Best Guitar Courses for Beginners
Whether you’re never touched a guitar before or are trying to learn again, there’s an extensive collection of courses in the Fret Zealot app (Android and iOS and web) for beginners. Check out our favorites below! Each is tailored to a specific skill and skill level, so you can jump right in on the advanced courses, or work your way up! They’re organized from easiest to hardest.
Different instructors have different styles, so this list is very comprehensive and gives you many options to choose from and find what works for you!
Beginner level – Basics
Perfect For: a brand new player who wants a practical approach that immediately gets them playing songs with their knowledge.
What You’ll Learn: The 1st level of this course is the same for acoustic and electric. Then there are unique levels 2, 3, and an whole intermediate series. This course takes you through your first chords, how to strum, and then how to play full custom songs made just for this course!
The Total Beginner’s Guitar Course (Level 1) by Michael Palmisano
Beginner level – Basics
Perfect For: a brand new player who needs some starting guidance on the fundamentals of guitar and theory.
What You’ll Learn: The first of many levels by Michael Palmisano. Sponsored by PRS, he knows his way around the fret board. He starts with the basics and what he personally feels is important for beginners to learn and be inspired by. The explanations lead up to a simple chord progression with some details about music theory sprinkled in. The perfect combination of instant playing combined with the logic behind why it works!
Check out the course here or watch our demo and overview of the The Total Beginner’s Guitar Course (Level 1) course below!
Essential Theory and Technique by Troy Davidson
Beginner level – Theory, Scales
Perfect For: anyone with zero guitar or musical experience. Troy relates music to learning a language, and teaches you how to combine chords like you would words to create sentences which then tell stories.
What You’ll Learn: the ‘Day 1’ basics of learning the parts of the guitar as well as chords and scales. The videos are clear and concise with one specific concept per lesson. By the end of this course, you’ll understand how songs are built from the ground up. We recommend you take his Complete KickStarter Course after this!
Check out the course here or watch our demo and overview of the Complete KickStarter Course below!
Acoustic Guitar Lessons for Beginners by Todd Porter
Beginner level – Basics
Perfect For: a newer guitar player who wants a well-organized weekly lesson plan, plus a virtual jam room to practice in.
What You’ll Learn: each lesson teaches you a different fundamental of playing acoustic guitar, and then applies the lesson to a practice song. By the end of the course, you learn the essentials of playing and writing a great acoustic song.
Check out the course here or watch our demo and overview of the Acoustic Guitar Lessons for Beginners course below!
Ultimate Beginner Rock Guitar Masterclass by Henry Olsen
Beginner to Intermediate level – Riffs / Songs / Theory
Perfect For: the all-in-one solution to jump starting your rock guitar skills.
What You’ll Learn: well over 5 hours of step-by-step instruction of theory and song technique tutorials. The song demos have two speeds of playalong videos along with downloadable tabs and MP3 backing tracks. Henry even created 10 custom licks of his own to teach you!
Play Lead Guitar… the EASY Way! by John Robson
Beginner level – Lead Guitar
Perfect For: anyone who wants to freestyle at home, have jam sessions, or who dreams of rock stardom, but doesn’t know where to begin.
What You’ll Learn: this is a crash course in pentatonic scales – it sounds complicated, but these scales are incredibly simple once John demystifies their patterns while Fret Zealot displays them in real time. The pentatonic scale is the basis of many rock solos, and with this course, you’ll quickly learn how to play lead guitar.
Check out the course here or watch our demo and overview of the Play Lead Guitar the Easy Way course below!
21 Step Beginner Guitar Course for Electric and Acoustic by Julian Cooper
Beginner level – Basics, Power Chords
Perfect For: the aspiring guitarist who wants a unique, different, and low theory approach to learning
What You’ll Learn: with elements of Rock, Blues, Pop, Rhythm and Lead guitar, and a bunch of great tracks to learn (all supplied at 3 different speeds), this course is very fun and takes a non-traditional approach to teaching guitar fast. Hint: you won’t start with open chords!
Check out the course here!
Music Theory 101 by Henry Olsen
Beginner to Intermediate level – Theory
Perfect For: an all-in-one source of everything related to guitar theory and understanding the fret board
What You’ll Learn: This epic 5+ hour guitar theory course teaches you how to unlock the secrets of your guitar. Learn how to build chords, play intervals in any key, experiment with “triad islands”, and visualize scales and patterns all over your fret board.
Check out the course here or watch our demo and overview of the Music Theory 101 course below!
Beginning Classical Guitar by Brian Riggs
Beginner to Intermediate level – Classical Guitar
Perfect For: anyone who is interested in exploring classical guitar and wants to learn the beginner finger picking techniques.
What You’ll Learn: Brian takes you through the traditional classical guitar exercises that every classical guitarist needs to master. After some detailed instruction, he teaches several songs to get you playing real music!
Check out the course here!
Strumming Simplified by Steve Glazer
Beginner to Intermediate level – Rhythm Guitar
Perfect For: the person who knows how to play guitar, but whose playing feels bland and uninspired.
What You’ll Learn: chord progressions and strumming patterns that will make any chord or note you play sound like rock. Look for the sections on Rock 8th Note Downstrokes, Sixteenth Note Rhythms, Hard Rock / Metal Rhythms, and Iconic Rhythms to learn why rock songs just sound so good.
Check out the course here and watch our demo and overview of the Strumming Simplified course below!
Learn Every Scale in 60 Minutes with RelationShapes by Trey Xavier
Beginner level – Theory, Scales
Perfect For: learning any scale up and down the fret board
What You’ll Learn: Welcome to RelationShapes, the only guitar scale system you’ll ever need! Trey teach you a system for learning 3-note-per-string scales on the guitar and a simple set of rules so you can know where you are within those scales all the time.
Check out the course here and watch our demo and overview of the RelationShapes course below!
Easy Rock Guitar for Beginners by Julian Cooper
Beginner level – Riffs
Perfect For: a newer guitar player who wants to jump right into playing songs. You’ll learn common rock styles and techniques.
What You’ll Learn: 14 unique riffs with detailed lessons on how to play them perfectly. Three speeds of MP3 backing tracks are included for each lesson, plus one without guitar (so you can play along). You’ll also receive the tabs for each riff.
Check out the course here or watch our demo and overview of the Easy Rock Guitar for Beginners course below!
Want to try out some Rock n’ Roll? Check out our guide to the Best Guitar Courses for Rock n’ Roll.
Acoustic guitar more your style? Here’s our guide to the Best Courses for Learning Acoustic Guitar.
How about some Music Theory? Here are the Best Courses for Guitar Music Theory.
The Courses above are just small sampling from our many instructors in addition to the existing plentiful Fret Zealot features.
Check out the Courses section of the Fret Zealot app and preview any course!
