5 Best Online Guitar Lessons For Kids
Our Top Pick:
Akoustik Music is the best online option for kids to learn guitar. With custom individual lessons, real teacher interaction, and unlimited song choices, kids will learn faster and better with Akoustik Music |
Book a Free Lesson with Akoustik Music
Music is one of the most effective activities for brain development, especially with kids. It aids in language, motor, social-emotional, intellectual, and literary growth. Learning how to play the guitar or piano is one of the best activities to mentally or emotionally develop for people of any age, but especially for kids and teens.
The guitar continues to be a popular instrument for any age group and tends to keep children's musical passion alive longer than other instruments! Especially when paired with the right instructor.
While traditional in-person music lessons are very effective, online guitar lessons have become increasingly popular. Online guitar lessons are convenient, effective, and engaging, but it can be confusing to pick the best one for your child with all the options out there. While looking for a way for kids to learn guitar, you might find poorly designed websites with low-quality content.
How do online guitar lessons work?
There are two types of online guitar lessons: pre-recorded lessons and live instructor lessons. Pre-recorded lessons allow you to purchase a subscription to video courses and lessons. Live instructor lessons let you meet with a real guitar teacher over video chatting software like zoom google hangouts.
Before I hop into the details, here is the list of the five best online guitar lessons for kids:
1. Akoustik Music - Best Overall / Real Instructor
2. Guitar Tricks - Longest Free Trial/Money Back Guarantee
3. Justin Guitar - Best Free
4. Guitar Gate - Best Affordable
5. Guitareo - Best for Self Motivated Learners
1. Akoustik Music - $60/Month
Pros
Full Customization
Engaging and Easy to Understand
Live Teacher Lessons
Personal Feedback
Unlimited Song Choices
Intermediate & Advanced Options
Songwriting & Artist Development Plans
Cons
Monthly Fee
Low Video Content
Akoustik Music made the top of the list because it offers more instructor interaction and customization than all of the other online guitar teaching options. Most websites built to teach guitar were created with the idea to sell the same videos to a bunch of different students without any individual or group instruction.
Kids especially need an instructor when they are learning an instrument because a real person will help them stay excited about learning and accountable to practice. Kids have teachers in school because they simply retain information better and learn quicker when they interact with another person.
The basic plan includes the following:
2 half-hour long lessons
2 instructor feedback videos
Access to Akoustik Music’s student group
In each lesson, the teacher will help you learn whatever song or style you want to learn. This is an advantage because you are never confined to the list of songs available on a video library. If you like a song that came out yesterday, the teacher can help you play it.
You’ll also be provided a pdf music sheet for the song you are learning and custom lessons may also be recorded by the student. This allows you to go back and watch anything you might’ve missed during the lesson.
Access to the instructor does not end there. Every month, you receive two opportunities to send a video of yourself playing, and the instructor will respond with a feedback video. You will also have access to a whole group of students taking from Akoustik Music to ask any questions and get help from other people.
This is just the basic plan, so if you want an even more in-depth approach, they have programs to help you progress even further with music.
2. Guitar Tricks - $20/Month
Pros
11,000+ Lesson Videos
2-week free trial
Great lesson structure
Short and easy videos in their Fundamental Lessons
Cons
No Teacher Feedback
Monthly Fee
Content is Slightly Dated
No Customization
Guitar Tricks is my second choice for kids and beginners because of the easily digestible content. They have two beginner guitar courses available on their site:
Guitar Fundamentals I
Guitar Fundamentals II
Guitar Tricks has been around since 1998 and has accumulated a large video library on the site. They have a 2-week free trial and then a 60-day money-back guarantee after that! Although that’s plenty of time to learn guitar basics and even a few songs, they have so much content that it’s impossible to go through it all in 60 days. Guitar Tricks boasts over 11,000 Lesson Videos and over 1,000 song tutorials making them the largest video guitar lesson library outside of YouTube.
3. Justin Guitar - $0/Month
Pros
FREE
Strong Content Structure
Easy to follow lessons
Fun videos for kids
Cons
Low-Resolution videos
No Teacher Feedback
Limited Song Library
No Customization
One of the original guitar teaching websites, Justin Sandercoe has created the best free resource to learn guitar as a beginner. His videos are structured well and easily digestible so you always know what you need to work on next.
As a guitar teacher, I am always asked, “Can I learn guitar on YouTube?”
The answer is YES! YouTube has some amazing free resources to help you learn how to play guitar. However, one of the great pitfalls of learning guitar on YouTube is that there is no structure to know where to go next. Another problem with it is that you don’t know if any of the videos will be kid-friendly. Justin Guitar solves this problem by providing structure in his free guitar lessons. As the student, you know exactly what you will be learning next and you don’t have to go fishing for it.
4. Guitar Gate - $10/Month
Pros
Real Instructor Interaction at a great price
Focuses on Music Theory
Most Payment options
High-Resolution Videos
Cons
No Specific Song Tutorials
Music Theory Lessons are Tougher
Material is Limited
No customization
This is one of the only hybrid guitar lessons I have found out there, and the idea is pretty cool.
Michael Palmisano had an organized library of video guitar lessons like other websites but, the unique thing about Guitar Gate is that Michael will reach out and give feedback to his students and subscribers!
Students have the option to submit a video and he will personally reach out with some helpful tips for the students.
Guitar Gate also has the most flexible payment options, you can get all of his courses for $9.99/month, or you can purchase the individual guitar courses for approx. $25 each.
5. Guitareo - $15/Month
Pros
Easy to follow content
Kid-friendly program and well-designed site
Great guitar lesson videos
Cons
High price for lower education value
Underdeveloped program
Weak song selection
Guitareo is a teaching site started by Nate Savage. Nate originally started out creating guitarlessons.com, a free guitar lesson resource and has since moved all of his new content over to a new and improved system: Guitareo.
Guitareo is a well-designed site that’s easy to use and the content makes it easy for kids to learn. It provides more value than the over-marketed Fender Play and has lots of fretboard content. However, the reason Guitareo is at the bottom of our list, is that it grants you the same (or less) education value as other teaching sites at a much higher price.
Conclusion
There are countless other resources to learn guitar online like YouTube, Jamplay, Tunelark, Pixical, and Fender Play. There are both free and paid options, so anyone can learn how to play the guitar. These top five were hard to compare because they all had different strengths and resources for students. It can be tough to put a price tag on how valuable the educational content is on each of these sites. In conclusion, Akoustik music is the best place to find online guitar lessons for kids. With live lessons and real teacher interaction, as well as the opportunity for growth into intermediate and advanced skill levels, Akoustik Music is a clear winner.