The Five Best Online Resources for Learning Guitar

Whether you're a novice or you’re on your way to becoming a professional player, chances are from that time to time you need a little help learning the guitar. The guitar is a very popular instrument because you can learn so much so quickly online — with or without the help of a teacher. Because there are so many self-taught guitarists in the world, there are a lot of resources available to people who want to learn the guitar. We've collected five of the very best resources for people wanting to play the guitar, expand their skill-set, or take what they learned in lessons to the next level. 

For beginners, we do recommend starting with an appropriately-sized guitar and a finger guide to match. Our finger guides will take the guesswork out of those beginning stages of guitar playing when you're still trying to figure out what all the strings are for. By learning which notes the strings play early on, you set yourself up for success. Coupled with these resources, our finger guides can rapidly advance your guitar learning experience and make playing the guitar correctly second nature. 

Online Tuners

https://www.fender.com/online-guitar-tuner

While traditional tuners are great sometimes you need an online guitar tuner. We love the Fender online guitar tuner because it offers tuning options based on the type of guitar you have. You need to tune an electric guitar differently than you need to tune an acoustic guitar if you're going to tune by ear. The Fender online tuner is a really simple, free way to get your guitar in tune before you start playing. 

There are also tuning apps for your phone if you would prefer to have a tuner in your pocket at all times.

Keeping Time

https://www.metronomeonline.com/

Time is an essential skill to great music. While it's fun to play around, when you're actually reading and following music, it's very important that you keep time. In the beginning, if you need a little help keeping time we recommend using an online metronome. While you can of course purchase a physical metronome, an online metronome is a really simple way to keep time. We like this online metronome, but there are several free, online metronomes that all essentially do the same thing. You can also get a metronome app in the app store. 

Note Reading

https://www.guitarorb.com/guitar-notes

Learning to read notes, or music, in general, can be very tricky. This is where a finger guide comes in handy in a big way. This is also a great place to lean into the expertise of a teacher. But if having guitar lessons isn't in the cards for you right now, we recommend practicing your note recognition with this handy website. This website helps you work on note recognition and grades your accuracy. It can be frustrating at first, but if you stick with it you'll be a lot better at reading frets.  

Youtube

YouTube is a phenomenal website because you can learn pretty much anything on YouTube. If you need help reading notes or figuring out how to play chords or read TAB, go to YouTube. If you need to know something about tuning, go to YouTube. If you want to learn a specific song, go to YouTube. There are so many great resources on YouTube for learning to play the guitar. Because there are so many great resources, you'll be able to find a Creator whose content works for you and the way that you learn. 

I personally like using JamPlay, GuitarJamz, Ben Eller Guitars, and Justin Guitar for help on YouTube. 

Free Music

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/

Once you've mastered a few of the guitar Basics, you're probably going to want to start playing some songs. The great thing about the guitar is that once you figure out what you're doing, you can start playing simplified versions of your favorite songs pretty quickly. You can get free guitar music online. We like Ultimate Guitar because of the wide selection of free music that it offers. It's one of our go-to sites. But you can also search online or even use Pinterest to find free guitar music. There are tons of it out there.

Now that you’ve got the tools, it’s time to start practicing the guitar!