What to Learn on Guitar in Order (Complete Roadmap)

Main ideas / lessons

• The biggest challenge for self-taught guitarists isn’t finding information online—it’s organizing the needed skills and concepts into the right order so progress is consistent.
• The video proposes a “complete guitar learning roadmap” with 10 levels, where each level builds on earlier fundamentals.
• It emphasizes both:
  • Technical skills: mechanics, chords, scales, picking, barre chords, solos
  • Music understanding & ear training: theory, harmony, modes, interval recognition, hearing chord changes
• Song learning is used as practice, especially early on. By mid/upper levels, the message shifts to learn songs of your choosing and let song difficulty drive skill growth.
• The roadmap increasingly aligns with jazz-like concepts (modes, harmonic/melodic minor, extensions). The creator suggests specialization after completing the roadmap.

Overall: build fundamentals first, then expand theory + ear training, then specialize by genre.

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Step-by-step roadmap (10 levels, detailed checklist)

Level 1 — Guitar basics + foundational theory

Learn

• Parts of the guitar
• How to hold the guitar
• How to hold the pick

Learn basic playing mechanics

• Strumming mechanics: down strums and up strums
• Fretting notes
• Picking single notes (distinct from strumming)

Learn foundational music theory

• What a note is (as framed by the video)
• What intervals are
• The two fundamental intervals:
  • Half steps
  • Whole steps

Learn how to tune the guitar

Output goal

• Strong basics (mechanics + minimal theory to support later levels)

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Level 2 — Chords + rhythm + early songs

Learn

• What a chord is
• Your first seven open chords:
  • E major
  • E minor
  • A major
  • A minor
  • G major
  • C major
  • D major

Learn rhythm foundations

• Counting music / note values
• Applying note values + counting to strumming

Learn first songs (two categories)

• Simple chord-based strumming:
  • “For What It’s Worth” — Buffalo Springfield
  • “Wagon Wheel” — Old Crow Medicine Show (famously covered by Darius Rucker)
• Songs playable on one string:
  • “Smoke on the Water” — Deep Purple
  • “Iron Man” — Black Sabbath
  • “Seven Nation Army” — The White Stripes

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Level 3 — Scales + alternate picking + fretboard notes

Learn

• What a scale is
• How chords + scales relate to keys
• First scale:
  • Minor pentatonic scale

Learn technique

• Alternate picking

Learn fretboard knowledge

• All notes on the low E string

Learn more advanced songs (mix of single-note lines + chord strumming)

• “Hurt” (Johnny Cash version, not Nine Inch Nails)
• “Sweet Home Alabama” — Lynyrd Skynyrd (spelled “Leonard skinnard” in subtitles)
• “Running Down a Dream” — Tom Petty
• “House of the Rising Sun” — The Animals
• “Highway to Hell” — AC/DC

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Level 4 — Barre chords + triads + ear training + soloing

Learn

• Second position major pentatonic scale
• Barre chords
  • Focus on major and minor bar chords
  • Emphasize 5th and 6th string roots
• What triads are
• Memorize all notes on the A string (continuation from E string)

Ear training

• Identify “what key” a song is in (subtitle says “Kia song”)

Creativity / skills

• Begin improvising guitar solos
• Practice by playing over backing tracks
• Suggested backing track sources:
  • YouTube channels Now You Shred and Elevated Jam Tracks

Song recommendations for solo practice

• “Sultans of Swing” — Dire Straits
• “Lila” — dererk (spelled “dererk” in subtitles; unclear artist identity)
• “Wish You Were Here” — Pink Floyd
• “Whole Lotta Love” — Led Zeppelin (spelled “Leed Zeppelin”)

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Level 5 — Full pentatonic positions + diatonic scales + deeper theory + style techniques

Learn

• All five positions of the pentatonic scale
  • Add the remaining three positions (since 1st & 2nd were learned earlier)
• Benefit emphasized:
  • Being able to solo and play scales across the entire neck
• Major and minor diatonic scales

Theory concepts

• Parallel vs relative major/minor
• How half steps and whole steps build the major scale
• How the major scale is modified to create the pentatonic scale

Style / technical techniques

• Hammer-ons / pull-offs
• Bends
• Vibrato (subtitle: “vbr” natural harmonics)
• Natural harmonics
• Pinch harmonics

Song strategy

• No new song recs; learn whatever song you want
• If it seems “too hard,” the solution is to increase your skill level by learning it anyway

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Level 6 — Harmonizing major scale + functional harmony + common progressions

Learn

• How to harmonize the major scale
  • Informally called learning the chord scale
  • Learn what chords are available in any key
• Nashville Number System
• Functional harmony
  • Identify chord function in context
  • Use it for ear training: hear/identify chord changes
• Familiarize with common core progressions

Also (one-off topic)

• Understand compound time signatures

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Level 7 — Seventh chords + connecting harmony back to the major scale

Learn

• Seventh chords by extending triads with an added seventh
• Focus on:
  • Major 7th chords
  • Minor 7th chords
  • Dominant 7th chords
• Root placement emphasized:
  • roots on the E string and A string

Also learn

• How the dominant 7th chord relates to the major scale harmonization from Level 6

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Level 8 — Diatonic modes + interval mastery + ear training for playing by ear

Learn

• All seven diatonic modes
• Scale intervals

Ear training objective

• Use interval knowledge to hear solos and melodies and play them by ear

Guidance note

• Don’t wait for perfect mastery before moving on; creative work makes “mastery” less clearly defined

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Level 9 — CAGED system + arpeggios + using chord tones + advanced ear training

Learn

• CAGED system
• Arpeggios related to each of the CAGED chord shapes

Why CAGED + arpeggios matter

• Use chord tones in solos/melodies to accent what chords already “are” in the song
• Modify arpeggios by adding the seventh (from Level 7) to them

Ear training objective

• Detect when instrumentalists are playing harmonic parts that differ from the main chord progression
• Example concept:
  • Hear if bass or piano is changing harmony independently

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Level 10 — Extensions + harmonic/melodic minor + specialization

Learn

• Chord extensions beyond the 7th
  • Most important: 9ths, 11ths, 13ths
• Harmonic minor scale and its modes (in arpeggios)
• Melodic minor scale and its modes (in arpeggios)

Understand the “trinity”

• How natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor fit together and serve different purposes

Strategy after Level 10

• There is no true “end point,” but the roadmap ends here because continuing requires genre-specific specialization
• Choose a genre (or a couple) and “become a guitar wizard”

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Speakers / sources featured (as mentioned in the subtitles)

Speakers

• Primary narrator / instructor (unnamed)
• “Editing Kevin from the future” (a creator/editor persona; unnamed)

Sources (channels / references)

• YouTube channels: Now You Shred, Elevated Jam Tracks
• Dave Grohl (mentioned in a joke/example about discovering notes)

Featured musicians / bands / song sources

• Buffalo Springfield
• Old Crow Medicine Show
• Darius Rucker
• Deep Purple
• Black Sabbath
• The White Stripes
• Johnny Cash
• Nine Inch Nails (mentioned negatively: “not the Nine Inch Nails version”)
• Lynyrd Skynyrd
• Tom Petty
• The Animals
• AC/DC
• Dire Straits
• “dererk” (as written in subtitles; artist attribution unclear)
• Pink Floyd
• Led Zeppelin
• Guitar-tech concept references to “Jazz” (genre mentioned generally, no specific source)