Beginning Guitar Curriculum

The guitar curriculum contained in my book, Beginning Guitar for the Classroom, A Comprehensive Approach, focuses on three distinct areas of study: popular-style, classical, and guitar ensemble. All three of these areas are integrated into every lesson, each reinforcing the same objective of that lesson. Below, you can download a pdf of the entire beginning book or, utilize the eBook format, which includes audio recordings of all the exercises, songs and repertoire (and a few tutorial videos). All gratis.

"I want to take a moment to say thank you for the expertise, thoughtfulness, and generosity you have shared with all music educators by publishing your curriculum online for free use. Thank you for your holistic approach to guitar music education. Your materials are such a powerful tool in my classroom. My students are reading better than they've ever read, playing better than they've ever played, and enjoying music they never imagined they'd enjoy. Your love for guitar and music education are so evident in the pages you've written. Thank you so much for sharing it with us." – Kelsey Snyder, Maricopa High School

"You have created some really awesome curriculum for guitar! I am a super fan and you have helped me transform my guitar classes immensely by keeping students super engaged. Thank you so much for creating and sharing your work! – Kathleen Dolan, Collegiate Academy, Northwest Pennsylvania

"Let me thank you for creating this amazing curriculum for guitar classrooms. It is very rare you find a guitar book that is designed for group lessons. I have been using your book for three years and it still amazes me how well-written this method is. Because of this book, the number of students interested in playing the guitar and music, in general, has increased greatly!" – Akzhol Issin, QSI International School of Astana

"I just discovered your beginning guitar materials, but from what I can see so far, your approach is fantastic. It's sequenced perfectly and I'm really grateful for the way that you provide a musically meaningful context for the beginning player. Your website is just a wealth of materials and it's organized so easily. I'm excited to explore some more. Grateful." – Jill Reese, PhD, Associate Professor of Music Education, The State University of New York

Beginning Guitar for the Classroom, A Comprehensive Approach
pdf Version

The beginning book is designed for a one-year, two-semester class. As stated above, it integrates popular-style, classical and guitar ensemble into each lesson. Popular-style skill is developed by learning basic chords and strumming technique in the context of learning popular, mostly classic rock songs. Each song is presented as a song chart so that students immediately begin the music-reading process. By the third lesson, the concept of beats, time signatures and basic rhythms are in place. Students will then begin to learn how to read standard notation, one string at a time, and always in the context of learning and performing teacher/student duets. These duets are important not only to develop reading skills, but also so that students learn how to listen to another player and to a common beat. Most importantly, duets allows music-reading development to be relevant, engaging and fun. By the second semester, students will prepared to begin learning classical guitar as well as guitar quartet music.
By the end of the school year, students have will have learned a substantial amount of skill and musicianship in all three areas. In the area of popular music, the class final is Stairway to Heaven. The classical final is Estudio, by Francisco Tårrega. Both of these pieces are quite impressive for a first-year student to learn and play.

Note: Feel free to supplement or replace the popular songs in the lessons, if you've found better choices. (I'd be interested to know of your choices!) Also, it is not necessary for students to learn all the classical guitar pieces in each lesson. Learning one is adequate. Lastly, and as already mentioned above, all of the music and exercises have been recorded for your convenience and are located below in the eBook. (Recordings of the classical guitar and guitar ensemble pieces are also located on those corresponding pages.)

Restrictions of Use
Below is a pdf of the Beginning Guitar Book for you to download for free. You have permission to distribute this book to your students as digital or hard copies. However, you are strictly forbidden from receiving compensation in any form or context from this book or any other material on this website. This includes your recordings of my compositions and arrangements. Thank you.

By downloading this curriculum, you understand and agree to the above terms.

I Agree

(Updated 2/24)

Beginning Guitar for the Classroom
eBook Format

Below is the Beginning Book in an interactive eBook format, with audio and video recordings of the material.
This format is highly recommended for teachers to use in the classroom as well as for students to use while practicing.

"Everything I need is right there, step by step, page by page, lesson by lesson, click by click! I don’t know how you came to develop your curriculum but it strikes me as very
intuitive and peaceful." – Sarah Dawn, K-8 Music Teacher

"I used your online book and curriculum last year with a first year guitar course and I cannot express how effective this system is. Even after one year, I was being asked to add
another section of guitar after the word got around!" – James Mock, Ed.S., Richmond Hill Middle School