The guitar is a versatile and popular instrument that spans most musical genres. Here are 50 useful and interesting sites dedicated to the guitar and its admirers.
This list has a history – and will go on growing as you make suggestions in the comments. This list has been collected from the following places:
- Skellie’s insanely useful 2008 post that started it all.
- Your suggestions in the comments of that post.
- The guitar-related sites from my 2009 post 47 Sites Every Recording Musician Should Visit which was inspired by your comments to an earlier Open Mic.
- Your suggestions in the comments to that post.
- A more recent Open Mic where you answered the question What are the best websites for guitarists?
- A few sites that hadn’t made it on any of the previous lists.
Please feel free to add to the list, or let me know of any corrections that need to be made.
Guitar Lessons and Tutorials
Here is our own collection of guitar tutorials, articles and quick tips. Enjoy!
“GuitarMasterClass is a place where you can improve your musical skills and meet people with similar interests. The main focus is to having fun while learning.”
“Blog to share info, lessons, stories and shortcuts to guitar excellence.” Fantastic videos for free.
“I learned a LOT from Suuuupaadave’s video tutorials.” (DNABeast)
Has some real pearls of wisdom for aspiring guitar legends.
Offers 24 video guitar tutorials on sign-up, but its overall database includes over 3,000 guitar video tutorials. Pretty impressive, but this premium membership does come at a price.
Has 47 guitar tutorials available on everything from Dropped-D tuning to flatpicking. Tutorials contain plenty of images but no video.
“Guitar lessons with a master lead guitarist.” Offers a list of guitar lessons promising to take you from absolute beginning to experienced player.
“Freeguitarvideos.com is the world’s largest producer of free online guitar lesson videos.”
“Definitely the best FREE guitar lessons and system on the web in my opinion!” (William)
“I focus hard on breaking down anything I teach very methodically. So no matter how advanced it is, you should be able to understand it, play it, and start being creative with it yourself – immediately!”
Offers text and image guitar lessons for the guitarist who wants to develop his/her Jazz chops.
A set of beginner’s guitar lessons on About.com.
Hosts over 2,800 user-submitted guitar lessons spanning across a wide range of genres and skill levels. As with all user-generated content, the quality varies, but there are some true gems to be found.
Host to hundreds of free text and image lessons. “Very easy and laid back approach to teaching guitar, with a great sense of humor, and great understanding of fundamentals and basics. With an exercise plan, and lessons ranging from absolute beginner to advanced, this site is the definitive one to go to if you are on a strict budget. Plus, a strong community of like minded guitarists.” (Endy Daniyanto)
“Free online guitar lessons.”
Free guitar lessons and resources for guitarists.
A complete online-book about learning the blues guitar with tabs as PDFs, sound samples and midi backing tracks and a lot more.
Lessons that teach you more about Flamenco guitar.
Lead Guitar and Soloing
A list of the 100 best guitar solos according to a Guitar World Magazine poll, complete with tabs.
YouTube videos of the Top 20 in Guitar World Magazine’s list of the best guitar solos.
“This site is dedicated to guitar players who want to improve their guitar technique, to add some new chops to their repertoire, to learn guitar scales or improvisation.” offers lessons and articles with an emphasis on educating the solo guitarist. If you’re serious about guitar but aren’t sure how to guide your practice schedule, check out their three hour daily practice plan
“Learn how to play some of the coolest riffs of all time!”
Guitar Theory
“The idea behind the guide is to cut through the confusion that often surrounds music theory and provide a means to apply practical music theory in the real world.”
“Music theory lessons, guitar lessons, bass lessons.”
Guitar Gear
“The quest for unraveling the mysteries behind guitar and bass player’s rigs.” The site contains diagrams and listings of live rigs of famous guitarists, painstakingly researched from live photos and interviews.
Offers free downloadable books on building an electric guitar.
“Perhaps your guitar was playing great when you brought it home from the store, and gradually you noticed that it just didn’t feel right anymore. Or, maybe it just never felt right from day one, whatever the case, you know it’s time for a tune-up (pun intended). I can usually tell when my guitar needs a bit of tweaking, it starts to feel tedious and tiring to play, albeit in a very subtle way. This page is intended to help you do the basic tasks yourself.”
Other Guitar-related Blogs
This is a blog dedicated to guitars, and contains interviews, articles, gear reviews, music reviews, and lessons. The site is put together by Peter Hodgson. “I’m a guitarist and journalist from Melbourne, Australia. I contribute to magazines including Mixdown, Australian Guitar and Australian Musician Magazine.”
This is the first website I’ve found to have a feature article on guitar toilet seats. Put together by Audiotuts reader Jon, it contains everything you ever wanted to know about guitars (and some things you didn’t). The site’s byline is “Guitar news from the furthest corners of the interweb.”
“I wanted to create a site that would be a resource for those younger guys and gals who are thinking about getting into jazz guitar as a profession and don’t know what to expect.”
“Our goal is to create a community that will focus on Guitar Players of all levels from Beginner to Advanced.”
“The elite online guitar community.”
“Share My Guitar is a social network for guitar enthusiasts. Create your own profile and you’ll be able to share your guitar collection with the world! Upload pics, songs, videos, chat with other guitarists, join guitar groups, post ads on the classified page, browse the SMG forums and much more!”
“So you want to become a better guitar player, huh?”
Guitar-related Software
“The tab editor you need to reach the tops.”
Guitar Tabs and Chord Charts
Has thousands of text tabs, Guitar Pro tabs and chord sheets. One of the most useful aspects is the tab rating function, where the crowd can rate each tab out of 5.
An aggregator currently linking out to 7 million+ tabs sourced from all over the web.
Allows you to construct and digitally ‘strum’ any chord. You can use it to discover new chords or to learn how to play that G# dim which has you stumped.
“975 classical guitar tabs in plain text format.”
Looks like another big tabs website, but its most interesting differentiating feature is its archive of user-created songbooks
A site that has a few popular guitar tabs. The interesting thing is that it plays the tab so you can get a sense of the tempo.
Other Useful Resources
Provides you with a reference guitar sound for perfect EADGBE guitar tuning. Just because your tuner is buried in the nether regions of your room doesn’t mean you have to go without perfect tuning!
Allows you to see any scale on the fretboard. You can select the Patterns, Chords and Scales you want to view.
Allows you to control the tempo of your own online metronome. It functions and sounds exactly like the real thing, without the price tag.
Lists a number of apps and social networking sites musicians can use to make better music and collaborate with other musicians.
A site that generates guitar drills for you to practice to.
Guitar backing tracks.
You can play only chords pressing proper letters, so beginner can use this device for choosing chords for songs. Requires Flash.
“The latest guitar news and interviews.”
