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Free course · 11 lessons

Learn guitar online
Eleven lessons, one playable guitar

From the names of the strings to a whole song with chords and a strum. Each lesson takes about ten minutes, explains one idea, and ends with an exercise on a real sampled guitar that runs right on the page - mouse, touch or computer keyboard.

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Your first minute

Strum your first two chords

E minor and A minor, the two easiest chords on the guitar, from lesson 4. Press Start, click the chord the page asks for above the neck, and it strums. Or choose it with its number key and strum with the Space bar.

Learn guitar course

Eleven lessons, from the strings to your first solo

Eleven short lessons, in order, each with a playable guitar and an exercise. Your progress is saved in this browser - no account needed to learn.

  1. A risograph poster of a whole acoustic guitar with its six strings in six colors, map pins pointing at the headstock, neck, sound hole and bridge Start here Guitar parts and string names Headstock, neck, frets and body, the six strings E A D G B E, and how to sit with the guitar. 8 min
  2. A risograph poster of a yellow guitar tuning peg turning on its gear, its string sending out pink sound waves, beside a clip-on tuner with the needle in the center How to tune a guitar Standard tuning, a tuner in the browser, the fifth-fret method by ear, and why strings drift. 9 min
  3. A risograph poster of a guitar chord diagram with six strings, finger dots and open-string circles, beside a six-line tab with yellow dots Reading chord diagrams and tabs Chord boxes and tablature, the two pictures every guitar book uses, and your first melody in tab. 10 min
  4. A risograph poster of a guitar fretboard near the nut where pink, cyan and yellow fingertip dots press three strings for an open chord Your first guitar chords Em, Am, C, G, D and E: the six open chords behind thousands of songs, and how to make them ring. 10 min
  5. A risograph poster of a pink pick sweeping across the strings over a guitar sound hole under a row of down and up strumming arrows Strumming patterns Down on the beat, up on the "and": four strumming patterns from the simplest to the classic. 10 min
  6. A risograph poster of a guitar fretboard where curved yellow arrows carry a pink chord shape over to a cyan one Changing chords smoothly Anchor fingers, moving all fingers together and the one-minute change drill. 10 min
  7. A risograph poster of a bar of yellow light pressed across all six strings of a guitar fretboard, pink and cyan finger dots beyond it Barre chords One finger across all six strings: F, Bm and the two shapes that give you every chord. 12 min
  8. A risograph poster of an acoustic guitar resting against a log by a campfire, an open songbook at its feet and notes rising with the sparks Your first song on guitar Amazing Grace in G: four chords, a waltz strum and the whole song from start to finish. 12 min
  9. A risograph poster of a pink electric guitar plugged into an amplifier that blasts yellow lightning bolts and rings of sound Power chords Two fingers, one movable shape: the rock chord on the low E and A strings, and a first riff. 10 min
  10. A risograph poster of an acoustic guitar with six colored strings, four glowing fingertips plucking them over the sound hole and ripples of notes Fingerpicking for beginners Thumb on the bass, fingers on G, B and E: three patterns from an arpeggio to Travis picking. 12 min
  11. A risograph poster of a guitar fretboard under a stage spotlight, a box of pink and cyan scale dots and notes streaming out of it Your first guitar solo The minor pentatonic at fret 5, bends and slurs, a first lick and how to improvise over a chord. 12 min
How it works

A course built around a guitar you can play

No video to pause and rewind. Every idea comes with strings to pluck and an exercise that answers back.

A guitar on every page

Each lesson embeds a real recorded guitar. Pluck a string with the mouse or a finger, pick a chord on the number keys and strum it with the Space bar, on QWERTY, AZERTY or QWERTZ keyboards.

Exercises that check you

Find a string, play a fret from a tab, change chords or strum a pattern: the page tells you at once when a note or a stroke is wrong, and how long you took.

Ten minutes a lesson

One idea per lesson, in the order a teacher would use. At one lesson a day you finish in about a week and a half, then keep repeating the exercises on your own guitar.

Tools for the road

A tuner that listens through your microphone, 120 chord charts you can strum, a metronome and a full online guitar take over when the course ends.

Your toolbox

Free tools to use alongside the course

All of them run in the browser, with no account.

Tool

Guitar tuner

Tune with your microphone and a precise needle, or by ear with reference notes.

Tune up → Chords

Guitar chord chart

120 chords with open and barre shapes, fingering and the notes on each string.

See the chords → Play

Online guitar

Acoustic, electric and nylon guitar, four tunings, left-handed neck and a live tablature.

Play it → Tool

Metronome

Practise strumming and chord changes in time, from 20 to 300 BPM.

Start the click →

What you will learn

The course follows the order most guitar teachers use with a new student. Lesson 1 is about the instrument: its parts, the names of the six strings, E A D G B E, and how to sit with it. Lesson 2 gets it in tune, with a tuner or by ear. Lesson 3 teaches the two pictures every guitar book and website uses, the chord diagram and the tablature, and you play your first melody from a tab.

The second half is about playing songs. Lesson 4 gives you six open chords, Em, Am, C, G, D and E. Lesson 5 makes them move with strumming patterns, lesson 6 shows how to switch from one chord to the next without stopping, and lesson 7 opens the rest of the neck with barre chords such as F and Bm. Lesson 8 puts it all together on Amazing Grace, with five chords and a waltz strum.

The last three lessons open three new doors. Lesson 9 teaches power chords, the two-finger shapes of rock guitar, with a first riff. Lesson 10 puts the pick down for fingerpicking, from a simple arpeggio to an alternating bass. Lesson 11 is your first solo, with the minor pentatonic scale, bends and a lick to make your own.

Em chord: E string open, A string fret 2, D string fret 2, G string open, B string open, E string open23EBEGBEEm
Am chord: E string not played, A string open, D string fret 2, G string fret 2, B string fret 1, E string open231AEACEAm
C chord: E string not played, A string fret 3, D string fret 2, G string open, B string fret 1, E string open321CEGCEC
G chord: E string fret 3, A string fret 2, D string open, G string open, B string open, E string fret 3213GBDGBGG
D chord: E string not played, A string not played, D string open, G string fret 2, B string fret 3, E string fret 2132DADF♯D
Five of the six chords of lesson 4. By the end of the course you can switch between them in time and play a song with them.

What you need

To follow the lessons, only a computer, a tablet or a phone with a recent browser: every page has a guitar you can play on screen. To actually learn the instrument you need a guitar in your hands too. Any acoustic or electric guitar works for this course; nylon-string classical guitars are gentler on the fingertips, steel-string acoustics sound brighter and electric guitars have the lightest strings. A pick of medium thickness helps from lesson 5. Your progress is kept in this browser, and each finished lesson is ticked off in the list above.

How to practise

Short and often beats long and rare. Fifteen minutes a day, every day, will take you further than two hours on Sunday, because what you are building is a reflex in two hands that do very different things. Expect sore fingertips for the first two weeks: that is normal, and it goes away as the skin hardens, so stop before it really hurts and come back the next day. Do each exercise on the page, then the same thing on your guitar, slowly, until it sounds clean.

Who made this course

Illustration of Antoine Gounel, aka DJ Goons, laughing as he strums an acoustic guitar on a small stage, with glowing chord diagrams floating above the neck and vintage tube amplifiers behind him
DJ Goons, the creator of GOONS Studio, in his natural habitat: vintage amps, glowing chords and a guitar.

The course, the playable guitar and every exercise are made by Antoine Gounel, aka DJ Goons, who writes every app in GOONS Studio himself. A scratch DJ for more than thirty years and a developer for twenty-five, he built these lessons the way he would have liked to learn: one idea at a time, with an instrument that answers back, and the fun of playing from the very first minute.

After the course

When you finish lesson 11, you can tune a guitar, read chord diagrams and tabs, play the open chords, barre and power chords, strum and fingerpick in time and play a first solo. From there, the easy guitar songs give you a repertoire, the guitar chord chart gives you every other chord, and the online guitar lets you try a progression before you play it for real.

Questions

Frequently asked

Is this guitar course really free?

Yes. All eleven lessons, their playable guitar and their exercises are free, with no account. The tuner, the chord chart, the metronome and the online guitar are free too.

Can I learn guitar online by myself?

You can learn the strings, tuning, chords, strumming and simple songs on your own, and that is what this course covers. A teacher is still the quickest way to fix posture and technique later on; the course gives you the basics so those lessons go further.

Do I need a guitar to start?

Not for the first lessons: every page has a guitar you can play on screen. To play for real you need one, acoustic or electric. Practise each exercise on the page first, then on your guitar.

How long does it take to learn guitar chords?

Most beginners can play the open chords of lesson 4 within a week or two of daily practice, and change between them in time after a few weeks. Barre chords such as F usually take longer, often a month or more.

Is guitar or piano easier to learn?

Each is easier at something. On the guitar, a few chord shapes let you accompany songs very early, but the fingertips need time to toughen. On the piano, notes are laid out in a straight line, which makes reading music easier. GOONS has a free course for both.

Ready when you are

Put your chords into a track

The guitar on these pages is free. GOONS Studio adds the rest of the band in the browser - a sampled piano, drum machines, a bass synth and a sequencer - with a 7-day free trial, no card required.

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