With so much information online about guitar theory, how do you know which sites to trust? Guitar teacher Zachary A. shares his top 10 favorite sites for learning about the guitar…
Online resources for guitar theory are extremely helpful. These 10 websites are all incredible tools for guitar players of all levels – beginner, intermediate, and expert. Each of these websites is also free to the public and extremely detailed.
It can be difficult to learn guitar theory without the ability to ask an instructor questions as they arise. That’s where TakeLessons Live comes in. The free membership option of this site gives you access to online guitar classes led by live teachers, and there are several guitar theory courses included.
This website is wonderful for beginner musicians who are just starting out and have a seemingly endless list of unanswered questions. Leon Harrell, the man who runs this website, is a teacher who does a wonderful job breaking down the complicated things about music and presenting them in a way that is easy to comprehend.
Through numerous lessons, exercises, and tools, this website will help you grow as a musician in no time.
This site is great for jazz guitarists, targeting different aspects of the guitar. This site includes resources for learning scales, arpeggios and different rhythm changes. For guitarists who aren’t as familiar with jazz, this website highlights the fundamentals of music which could be useful for any genre of music.
Berklee Shares is a collection of free music lessons from Berklee Online, the award-winning online extension of the Berklee College of Music. This website covers various areas of music education, such as production, songwriting, and performance.
This is an excellent site for developing a musical ear. Musical Mind has numerous exercises that will help you gain experience in the areas you feel you need help with the most.
This website has over 600 free printable music resources, as well as over 900 free music lesson plans.
8. Chordmaps
This website goes over an in-depth series of lessons that cover the fundamentals of music theory, which are important for every beginner musician, as well as experienced musicians.
This easy-to-navigate site is perfect for developing your musical ear. The site has plenty of ear, scale, and interval training to perfect your listening skills.
10. Essential Guitar
By providing the reader a confusion-free perspective on music theory, this website provides a means to learn practical music theory.
Even though you can learn plenty from online resources, personally, I believe that the most efficient way to learn guitar is by actually sitting down with a teacher. This way, you are learning guitar theory through communicating in a more personal, face-to-face setting. Having a person who you can ask every question that pops into your head saves you from scrolling through websites online hoping to find an answer.
That said, these 10 online resources will help to supplement what you learn in your guitar lessons! If you have any other websites that you feel are a step above the rest, feel free to leave a comment and share your favorite guitar-based websites!
Zachary A. is a guitar instructor in Katy, TX specializing in beginning and intermediate students. He is currently earning a degree in music theory. Learn more about Zachary here!
Photo by Garrett Coakley
Madalyn Danielson