If you’re interested in learning the guitar, there’s a course for you. In this guide to the best guitar courses, there are several beginner courses to choose from, plus some specific styles to explore if you already know the basics.

The guitar is a popular and versatile musical instrument. It’s portable (especially the acoustic guitar), and you can play melodies or strumming both solo and in a band. It lends itself beautifully to many musical styles, from flamenco to classical, jazz, blues, folk, rock, and heavy metal.

On my 11th birthday, to my delight, my parents gave me a guitar. They took me to lessons and I practiced, some weeks more diligently than others. I sat exams, eventually qualifying as a guitar teacher, but lacked confidence as a teacher and stopped after a while. I still enjoy playing the guitar, although I rarely play these days. While sampling many online courses during research for this Best Courses Guide (BCG), I wished they had been around during my childhood and teen years.

While free online courses can be a great way to start, face-to-face lessons are valuable for individual guidance and to help iron out any issues with technique. But maybe you can’t meet up with a teacher due to distance or other circumstances. You’ll find that many of the instructors with free courses in this BCG offer online live classes or individual coaching as an optional extra. And remember, the best way to improve quickly is to play your guitar often, preferably daily.

I combed the Class Central catalog and collated enrollments and views, ratings and reviews to narrow down the best and most popular free choices for this Best Courses Guide (BCG).

Click on the shortcuts for more details:

• Top Picks
• BCG Stats
• Why You Should Trust Us
• How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Here are our top picks

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BCG Stats

• All the courses are free or free-to-audit
• One course offers a (paid) certificate
• There are more than 670 Guitar courses in the Class Central catalog
• More than 9,000 learners are following the Guitar subject on Class Central
• The most featured provider is YouTube with nine courses.

Best Beginner Guitar Course Created by a College (Berklee College of Music)

Guitar for Beginners is the first course in the How to Play Guitar Specialization by Berklee College of Music. After some introductory readings and videos about choosing a guitar, parts and accessories, tuning, and an introduction to chord block diagrams and fretboard maps, you will learn your first two chords. You’ll use those chords to explore some picking and strumming techniques. Later, you will learn:

• Music notation, chromatic, major, and pentatonic scales
• More chords including barre chords, fingering, and chord charts
• Melody and harmony leading to some simple songs.

You can then go on to the other courses in the Specialization:

• Guitar Scales and Chord Progressions taught by Amanda
• Guitar Chord Voicings: Playing Up The Neck taught by Rick Peckham
• Guitar Performance Techniques taught by Tim Miller.

To understand how to access the free-to-audit option, see A Guide on How to Sign up for Coursera Courses for Free.

“As a guitar enthusiast, I had the pleasure of trying out the beginner guitar course and I must say, I was quite impressed.” – Astitva Bhate.

Best Beginner Guitar Course (JustinGuitar)

Guitar Grade 1 – Beginner Course by Justin Sandercoe starts right at the very beginning and leads you through many aspects of playing the guitar. The most popular video (How to Strum a Guitar WITHOUT a Pick) has been viewed 1.7 million times. You’ll also learn:

• Tuning, how to hold your guitar, avoid and handle finger pain, best guitar picks and how to hold them
• Read guitar chord charts, learn D and A chords, fast chord changes, strumming patterns and super easy 2-chord songs
• Practice routine and track your progress
• More chords, strumming, chord changes, easy 3-chord songs, minor chords
• Picking notes, a cool riff, using a guitar capo, stretching exercises, using a metronome
• How to read guitar TABs, sharps, flats, and enharmonic equivalents, the best guitar songbook and easy songs for beginners
• Time signatures, 8 strumming patterns and how to overcome stopping between chord changes
• Music theory, ear training, dynamics, rhythm, and memorizing songs.

See more Justin Guitar courses covering various different guitar styles. Justin has taught nearly 900K students through his website and has over 1.8M subscribers on his YouTube channel.

“I like how you teach. You simplify it and can think the way a beginner thinks, how we see it and the challenges we face.” – @sakeenahm, YouTube learner

Also Great Beginner Guitar Course (Steve Stine Guitar Lessons)

Steve Stine teaches the Beginner Guitar Course on YouTube. Learn about:

• Parts of the acoustic and electric guitar, how to hold the guitar and guitar pick
• Finger placement and string names, tuning, strumming, and strumming patterns
• Your first guitar chord and song, reading a chord chart, and switching chords quickly
• Must know major and minor chords
• Down and up strums, using a capo, easy guitar songs for beginners
• Music theory basics and understanding chord progressions
• Power chord, major and minor pentatonic scales, chromatic scale, how to memorize all the guitar notes, fretboard mastery, and read guitar tab
• How to pick single strings instead of strumming.

Steve Stine holds a bachelor’s degree in music education and has been teaching for over 30 years. See Steve’s YouTube channel. Steve joined GuitarZoom in 2014.

“Steve, you are a real guitar teacher and a very talented one. Your course is exhaustive, very comprehensive…” – @sergebraconi9536, YouTube learner.

Best Beginner Guitar Course in Hindi (Adit’s Guitar Lessons)

Caption: Adit Kundra, instructor

Adit Kundra has been teaching music and guitar since 2001. In Beginner – Learn Guitar in 30 Days, you will:

• Start with finger exercises without the guitar, learn about accessories, and get a beginner’s guide to buying your first guitar
• Learn the parts of a guitar, how it works, and how to hold it, tune it, use a metronome, and read guitar tabs
• Explore numbering systems for fingers, frets, and strings, plus guitar string names, lessons on holding a pick, right-hand technique, and exercises
• Engage in left-hand finger exercises, play easy chords, and learn 3-chord guitar songs.

You can also visit Adit’s website and YouTube channel.

“Thanks for the course Adit! You have made it so easy to learn and understand! Just amazing.. thanks a ton!! ” – @girijagokhale3915, YouTube learner

Best Guitar Gear Course (Guitar Tricks)

Wondering what guitar and gear to buy? Or you’ve just bought a guitar? The Gear & Tone Course by Guitar Tricks will give you plenty of ideas. While acoustic guitars are included, the emphasis is on electric guitars and accessories. Learn about:

• Purchasing your first guitar, types of guitars (electric or acoustic, nylon or steel strings), considering intonation and action, the best practice rig, and how to set up a brand new guitar
• The distinctions between guitars, achieving rock guitar tones, amplifiers and effects, using looper and overdrive pedals
• Specialized topics: achieving the surf guitar tone, understanding vibrato vs. tremolo, and an artist study on Buddy Guy’s gear and tone.

The Guitar Tricks YouTube channel has 2.9K subscribers and they have coached more than 4M learners through their website.

“These are some great ideas! Man I just love Anders. This guy knows how to explain things in such a simple and comprehensive manner without leaving anything out…” – @NewMetallica, YouTube learner.

Best Strumming Course (Andy Guitar)

Andy Crowley set up the Andy Guitar YouTube channel in 2006 and now has over 2.8 million subscribers. The Guitar Strumming Course is not an absolute beginner’s course (you should already know some chords), but will teach you:

• A range of strumming styles and techniques in a logical manner
• How to choose the right strumming patterns for particular songs.

See Andy’s website and YouTube channel for more courses and resources.

“Andy, you’re a great teacher. Easy to understand and I’m excited to go thru your lessons.” – @timleem3609, YouTube learner.

Best Acoustic Guitar Course (Tony Polecastro)

By focusing on styles particularly for the acoustic guitar, Tony Polecastro’s Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lessons will teach you how to:

• Tune your acoustic guitar, read guitar tabs, read chord charts, and get rid of string buzz
• Play the blues shuffle, blues riffs, and 12 bar blues
• Play essential major and minor chords, chord changing tips & tricks, maintain steady guitar rhythm
• Play the “boom chick-a” rhythm, major and minor chord riffs
• Strum, with patterns for beginners, country and folk guitar
• Play along, power chords, practice, and strength.

Tony’s Acoustic Challenge website has taught acoustic guitar to more than 41,000 students and his YouTube channel has more than 500K subscribers.

“… thank you for all your amazing videos. You do such a great job with absolutely everything …” – @bradulberg1982, YouTube learner.

Best Fingerpicking Guitar Course (GCH Guitar Academy)

Gareth Hargreaves has been teaching guitar for more than 30 years, and set up the GCH Guitar Academy in 1992. How To Play Fingerstyle, Or Fingerpicking Guitar was originally released on YouTube at the rate of one video per week, so you have time to practice before the next lesson. It starts with basic guitar chords and how to read guitar tablature. You’ll then go on to:

• Various fingerpicking techniques for acoustic and electric guitars
• Specific songs and pieces including The Troubled Heart by Sad Fantasy, Etude in E Minor by Francisco Tárrega, and House of the Rising Sun
• Some Christmas carols in fingerpicking style.

More YouTube courses by GCH Guitar Academy:

• How to Play Guitar Chords
• How To Play Fingerstyle Or Fingerpicking Guitar (Left Handed)

Find even more courses on the YouTube channel and free and paid resources including PDF ebooks on the GCH Guitar Academy website.

“Best course I’ve ever seen on web. Thanks man. Appreciate what you do.” – @davidkarapetyan3685, YouTube learner.

Best Spanish Guitar Course (Marco Cirillo)

Spanish Guitar Lessons assume you already know the basics so you can concentrate on specific Spanish styles and effects. As a fan of Spanish guitar, I loved the music in this course. I revisited techniques from my playing days and learned some new ones. You’ll learn:

• Intermediate Spanish Triple Picking Technique, simple but cool-sounding Spanish guitar stuff, Spanish chord progressions and strumming techniques
• Spanish intro, 8 steps Spanish guitar solo, a melody that sounds like two guitars, Spanish melodies over backing tracks
• Fingerstyle Spanish Rumba for Beginners, 6 Levels of Spanish Romance, advanced Spanish melody, 4 Steps of Spanish guitar – Intro, Chord Progression, Melody and Ending

A related course is Fingerpicking Guitar in 7 Days. Like other instructors in this BCG, Marco has a YouTube channel with 860K subscribers, plus a website for more resources.

“Thank you Marco! Your instructions have really challenged and enhanced my playing! Love these simple beautiful progressions.” – @paulbeck1203, YouTube learner.

Best Slide Guitar Course (Reverb)

Learn to Play: Slide Guitar Basics with Jeff Massey will teach you:

• Slide types and guitar setup, right hand and left hand technique, and open and standard tunings
• 6 Ry Cooder Slide Guitar Techniques, 5 Muddy Waters Slide Riffs, and George Harrison’s Slide Guitar Style in “Isn’t It a Pity”.

Reverb is another popular YouTube channel, with 845K subscribers.

“You guys read minds. Just got 2 slides a few days ago…” – @Leiria65, YouTube learner.

Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 80 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 250,000 online courses and 250,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees. I’ve personally completed over 200 online courses in a variety of topics including guitar.

How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Trying to find “the best” can be daunting, even for those of us who live and breathe online courses. Here’s how I approached this task.

First, I combed through Class Central’s Catalog and the internet to find a variety of free and paid open courses, some with certificates. You don’t need to enroll with a teacher to learn the guitar.

When choosing courses, I considered the following factors:

• Renowned Institutions: I looked for recognized institutions in guitar
• Instructor experience: I sought instructors with extensive experience in guitar and engaging presentation styles
• Course content: I examined courses that covered a range of topics and presentation styles, including the basics and more advanced topics. I watched some course videos to sample courses I hadn’t already taken
• Learner reviews: I read learner reviews (when available) to get a sense of the quality of each course, leveraging the Class Central database with its thousands of course ratings and reviews written by our users as well as available course provider reviews.

Then, I defined the scope for these recommendations. Guitar courses can cover various playing styles, so I chose top courses from a range of sub-fields.

Ultimately, I used a combination of data and my own judgment to make these picks. I’m confident these recommendations will be a reliable way to learn the guitar.