to hold your guitar and pick, play simple chords, strum properly, play scales, and read
standard music notation. The Core Learning System will have you playing songs right from the beginning to reinforce the concepts you’re learning.
Once you’ve completed Guitar Fundamentals 1 and 2 of the Core Learning System, you’ll have the skills needed to progress to Levels 1 and 2 of specific styles, including Blues, Country, Rock, and Acoustic. This is where you’ll gain comprehensive training in the musical style of your choice. (In addition to these four musical styles, Guitar Tricks offers instruction in many other styles and genres.)
Other highlights of the site include the Guitar Tricks Forum (network with other students and get help from site instructors), the Jam Station (play along with your favorite songs), and the Technique Reference Library (learn specific guitar techniques). As a member, you’ll also get access to tools like a metronome and guitar tuner, as well as the Chord Finder tool, where you can learn how to play any chord on the guitar.
In short, a full membership to Guitar Tricks gives you access to:
- The Core Learning System, a complete step-by-step guitar course for absolute beginners
- All 11,000+ guitar lessons, with more lessons added daily
- 1,000+ step-by-step song tutorials, with new ones added weekly (including accurate guitar tabs and music notation)
Sign up here for an all-access 14-day trial of Guitar Tricks.
TrueFire: Tons of guitar genres and techniques to choose from
https://truefire.com/online-guitar-lessons/
Styles/genres: Blues, Americana, bluegrass, classical, country, fingerstyle, folk, funk, rock, hip hop, jazz, pop, R&B, songwriting, soul, world, flamenco/Latin, Celtic, and more.
Skill level: Complete beginner to advanced.
Does TrueFire offer online bass guitar lessons?
Yes!
How much does TrueFire cost?
TrueFire gives you the option of purchasing a subscription membership or buying courses separately. Compare pricing plans here.
The subscription membership gives you the most bang for your buck, as it gives you streaming access to all the courses on the site. It costs $29 per month, or $249 for an annual plan (save $99).
If you purchase courses separately, you can either stream or download the course. Most courses cost between $29.99 and $49.99.
Does TrueFire offer a free trial?
Yes. Sign up here for an all-access 14-day free trial.
About TrueFire
TrueFire is another popular website offering some of the best online guitar lessons for beginners. They have millions of users, over 40,000 interactive video guitar lessons, and 1,000+ complete guitar courses on their site. Their roster of over 300 guitar instructors and course creators include Grammy award winners and other top artists and educators; for example, Steve Vai, Andy McKee, Stu Hamm, and the late Pat Martino. Guitar Player Magazine has called TrueFire “the planet’s most comprehensive selection of guitar instruction.”
Video lessons on TrueFire are shot from multiple angles and feature interactive synced tablature and an animated fretboard. You can slow down and loop specific sections of the audio to make it easier to practice along with. Guitar tab and notation files for the lessons are available.
When I was exploring the site, what stood out most was the huge diversity of course offerings and the ability to filter them all by topic or technique, instrument (acoustic, electric, or bass), skill level, style or genre, and educator.
For example, you can easily filter by keywords like Bass Grooves, Fingerstyle, Flatpicking, Improvisation, Jazz Scales, Picking, Soloing, Songwriting, and Strumming. Additionally, you can filter by courses that have the highest ratings or most reviews from other students.
TrueFire’s Learning Paths are study plans designed to take you from your current skill level to advanced in an accelerated way. The Learning Path system assesses your current skill level, so whether you’re a complete beginner, an advanced guitarist, or somewhere in between, you can jump right into lessons that match your playing ability and challenge you to improve.
Learning Paths are available for multiple guitar genres and styles, including jazz, country, acoustic, rock, blues, and bass guitar. Concepts and techniques are taught step-by-step with easy lessons. First you’ll play along with the instructor, and then by yourself to a jam track. Progress tracking is included to motivate you to keep practicing.
If you’re a complete beginner, you’ll start playing chords from the first lesson, no reading music or theory required.
To sum up, membership to TrueFire gives you access to:
- All 1,000+ courses, with new courses added every week
- 30,000+ tabs, standard notation, and Guitar Pro files
- 20,000+ jam tracks
Go here for an all-access 14-day free trial of TrueFire.
JamPlay: Weekly live instruction and good student support
https://enroll.jamplay.com/signup
Styles/genres: Blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, Brazilian, rock, jazz, folk, gospel, Celtic, surf, R&B, pop, classical, funk, reggae, acoustic rock, metal, flamenco, songwriting, and more.
Skill level: Complete beginner to advanced.
Does JamPlay offer online bass guitar lessons?
Yes!
How much does JamPlay cost?
A subscription to JamPlay costs $19.95 per month. They also offer two different annual plans for $13.33 per month ($159.96 per year) and $24.99 per month ($299.88 per year). The annual plans include some additional features, like one or more Guitarist Toolkits, which give you in-depth instruction on different genres and aspects of guitar playing. Compare JamPlay’s pricing plans here.
Does JamPlay offer a free trial?
Yes. JamPlay is currently offering a 30-day free trial – sign up for the trial here.
About JamPlay
JamPlay’s online guitar lesson library includes over 7,000 lessons and 700 complete courses taught by over 120 instructors. New courses are added every week, in addition to weekly live sessions.
Each interactive JamPlay lesson is filmed from multiple camera angles. The video is synced with the tablature and fretboard layouts, and there are plenty of options for slowing down or looping the video to make practice easier. You can also bookmark parts of the video for later reference. The progress tracking feature keeps you motivated and focused on your lessons, and practice suggestions and jam tracks help you practice more effectively.
The tabs and music notation for each lesson are available as downloadable Guitar Pro and PDF files.
JamPlay has both genre-focused and skills-focused courses that you can filter by your ability level. You can learn about topics like lead guitar concepts and techniques, singing with guitar, ear training, speed and technique, theory and improvisation, recording and mic’ing, 12-string guitar, instrument care and maintenance, reading music and rhythms, and rhythm guitar.
If you’re a complete beginner, you can choose from structured beginner lessons, or filter the genre- and skills-based lessons for beginner lessons and songs.
JamPlay also offers hundreds of step-by-step song lessons that teach entire songs, including the intro and solo parts. The JamTracks library has hundreds of backing tracks you can practice to.
As a subscriber to JamPlay’s Year Pro plan, you get access to the exclusive Guitarist Toolkits, which provide in-depth instruction on specific guitar topics. The Beginner Practice Plan toolkit is a complete course for beginners that teaches fundamentals like chords and scales, strumming and singing, melodies and lead, and how to practice effectively. Other toolkits include comprehensive instruction on rhythm guitar, lead guitar, singing and studio essentials, blues, rock, country, fingerstyle and folk, and bass guitar.
Besides offering some of the best online guitar lessons for beginners, a couple of JamPlay’s main selling points are its live instruction and excellent student support. JamPlay’s teachers offer weekly live workshops about designated guitar topics. There are also daily live Q&A sessions where you can interact with instructors – and, if you have a question about any of your lessons, you can contact a teacher and get a response. You can also chat with other students in the JamPlay Forums.
In short, a Year Pro membership to JamPlay gives you access to:
- All 7,000+ lessons and 700+ complete courses
- Weekly live workshops
- All nine Guitarist Toolkits, including the Beginner Practice Plan
- Three one-on-one consultations
- 300 JamPlay ownership credits (these let you download and own courses without requiring a subscription)
Click here to sign up for a 30-day free trial of JamPlay.
JustinGuitar.com: Best free guitar lessons online
https://www.justinguitar.com/
Styles/genres: Pop, rock, blues, jazz, folk, fingerstyle.
Skill level: Complete beginner to advanced.
Does JustinGuitar offer online bass guitar lessons?
No. If you’re a bass guitarist, I recommend checking out TrueFire, JamPlay, or ArtistWorks, reviewed in this post.
How much does JustinGuitar cost?
Most of the content on the site is free, including the online beginner guitar lessons. Justin asks that you donate if you find the lessons useful.
The JustinGuitar Lessons & Songs App, which has hundreds of backing tracks you can practice along with, is currently $86.99 for a year. Justin also offers a few premium courses on the site, including his music theory course.
About JustinGuitar.com
JustinGuitar.com is a popular website offering some of the best online guitar lessons for beginners – and they’re free! (There are also some beginner ukulele lessons available on the site.) Created by Australian guitarist and performer Justin Sandercoe, the website has over 1,800 video guitar lessons and song tutorials and a user base of over 400,000 students.
The main body of lessons on the site is organized into nine grades: grades 1-3 (beginner), grades 4-6 (intermediate), and grade 7 (advanced – grades 8 and 9 are coming soon). Each of these grades contains several modules that are further broken down into several video lessons.
If you don’t want to work through the courses in order, you can also sort them by style or type of skill.
Justin’s popular Beginner Guitar Course (grades 1-3) teaches the fundamentals of playing guitar. In Grade 1 of the course, you’ll learn eight essential open chords and easy strumming patterns, and you’ll start playing easy songs. In grades 2 and 3, you’ll learn about more types of chords and get a sample of fingerstyle, blues, and rock styles.
Justin has over 35 years of teaching experience, and his teaching style is friendly and relaxed. For the first few modules, he gives you a practice schedule with suggestions of what to work on so you don’t have to think about it too hard.
In addition to the main video lessons, there are over 600 step-by-step song tutorials on the website, which you can filter by instrument (guitar or ukulele), difficulty level, chords, genre, or tag. The site also includes a forum.
Another top feature of JustinGuitar.com is the JustinGuitar Lessons & Songs App, which has backing tracks for over 600 songs. These are the same songs that Justin teaches on his website, so you can learn your favorite songs and then practice along with the backing track. The app is available for $86.99 per year.
The lessons emphasize contemporary genres of music without the need to read standard notation. (If you want to learn how to play classical, traditional, or world styles of music, check out TrueFire, JamPlay, or ArtistWorks.)
Overall, JustinGuitar.com is a well-structured learning resource and one of the best free websites for online beginner guitar lessons.
MasterClass: Learn guitar secrets from Carlos Santana and Tom Morello
https://www.masterclass.com/categories#music-entertainment
MasterClass offers online classes taught by masters of their craft. Each masterclass has an average of 20 video lessons, with an average of 10 minutes per lesson. There’s a downloadable workbook included with each class. You also get access to the community of other MasterClass members.
Currently MasterClass has two guitar classes:
Carlos Santana Teaches the Art and Soul of Guitar. In his first-ever online class, 10-time Grammy winner and Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer Carlos Santana breaks down his process and approach to artistic expression. He discusses genres like the blues, jazz, guajira, merengue, and rock, as well as topics like showmanship and stage presence, bending and vibrato, and effective practice.
Tom Morello Teaches Electric Guitar. Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine states about his masterclass, “In this class, you will be able to write a song and play a guitar solo, even if you’ve never touched a guitar before.” Advanced players will learn tips for playing like Morello. The masterclass covers things like songwriting, rhythm playing, improvisation, solos, and performing live. Morello also discusses his arsenal of guitars, amps, and effects pedals.
How much does MasterClass cost?
A yearly membership to MasterClass costs $180. With your membership, you get access to the entire catalog of 100+ classes, as well as any new classes that launch during your subscription.
Besides offering some of the best online guitar lessons for beginners, MasterClass has a variety of other music classes as well – for example, songwriting, piano, drumming, violin, ukulele, singing, film scoring, beat making, DJing, and music production.
ArtistWorks: Get video feedback from your instructor
https://artistworks.com/
Styles/genres: Rock, blues, bluegrass, country, jazz, fingerstyle, classical, dobro and lap steel, jazz improv. For bass guitar they offer multi-style and jazz courses. ArtistWorks is also one of the few websites to offer double bass lessons online (bluegrass and jazz).
Skill level: Complete beginner to advanced.
Does ArtistWorks offer online bass guitar lessons?
Yes!
How much does ArtistWorks cost?
ArtistWorks costs $105 for a three-month plan, $179 for a six-month plan, and $279 for an annual plan.
Does ArtistWorks offer a free trial?
ArtistWorks offers free sample guitar lessons here.
About ArtistWorks
ArtistWorks is an online music education platform with 35+ self-paced online music courses that teach a variety of instruments, including guitar, ukulele, mandolin, dobro, banjo, voice, piano, drums, and many others. Each instrument has its own massive library of video lessons covering the fundamentals of playing that instrument, as well as advanced techniques. The lessons are created by masters of their craft, including Grammy award winners and other top artists.
ArtistWorks takes a different approach to training than the other online guitar lessons in this list, called the Video Exchange Learning® system. As with many websites for learning guitar, lessons are delivered in video format, and you can slow them down or loop them to help you practice difficult passages.
What sets ArtistWorks apart, however, is that when you have a question, you can upload a video of yourself practicing and submit it directly to your instructor. Then, within a day or two, you’ll receive a video recording with their feedback. These recordings are also added to the site archive so other students in your area of study can view and learn from them.
As an ArtistWorks student, you’ll also get access to an online community of peers where you can share your music for critique and collaborate with other musicians.
There are currently 12 acoustic/electric guitar courses and two electric bass guitar courses on ArtistWorks. The Acoustic Guitar: Adult Beginner course teaches you the most important beginner guitar chords, strumming patterns, and picking techniques through playing songs. Each course on ArtistWorks contains hundreds of video lessons that are accessible via any device.
They also offer comprehensive 12-week online music certification programs in blues guitar and ukulele.
To sum up, an annual subscription to ArtistWorks will give you access to:
- All courses and lessons on the site
- Unlimited access to the Video Exchange Library
- Unlimited video submissions to your teacher(s)
- Music theory workshop
- All backing tracks across all instruments
Try out some free online guitar lessons from ArtistWorks here.
What is the best website for online guitar lessons?
We’ve just covered some of the best online guitar lessons for beginners – in quite a bit of detail! If you’re still not sure where to start, here are a few suggestions to help you narrow down your options:
- If you mainly want to learn new songs, Guitar Tricks is the clear winner in this category. They have a ridiculous number of song tutorials covering a huge variety of styles. Sign up for a free trial.
- If you’re on a budget, JustinGuitar.com is a great place to start learning guitar for free. The lessons are high quality and well organized, although the scope of genres taught is narrower than some of the other websites on this list.
- If you’re interested in learning to play classical, flamenco, traditional, or world music on guitar, browse the courses on Guitar Tricks, TrueFire, JamPlay, and ArtistWorks to see if they have what you’re after.
- If you want feedback on your playing from a guitar teacher, then ArtistWorks is your best option.
- If you’re looking for online bass guitar lessons for beginners, your options are TrueFire, JamPlay, and ArtistWorks.
What is the best website to learn guitar for free?
If you don’t have any money to spend on guitar lessons, you’re in luck: JustinGuitar.com has a great free beginner guitar course for students interested in learning to play contemporary styles of music.
Can you learn guitar online as a beginner?
There’s never been a better time to learn guitar online. Back in the day, you had to pick up a method book or follow along with an audiotape. Nowadays, the best online guitar lessons for beginners are much more sophisticated, with interactive video and artificial intelligence, progress tracking features to keep you motivated, and even the opportunity to learn one-on-one with some of the world’s top guitar players.
Plus, no matter what kind of music you want to play, there’s probably an online guitar course for it.
Modern guitar-learning apps have become such effective and motivational teaching tools that many music teachers use them to supplement private lessons. If you’re already taking private lessons, online guitar-teaching software can help you achieve your musical goals even faster.
Many talented guitarists – Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Prince, for example – learned their craft through self instruction, having never taken a guitar lesson. These guitarists didn’t have access to the kind of educational tools and technology that today’s beginner guitarists have. They just had a desire to play and committed to regular practice.
What are the benefits of online lessons?
Studying guitar online has several major advantages:
- Affordability. Taking guitar lessons online through a membership site is multiple times cheaper than paying for private tuition. Most guitar-teaching websites and apps cost $20-$30 per month, or roughly $250-$300 a year for an annual subscription. This gives you unlimited access to all of the lessons on the site. Typical rates for private guitar lessons are $30-$60 per lesson of 30 to 60 minutes (roughly $120-$240 per month).
- Flexibility. Online guitar lessons offer flexibility of time and location. You can study from the comfort of home or anywhere in the world, whenever you feel like it – you can take 10 lessons in a day if you want, or none for weeks, depending on your schedule.
- Diversity. The best guitar lesson websites have a large roster of skilled instructors teaching a wide variety of genres and techniques. This means you can take classical guitar lessons one day and jazz guitar lessons the next.
- Access to top artists. Since the start of the pandemic and its negative impact on touring artists, many celeb guitarists have started giving online guitar lessons. There’s never been a better opportunity to learn from your favorite players.
Your turn: What are the best online guitar lessons for beginners?
Which website do you think offers the best beginner guitar lessons? What has your experience been with the sites listed above? Leave a comment!