Own the fretboard.
Outgrow the lessons.

Guitar Anatomy

Before you play a single note, get to know every part of your guitar. Hover or tap each label on the diagram below.

Strings & Tuning

A standard guitar has 6 strings. From thickest (lowest pitch) to thinnest (highest pitch) they are tuned to:

Chords

A chord is three or more notes played together. Every root, three flavors, and the ringed ones are the beginner set: learn those first, everything else is one barre shape away.

The beginner grip sheet

Learning order, left to right: two-finger opens first, the F workaround and barre training wheels last. These twelve carry your first hundred songs; everything else lives in the picker above.

Rhythm & Time Signatures

Rhythm is the half of the music that tab numbers don't show. Learn the note values once and strumming patterns stop being memorization and become counting.

Count these out loud against a click. The metronome lives next to the practice timer in Practice & Drills.

Songs That Teach

Multi-genre and multi-key on purpose: every classically- or jazz-trained metal player got scary because they trained outside their genre, and living in one key builds habits you'll have to unlearn. Each pick below smuggles in a specific skill.

Every title and artist links into your Library with the search prefilled, so if you've got the tab, it's one click away.

Reading Tabs & Notation

Guitar tablature (tabs) is the most beginner-friendly way to read guitar music. Each line represents a string, and numbers tell you which fret to press.

e|---0---1---3---|  ← 1st string (thinnest, high E)
B|---1---0---0---|  ← 2nd string
G|---0---0---0---|  ← 3rd string
D|---2---2---0---|  ← 4th string
A|---3---3---2---|  ← 5th string
E|---x---x---3---|  ← 6th string (thickest, low E)
     C   C  G
                

Reading standard notation

Tab tells you where to put your fingers. Notation tells you when, and the "when" is what makes a riff sound like the record. Tab software shows both at once, so learn to peek at the top staff.

The staff: lines and spaces (treble clef)

Fun fact: guitar music is written an octave higher than it sounds; otherwise most of our notes would drown in ledger lines below the staff.

Note values: the rhythm alphabet

A dot beside any note adds half its value again (dotted half = 3 beats). A dot above or below the note head means staccato: play it shorter. A rest is the same duration of deliberate silence, and silence is played, not skipped.

Time signature & tempo

4/4. Top number: beats per measure. Bottom number: which note gets one beat (4 = quarter note). Nearly every rock and metal song lives here. 6/8 is the lilting six-count you'll feel in 6/8 ballads. Tempo (BPM) = beats per minute, so 60 is one beat per second, most rock sits 100–140, thrash lives north of 180.

Notes on the Fretboard

Music uses 12 unique notes that repeat in a pattern called an octave. Click on any note below to highlight it across the fretboard.

Keys, Families & Progressions

Songs live in a key, and every key owns a family of chords built from its scale. Learn the family once and thousands of songs become rearrangements of chords you already have. The family below is the key this page is currently in, so pick any key in the progression table (or any other tool) and it follows. The pentatonic board further down stays in A minor / C major as a worked example: the beginner-friendliest neighborhood on the instrument, and an example, not a home address.

The chord family

A minor pentatonic: A home vs C home

Loop an Am chord and land phrases on the orange notes; loop C and land on green. Same box, two centers of gravity. The big cluster at frets 5–8 is "the box" from every guitar video ever made, and it wraps the Em-shape Am barre chord at fret 5, which is why it's there.

Progressions worth wearing out

The numerals are the portable part: lowercase = minor, uppercase = major, ♭ = a degree borrowed from the minor scale, ° = diminished. Learn the numeral pattern once and it works in every key, so switch the key below and watch the shapes change while the numbers stay put. Pick a major key for the major-key progressions, a minor key for the minor ones.

Hit ▶ on any row and it loops: two bars a chord, so you can solo over it with the boxes from the CAGED section (same key, they're all in sync).

Ear Training: Find the Key of Anything

1. Hum home base. Listen to the song and hum the note it keeps wanting to rest on. Melodies always pull back to the root, and that gravity is what you're hearing.
2. Hunt it on the low E string. Slide up one fret at a time until your fretted note melts into the hum. That fret's name = the root. (Bass is the boss: when in doubt, listen for what the bass player lands on.)
3. Major or minor? Play the minor pentatonic box at that root, then the major. One sounds "inside," one clashes. Trust your ear, not the chart.
4. Play the scale in three places. Same notes, three neighborhoods, and now the whole neck belongs to you.

What Chord Am I Holding?

Click the frets you're pressing (click again for a muted string, once more to clear). The name appears as soon as there's enough to go on, from power chords to the jazz shelf (maj7, m(maj7), dim7, 9ths, altered dominants…).

Capo & Transpose

Two questions this answers: "I'm playing these shapes with a capo, what key am I actually in?" and "I need this song in a different key, where do I put the capo?"

Scales

A scale is a set of notes arranged in a pattern of intervals. Scales are the foundation of melodies and solos.

Pentatonic neighborhoods: one scale, three homes

Box 1 · Open position (home turf)

e|------------------------------0--3--|
B|------------------------0--3--------|
G|------------------0--2--------------|
D|------------0--2--------------------|
A|------0--2--------------------------|
E|-0--3-------------------------------|  roots: open E, 2nd fret D string

Box 2 · 12th fret (same shape as the A-minor box at 5, moved up)

e|-----------------------------------------12--15--|
B|---------------------------------12--15----------|
G|-------------------------12--14------------------|
D|-----------------12--14--------------------------|
A|---------12--14----------------------------------|
E|-12--15------------------------------------------|  root: 12th fret low E

Box 3 · 7th fret (the bridge between them)

e|----------------------------------7--10--|
B|--------------------------8--10----------|
G|---------------------7--9----------------|
D|----------------7--9---------------------|
A|--------7--10----------------------------|
E|-7--10-----------------------------------|  roots: 7th fret A string · 9th fret G string

Same five notes, halfway up the neck, and it connects the open box to the 12th-fret one, so a phrase can travel the whole neck without leaving the scale. (The CAGED section calls this region box 4.)

The movable trick

Box 2's shape is the movable pentatonic box. Root on the low E string = name of the scale. Slide it to fret 5 and it's A minor pentatonic. Fret 3 = G minor. Fret 7 = B minor. One shape, every key.

CAGED: Five Grips Tile the Whole Neck

There are only five open chord shapes: C, A, G, E, D. Every chord lives in five places up the neck, cycling through those shapes in that fixed order. The pentatonic patterns aren't arbitrary boxes; each one is drawn around one of these grips: the chord is the skeleton, the scale is the flesh. When a phrase lands on a chord tone it sounds resolved, and in this system you can literally see the chord tones, because they're the grip your hand already knows.

The five shapes and the notes inside them

Triad math: a major chord is just three notes (root, third, fifth) repeated across the strings. Every letter under each diagram is one of those three. Nothing else is allowed in; that's why they sound so solid.

Find the five positions in any key

This is the drill that makes CAGED stick: pick a key and read the neck left to right, because the shapes always tile in C-A-G-E-D order (left of any position is the previous letter, wrapping around).

Two different switches: Major/Minor keeps the root and changes the notes (G major → G minor). Relative keeps the notes and changes the home (G major → E minor), and the boxes stay exactly where they are, only the colours swap.

Only two boxes reach two octaves

Worth noticing, because it changes how you hunt for the root: of the five shapes, only the E and G shapes carry the root across two octaves. The other three give you one octave and put the root somewhere in the middle.

Why: the two E strings are the same note two octaves apart, so any shape with a root on the low E gets that root back on the high e for free, and E and G are the only two open shapes whose root sits on the 6th string (C and A start theirs on the A string, D on the D string). Nothing was designed here; it falls out of the tuning.

What to do with it:

• In the E and G boxes you can run root to root across two octaves without leaving the shape: start home at the bottom, land home at the top. That's why box 1 (the E shape) is the one everyone learns first and the one that feels most resolved to solo in.
• In the C, A and D boxes the edges won't hand you a root. They're mostly on the A and B strings, so in three shapes out of five, finding home is a skill you drill, not something the shape gives you.
• Practical drill: pick a box, play only its roots, say the note name out loud. Two of the five will feel obvious; the other three are the ones actually worth your practice minutes.

One scale, two homes

The same notes have two centres of gravity: land phrases on the key root and it sounds like the key; land on the relative root (three frets down for a minor, three up for a major) and the same box turns into its relative major/minor. Not two scales to learn, but one scale with two front doors, drawn inside the grips your hand already knows.

Circle of Fifths: The Map of Every Key

Twelve major keys arranged so each clockwise step is a perfect fifth up. Neighbors share 6 of their 7 notes, which is why they sound related. The inner ring is each key's relative minor (same notes, different home: the two-front-doors trick from the CAGED and scales sections, globalized). Tap any key to light up its complete chord family.

Fingerstyle

Fingerpicking turns any chord you already know into an accompaniment: the thumb keeps the bass going, the fingers roll the top three strings. Start with this loop and let it get boring before adding anything.

The starter loop (Em → Am)

Thumb plays the bass note, fingers roll the top three. Loop it until it's boring, then decorate.

    Em                Am                Em                Am
e|-----------0----|-----------0----|-----------0--2-|-----------0----|
B|--------0-------|--------1-------|--------0-------|--------1-------|
G|-----0----------|-----2----------|-----0----------|-----2----------|
D|----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
A|----------------|--0-------------|----------------|--0-------------|
E|--0-------------|----------------|--0-------------|----------------|
   p  i  m  a       p  i  m  a

Which string does the thumb play?

This is the fact that unlocks fingerpicking, and nobody says it out loud: the thumb's string changes with the chord. Play the wrong bass and the chord sounds muddy for reasons you can't hear yet.

Every pair below asks for nothing extra to hold: the string is either already fretted by the shape or ringing open. No stretches, no thumb hooked over the neck. If your fingers can make the chord, they can play the bass.

The rule under the table: bass 1 is the chord's root, bass 2 is another chord tone lower than the melody strings, usually the fifth. That's why they never clash.

Alternating bass: the actual unlock

Now make the thumb move. Thumb on beats 1 and 3, fingers on 2 and 4: p i p m. It sounds like two instruments the moment it's steady, and it's the engine under most acoustic playing you like.

    Am                C                 G                 Em
e|----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
B|-----------1----|-----------1----|-----------0----|-----------0----|
G|-----2----------|-----0----------|-----0----------|-----0----------|
D|--------2-------|--------2-------|--------0-------|----------------|
A|--0-------------|--3-------------|----------------|--------2-------|
E|----------------|----------------|--3-------------|--0-------------|
    p  i  p  m       p  i  p  m       p  i  p  m       p  i  p  m    

Say it out loud while you play: bass, finger, other bass, finger. When that's automatic your right hand has a motor, and everything else is decoration on top of it.

The pinch

Thumb and a finger strike together. One move, two voices, and the cheapest "how are you doing that with one guitar?" trick there is. Pinch on beat 1, then let the alternating bass carry on:

    Am                C
e|--0-------------|--0-------------|
B|-----------1----|-----------1----|
G|-----2----------|-----0----------|
D|--------2-------|--------2-------|
A|--0-------------|--3-------------|
E|----------------|----------------|
   p+a i  p  m      p+a i  p  m   
   p and a strike at the same instant, then the bass
   keeps alternating underneath

Right hand, set up once

• Thumb in front of the fingers, not tucked behind them: keep it closer to the headstock so it never collides with your index on the way down.
• Fingers stay over their own strings: i on G, m on B, a on high e. Assign them once and stop re-deciding mid-song.
• Small motions. The string only needs a few millimetres. Big plucks are why fingerpicking sounds frantic.
• Nails optional. Flesh is warmer and more forgiving; nails are brighter and louder. Either works, just don't switch weekly.
• Let the bass ring. Don't damp it chasing the next note; the sustain is what makes it sound full.

Practice file: alternating bass loop Am · C · G · Em, the pattern above, at a tempo you can actually hold.

Practice & Drills

Fifteen focused minutes a day beats a heroic Sunday. These routines decide what those minutes actually do.

Change & strength drills

e|-------------------------1-2-3-4-|
B|-----------------1-2-3-4---------|
G|---------1-2-3-4-----------------|  one finger per fret,
D|-1-2-3-4-------------------------|  to a slow metronome,
A|---------------------------------|  then shift up a fret
E|---------------------------------|

Playing with someone else

The fastest way to get good is a second guitar. Two frameworks that work from day one:

12-bar blues in E, the eternal duet. The newer player plays roots only (open E, open A, 2nd-fret B on the A string), one confident note per bar, while the other solos from E minor pentatonic. Rule: maximum 3 notes per phrase, then breathe. Phrasing beats shredding. Swap roles every cycle.

   E (4 bars)              A (2 bars)   E (2 bars)   B (1) A (1) E (2)

      Shuffle pattern, all down-picks (palm-mute it and it's proto-metal):
      E:  A|-2-2-4-4-2-2-4-4-|     A:  D|-2-2-4-4-2-2-4-4-|     B:  D|-4-4-6-6-4-4-6-6-|
          E|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-|         A|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-|         A|-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-|

Practice file: the 12-bar shuffle (the rhythm half; your partner plays roots)

Chord/lead split. Pick any 3–4 chord song: one plays the loop, the other noodles in the matching pentatonic box, swap each verse. Calling out the roots as they pass doubles as ear training.