step 01

How Music Works

Learning any language starts with the ABC. Understand the musical alphabet, the 12 notes of music and how to identify sharps and flats. Learn what melody, harmony and rhythm are, and how they interact to create the building blocks of music. Discover how the major scale sets the tone for all music theory and what a relative key is. Learn how to build and name major and minor chords. Uncover rhythm by learning about time signatures, tempo and note divisions. Get to know your instrument with a complete guitar anatomy, and discover the best tips on how to practice guitar going forward.

step 02

Guitar Basics

Let’s take it back to basics. Learn how to identify notes on strings and frets across the guitar fretboard. Understand the best finger positioning, posture and plectrum technique for accurate and safe guitar playing. Learn how to read a chord chart and tabs, and put the knowledge into practice with finger exercises, the 12-bar blues and famous riffs from The White Stripes, Bob Marley, The Cure, Nirvana, Guns ‘n’ Roses and more. Understand how amps and pedals work and how to change the sound of your guitar through tone and technique.

step 03

Open Chords & Power Chords

Time to start gaining ground. Learn all the fundamental major and minor open chords and how to change between them. Understand how to read chord progressions and strumming patterns, and how to inject rhythmic movement into music. Uncover your first moveable chord: the power chord. Discover how power chords are structured and how to use them to play any chord progression.

Nail alternative plectrum techniques: alternate picking, economy picking and travis picking. Learn what suspended chords are and how to use them. Understand how to use dynamics to make your chord progressions exciting through palm muting and string control. Put everything you’ve learned so far into practice with some legendary songs by The Kinks, Nirvana, AC/DC, Johnny Cash, The Animals, Jeff Buckley, Bill Withers, Tracy Chapman, Fleetwood Mac, Stereophonics, Queen and The Beatles.

step 04

Pentatonic & Full Scales

Now you have a solid grounding in harmony and rhythm - let’s give melody some love. Learn the Queen of all guitar scales: the pentatonic. Discover a trick to quickly turn a shape from a minor to a major pentatonic scale, anywhere on the fretboard. Understand how to use lead guitar techniques - hammer-ons & pull-offs, string bends, vibrato and slides - to elevate your solos. Uncover how to add two notes to the existing pentatonic scale shapes to turn them into full major and minor scales, and add one extra note to create a blues scale. Put the scales into practice with finger twisting exercises, lead guitar playing games and famous pentatonic riffs from the likes of Eric Clapton, Black Sabbath & The Temptations. Learn how to write a guitar solo with the power of phrasing.

STEP 05

Barre Chords

Learn four chord shapes to carry you through most popular songs, ever. Understand how to turn your finger into a human capo with two major and two minor barre chord shapes. Digest the best tips to play them with ease and accuracy. Discover how barre chord shapes give you choice over location and tone on the fretboard, and how to decide which positions to choose. Practice barre chord progressions and effortlessly moving between shapes. Learn how to control the length and dynamics of barre chords, and nail a funky technique called the karate chop! Put barre chords into practice with tasteful tracks by David Bowie, Bob Marley, Outkast & The Beatles.

step 06

CAGED System

Everything is about to change: fretboard fluency awaits. Understand how the CAGED system is a map of the fretboard, and how to read the routes for ultimate musical freedom. Learn how to visualise chord shapes across the guitar’s neck, and how to move them like a conveyor belt as you shift keys. Apply your knowledge with helpful chord exercises, focusing on each shape individually, then learning how to connect all five together.

Discover how the CAGED system also applies to scales, by expanding the five chord shapes into pentatonic scales - across the entire fretboard. Implement your knowledge with scale exercises to connect the dots, and jams to begin experiencing expressive freedom. Learn why root notes are important for the CAGED system and how to identify every root note across the fretboard. Bridge the gap between CAGED chords and scales with five arpeggio shapes. Replicate all knowledge of major chords, scales and arpeggios with their minor CAGED equivalents and uncover how major and minor CAGED systems fit together. Phew, it’s a biggie.

step 07

7th Chords

Let’s add some spice to those chords. Learn what chord tones are and how to change them to create colour in music. Understand how to structure major 7th, minor 7th and dominant 7th chords. Apply your theory knowledge with all fundamental open chord and barre chord shapes for major, minor and dominant 7th chords. Then, add some mouth-watering ingredients to your musical pantry by learning how to apply all 7th chords and arpeggios to the CAGED system. Get funky by learning some advanced 16th note strumming patterns. Put your learnings into practice with smooth songs by Amy Winehouse, James Brown, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye and Daft Punk.

step 08

Chord Progressions

Ready to write a song? Building on everything you’ve learned so far, understand how to convert the major scale into chords, with the harmonised major scale. Learn what the numbers system is, and how to identify the chord quality for each number. Understand how to build diminished chords and how to play them in various positions.

Discover what chord function is and how to use it to craft tasty chord sequences. Learn the most common chord progressions and why they’ve been the building blocks of popular music for millennia. Understand how to harmonise the minor scale to create moody music. Unveil what a cadence is and how to use them to add emotional intent to your chord progressions. Learn about song structures and form to construct the perfect track. Crack the circle of fifths, fathom why it’s an under-rated tool for guitarists, and learn how to use it to supercharge your musicality.

step 09

Fretboard Freedom

Now things really are getting exciting. Turn the CAGED system pentatonic scales into full major and minor scales in five positions across the fretboard. Learn how to think in numbers, not just visual shapes, so you know exactly where you are on the guitar at all times - regardless of whether you’re in a major or minor key, or are playing chords, scales or arpeggios.

Learn how to break out of the box - move away from the five positions of the CAGED system to think vertically, rather than horizontally - with triads. Use the fretboard knowledge you already have as scaffolding to uncover three triad inversions across 4 string sets on the guitar for major, minor and diminished chords. Thorough exercises help embed your new knowledge with everything you’ve learned so far. Finally, understand how the CAGED system can be used to solo across multiple keys. Learn to fluidly change scales for each chord in a progression.

step 10

Colourful Chords & Modes

The last hurrah! The student becomes the master. Learn how to build harmony beyond chord tones using extensions. Get to know different chord flavours and experiment with alternative chord colours. Discover how to build and play augmented chords and altered chords. Uncover how shell chords are building blocks for more spicy harmony. Get to the bottom of chord anatomy - no matter how complicated their labels are. Understand how to use secondary dominants and approaching diminished chords to craft emotive chord progressions.

Learn to identify the most common interval shapes for fretboard mastery. Understand what modes are and how to use all seven to add flavour to your melodies and improvisations. Learn how to use fretboard knowledge you already have to easily play modes anywhere across the neck. Apply your new skills with exercises and games. After all this, you’re seriously unstoppable.