The 10 Best Guitar Books for Beginners in 2022 

Whether you’re a novice or a teacher, guitar books for beginners can help you improve your skills.

Watching legends such as Slash, Angus Young, and Jimi Hendrix strum a guitar looks effortless. However, once you get your hands on a guitar, you appreciate the time and skill it takes to make that instrument sing. 

Proper posture, strum patterns, and finding those tricky chords all play a part. So, where do you start?

Find the right guitar books for beginners. (You’ve come to the right place).

Can you learn guitar from a book?

Learning to play guitar from books can be a great option–especially if you lead a busy lifestyle. You can learn at your own pace and practice whenever you have time. Famous guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, and Prince also taught themselves at home, so you are in good company.

Most guitar books for beginners teach you the chords and strum patterns you need to know to play simple songs. Others show you how to maintain a correct posture and help you choose the right guitar size and style. 

1. Hal Leonard Guitar Method Complete Edition

Whether you want to play acoustic guitar or rock out on an electric, the Hal Leonard Guitar Method Complete Edition can teach you what you need to know. This step-by-step program shows you the differences between guitar types, how to choose equipment for an electric guitar, and how to tune your instrument. 

Then it walks you through music notation, chording, and licks for different genres of music. It shows you where the notes are on each string and which fingers to use. 

After you learn where the notes are and how to create chords, you can test your skills by playing through over 100 familiar songs. 

The Complete Edition includes the Hal Leonard method books 1, 2, and 3 in a spiral binding.  Then, you learn how to play the guitar step-by-step. 

Every guitarist can benefit from this comprehensive guitar book.

2. Easy Guitar Lessons for Kids + Video: Beginner Guitar for Children and Teens with 30 Songs

Easy Guitar Lessons for Kids teaches basic skills any beginning guitar student needs to know. It walks you through the different parts of a guitar, correct posture, basic chords, and strumming patterns. You also get tips on choosing the right style and size guitar. 

After you learn a few basic skills, you are ready to try out your newfound knowledge with some songs. Oh, When the Saints, Hickory Dickory Dock, and Happy Birthday are just a few of the well-known kids’ songs that you can find in this book. 

This all-in-one guide comes with 40 free MP3 audio files, ten printable songs, and a video instructional companion. Learning guitar with this book as your teacher is simple and fun. 

3. Guitar Exercises for Beginners: 10x Your Guitar Skills in 10 Minutes a Day

Want to improve your guitar skills but don’t have much free time? Guitar Exercises for Beginners shows you how to make the most of your time. Following the ten-minute practice sessions in this book, you can master the guitar one skill at a time. 

This book contains over 100 exercises that help you develop finger dexterity, hand strength, and chording techniques. It includes popular songs that are a pleasure to play and can increase your skills. 

Guitar Exercises for Beginners lays the foundation of guitar theory and prepares you to advance to the next level.   

4. Guitar Book for Adult Beginners

We’ve heard that old dogs can’t learn new tricks. However, people can start learning music at any age! If you are an adult who has never had the chance to learn an instrument, there is no time like the present. 

Guitar Book for Beginners specifically gears its program toward adult learners. Using simple language, pictures, and diagrams, you learn the parts of the guitar, chords, techniques, and more. You can also stream different video lessons to see guitar theory in action. 

After you learn some of the basics, you get the opportunity to play through some well-known tunes.

5. Campfire Songs – Strum Together

Campfire Songs: Strum Together provides the chord positions for up to five different instruments to play through songs with friends. This book is full of 70 classic hits such as Let it Be, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, The House of the Rising Sun, plus many more. 

Each song includes standard treble clef notation with the chord names above and the song verses below.  In addition, this book contains chord diagrams for the acoustic guitar, standard ukulele, baritone ukulele, mandolin, and banjo. 

Campfire Songs makes it easy to pick up classic songs quickly and easily. Even if you are new to the guitar, you can keep pace with your friends by using this easy song guide. 

6. Idiot’s Guides: Guitar Theory 

When expert musicians talk guitar theory, it can sound complicated. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The Idiot’s Guide, Guitar Theory teaches music theory in simple layman’s terms. 

It starts with the basics and then builds to more advanced techniques. You can learn about tablature, note names, rhythm, scales, and strum patterns for guitar and other fretboard instruments. Listen to an hour’s worth of examples in this guide’s audio files to further cement what you learn. 

If learning guitar theory seems daunting, allow this Idiot’s Guide to allay your fears and teach new tricks. Then, you can improve your skills and join the experts in spouting off the appropriate lingo as you play the guitar.

7. How to Play Guitar in 14 Days: Daily Guitar Lessons for Beginners

If you are looking for an expert guitarist to teach you the ropes, this guitar guide may be perfect. A guitarist with 30 years of experience under his belt wrote How to Play a Guitar in 14 Days. Troy Nelson crafts his teaching methods specifically for beginning guitarists’ needs. 

Each day has one clear goal for you to conquer. The lessons slowly build off each other until the last 90-minute lesson. This lesson is the grand finale to put everything all your new skills to the test.

In this two-week course, you should master guitar posture, tuning, chords, scales, strum patterns, and more. 

This guitar book supports you as a student to grow in skills and confidence. You can even e-mail customer support if you get stuck on a technique. By breaking challenging concepts into small soundbites, you can master guitar theory and start playing popular tunes on the guitar. 

8. Guitar All-in-One For Dummies

We know you are not a dummy, but why learn guitar the hard way when Guitar All-in-One For Dummies makes it so simple? 

This guide comes with audio and video aids. It takes you from finding your first notes on the fretboard to guitar care, music theory, and composition. Also, you get to focus on the genre you jive with the most. Not into classical music? That’s okay! You can rock out like Axel Rose or learn licks for playing the blues. 

Maybe you don’t have room for a boatload of guitar books. If you are going to pick just one, Guitar All-in-One for Dummies is a great tool.

9. The Christopher Parkening Guitar Method

Christopher Parkening is a legend in the classical guitar world. And this method gives you a window into some of the techniques that make his playing so impactful. 

In the Christopher Parkening Guitar Method, you learn all the details you need to know about playing the classical guitar. It includes how to hold a classical guitar properly, find notes on the strings, and learn to pick and strum. This book shows you how to trim your fingernails for classical strings. 

This book includes 50 classical guitar songs, numerous exercises to strengthen your skills, and 14 duets. Illustrations and photos accompany the instructions and are excellent visual aids for learners.

This guide is a must-have if you pick up the classical guitar! 

10. The Guitarist’s Scale Book: Over 400 Guitar Scales & Modes

As every musician knows, you can’t hit those perfect notes by accident. There is a lot of hard work and practice behind each effortless-sounding piece. 

The Guitarist’s Scale Book helps you get the chords and scales on a guitar. This book packs in at least 400 scales and modes. Each scale has appropriate notation and tablature to find the right notes. Also, it shows how you can weave these scales into the songs. 

This guitar book is one of the most thorough guides out there. Practicing scales may not be as captivating as playing through pop songs at first. However, memorizing different chord patterns gives you a solid foundation for future tunes.

Pick up a guitar book for beginners and follow your passion!

Ready to start playing the guitar? Choose a book from the list above that suits your learning style, and go for it! Learning how to play the guitar from a book can be a low-stress way to start your musical journey. 

Read up on what you need to know, and then carve out regular practice sessions to put your knowledge into practice. Just 10 minutes a day of guitar practice can start to show results. (That’s about as much time as it takes to watch two cat videos on Youtube.)

Looking for piano books instead? Check out The Six Best Piano Books for Beginners to find some helpful guides. Or, if you’re ready to sprint into guitar mastery, download the Simply Guitar app to get started.