1. ShredAcademy
ShredAcademy is a free guitar learning resource that is actually found on YouTube. Included are well over 100 guitar learning videos to get you started. They also have things like “lick of the week” where you can learn some fun techniques and learn to shred at the same time. There are a variety of instructors, techniques, genres, and types of guitar playing you can learn and it’s all totally free (you may have to watch an advertisement here and there). To check it out: go here.
2. MusicRadar
Much like ShredAcademy, MusicRadar is YouTube-based guitar learning. They include a number of genres, techniques, and plenty of videos to learn guitar playing. They also have bass and drums if you’re into that stuff too. Along with all of that, they have shows where people talk about playing guitar, gear demos, and other content to keep you interested and entertained as you practice everything you’ve been learning.
3. Dolphin Street
This channel is run by guitarist Robert Renman and it includes a virtual library of information. A lot of places will teach you the basics and teach you technique. Dolphin Street goes the extra mile and actually teaches things like music theory as well. Sometimes it’s not how you play a note, but why you play the note! There are Q&A sessions that will teach you how to be a better guitarist by stretching your perspective on the instrument as a whole. It’s definitely for the more technical learners but there is a lot of great information there.
4. Jammit
5. Ultimate-Guitar
6. Justin Guitar
7. BobbyCrispy
BobbyCrispy’s YouTube channel contains a bunch of (free) lessons and is a cornucopia for music learning. There are over 300 lessons in total that goes over everything from the basics to learning how to play specific songs. In the video above, he shows you how to play 40 songs with only three chords. His videos also have tabs overlaid into the videos so you can see what he’s playing and play along. It’s a different approach that combines at least two elements of guitar playing (showing and tab reading) and a lot of the songs he chooses to teach people are good ones.
8. Guitar World
Guitar World is a veritable mess when it comes to what they offer. Once you learn your way around, though, there is a lot of amazing guitar stuff there for people to learn. There are conversations on music theory, lessons for beginners, novices, and experts. There are also some lessons from famous guitarists. Some videos are just ridiculous, like this guy playing two guitars at once. It’s a fun channel with a lot of awesome guitarists showing you how they do what they do.
9. JamPlay
10. ArtistWorks Guitar Campus
Last on our list is called Guitar Campus and it’s actually a sort of school for guitarists. You pay a certain amount of money (between $200-$300 per year) and then instructors teach you how to play the guitar. This is unique because these other services are pretty much exclusively a “watch what I do” sort of place with very little interaction between instructor and student. This is not like that. If you’re wondering if the instructors are any good themselves, the video above is a song called Scarified by Paul Gilbert who teaches rock at Guitar Campus. Featured photo credit: CMT via cmt.com
