Learn Classical Guitar Online with Graded Method Books

Learn Classical Guitar Online with Graded Method Books and Video Lessons. 

We offer method books with free video lessons as courses of study. All the video lessons are free, offering more flexibility than a monthly subscription site. For a mere ten dollars you’ll receive months of practice and access to the materials forever. 

Each section below (separated by a line) lists the recommended books for your level. Complete each section before moving to the next. When you arrive at the grade 1 book you can start my technique book and continue using it through the other grades. Also visit my Lesson Page often to browse new topics everyday and see addition lessons on various technique and practice topics.

Absolute Beginner

Proceed through my method book and video lessons while simultaneously using the technique section at the back of the book as a technique routine. The exercises might seem simple but they are the foundation of your playing so keep practicing them with more and more refinement. Review the sitting and hand positions often as they will need constant reevaluation.

Everything you need is in the book and all the videos are listed on the sales page (just scroll down to the video lesson list). It’s all free and should get you started with reading and playing melodies and arpeggios. It’s not necessary to know everything when you are starting out, you want to get playing and reading and experiencing music before diving in deeper.

Start with only 15-20 minutes a day of enjoyable practice. You can practice shorter or longer as needed. Whatever time keeps it enjoyable. As you gain confidence and your mind and body adjust to the experience you can increase the amount of practice time. Only practice as long as you can concentrate at a high level. As your brain gets comfortable with reading and studying music it will be able to concentrate longer and longer but it does takes time. Always end your session with something enjoyable and easy, even if it’s just open strings!


Late-Beginner Level

Proceed through the book while simultaneously using the technique section at the back of the book for a technique routine. Everything you need is in the book and videos help you with each section. This book teaches you to read and play music in various tonal keys. The Late-Beginner Collection will have additional pieces to study and challenge you.

“Late-beginner” is not the best word as this level might seem like fully fledged classical guitar playing. Maybe a better term would be “late-foundational” as this is the foundation of your guitar playing.

 

Early-Intermediate (Grade 1)

Study my Repertoire Lessons Grade 1 book and start working on a routine from my Technique book. After you complete the lesson book you can play the 10 additional works from my supplement. The technique book has multiple technique routines at various levels to limit the material to a manageable amount. Feel free to proceed through the technique levels faster than your repertoire.

You might think that grade 1 implies easy playing but actually this level requires significant amounts of coordination. This is essentially the movements and textures needed to play classical guitar so don’t think you haven’t come a long way! You’ve made it.

Early-Intermediate (Grade 2)

As you progress through the grades continue with more difficult technique routines from my technique book. Continue to supplement the experience with repertoire at the appropriate grade level or use my Easy Classical Guitar Vol.1 or 2 collection which contains repertoire between grade 1-3.

Grade 2 is not much different than grade 1. The textures and fingerings are just a tiny bit more complex. No new significant skills are learned other than increased musical ability and technique.

Early-Intermediate (Grade 3)

As you progress through the grades continue with more difficult technique routines from my technique book. Continue to supplement the experience with repertoire at the appropriate grade level or use my Easy Classical Guitar Vol.1 or 2 collection which contains repertoire between grade 1-3.

Grade 3 should be studied for a long time. Try to complete all the supplemental material if possible. Grade 4 will be a significant increase and challenge so enjoy yourself for now and lay a strong foundation before moving on.

Intermediate (Grade 4-6)

Practice the graded books one at a time while adding appropriate technique exercises. When you complete a book it is wise to play quite a bit more repertoire at the same grade level before moving on. Make sure you are confident with the repertoire before moving on to the next grade. This can takes, weeks, months, or years. Take your time and focus on quality. Professional guitarists play music from all the grades but they play it in a very high quality and musically manner. I’d rather a student plays well at grade four forever than play poorly in a higher grade. There is so much beautiful music to play so enjoy it.

Grade 4 represents a significant increase in level as well as introduces a variety of new techniques that establish you firmly in the intermediate realm. Expect grade 4 to take a long time to settle into but luckily grade 5 and 6 are very similar, only more complex in nature.

Late-Intermediate to Early-Advanced

After grade 6 it will be time to dive into some etudes and fretboard knowledge books. Another great thing to do is to cover an entire opus of etudes to test and refine your skills in a variety of musical textures. I highly recommend using the entire Carcassi Op.60 etudes for this task. I consider them essential for bridging the gap from intermediate to higher levels. The Sor and Giuliani etudes might give you a good review and encourage you to focus on polishing your performance and refinement skills.

My Books

Recommended Books by Others

  • Scale Pattern Studies by Aaron Shearer – Very comprehensive scale and melodic sight reading. I use this book with all my later level students to make sure they can read tonal music across the entire fretboard. I consider this book an essential part of reading and understanding the guitar.
  • Leo Brouwer Etudes – These are excellent modern studies for students. They start easy but get quite advanced.
  • Villa-Lobos Collected Solos – The etudes are an essential part of the repertoire but are quite advanced so beware.
  • Music Theory Books – Learning and recommended books.

After Grade 8

Play everything. Get every book you can find. Find every explanation from pros you can hear or read. There are also plenty of technique books for advanced players, even my technique book can be used to the grade 10 level.

The Bible of Classical Guitar Technique by Käppel – 245 pages of exercises and excellent text advice. This book is large and can be tricky to organize a routine from but by the time you reach this level you’ll probably have worked that out and need advanced exercises to tackle your weaknesses. This book provides a wealth and variety of exercises for every technique.

The only method book (progressively ordered) for technique that I’ve seen for high levels is Kitharologus: The Path to Virtuosity by Ricardo Iznaola. It’s difficult but good. Not for the faint-hearted though. It starts from the beginning with just open strings but progresses very quickly. I recommend starting from the very beginning and using his advice and metronome markings. Don’t skip any pages or you’ll pay for it later. He recommends you stay with an exercise for a least a week or two after reaching the tempo. I find his rest stroke approach, especially during arpeggios, quite intense and not for everyone. I’d recommend having quite a bit of experience before approaching this book. In particular, be cautious with this book if you still have tension and relaxation issues as the technique requirement is so high.