Level 2🎸 Guitar

Acoustic Guitar Level 2

Acoustic guitar Level 2: barre chords, fingerstyle patterns and the technique to play a whole song cleanly from start to finish.

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Subject: Guitar
Level: Level 2
Format: 1-on-1, online
Ages: 8 and up

About the course

Level 2 is where the guitar stops being a set of separate shapes and starts behaving like one instrument. You arrive able to play open chords and simple melodies; you leave able to play a complete song — intro, verse, chorus, ending — without stopping to reset your hand. The work is barre chords, right-hand control, and reading rhythm accurately enough that you can learn a new song from a chart instead of from a video.

By the end you will have several full songs you can perform from memory, a fingerstyle pattern you can apply to any progression, and enough theory to work out why the chords in a song go where they do. Most students notice the physical change first: the F barre chord that felt impossible in week one rings cleanly by the end of the course, because we build the hand shape and the strength in small, specific steps rather than hoping it arrives.

What you’ll be able to do

Play barre chords with E-shape and A-shape roots cleanly at any fret up to the ninth.
Change between barre and open chords in time at 90bpm without breaking the strumming pattern.
Play a full song from a chord chart, including intro, verse, chorus and ending.
Fingerpick a steady pattern with the thumb on the bass note and fingers on the top three strings.
Read and play sixteenth-note strumming patterns written with up and down stroke markings.
Work out the key of a song and name its I, IV, V and vi chords.
Transpose a song with a capo and explain which fret you chose and why.
Identify major, minor and dominant seventh chords by ear.

Curriculum

What’s covered

The full syllabus for Acoustic Guitar Level 2, in the order we teach it. Your teacher adjusts the pace to you, but nothing on this list gets skipped.

Rhythm & Reading

Sixteenth-note strumming: counting the subdivision and choosing where to leave gaps
Reading rhythm slashes and chord charts
6/8 and 12/8 time, and how they feel different from 3/4
Syncopation and anticipated chord changes (pushing the beat)
Ties and rests inside a strumming pattern
Reading melodies in second and fifth position on the staff
Nashville numbering as a fast way to write a song down

Music Theory

Major scale theory in G, D and A, and their key signatures
How triads are built from a scale
Diatonic chords: I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi and vii diminished
Dominant seventh chords and why they pull back to the tonic
The relative minor, and how to tell a minor-key song by its chords
Suspended chords (sus2, sus4) and add9 voicings
The capo as transposition rather than as a beginner shortcut

Playing & Technique

Full barre chords with E-shape and A-shape roots
Partial barres and the mini-barre for a cleaner F
Left-hand thumb position, and how to spend less effort on a barre
Palm muting and percussive strumming
Fingerstyle: thumb independence, pinch strokes and arpeggiated patterns
Hammer-ons, pull-offs and slides inside a chord shape
Alternate picking of melodies against a metronome
String damping so the strings you are not playing stay silent

Ear Training

Hearing the difference between major, minor and dominant seventh chords
Recognising I-IV-V and I-V-vi-IV progressions in songs you already know
Finding the root note of a song by ear on the low E string
Rhythmic dictation with eighth and sixteenth notes
Singing back a short phrase and then finding it on the fretboard

Prerequisites

Before you start

Two things to check: where you are as a player, and what you need in the room.

Experience

Guitar Level 1, or equivalent experience. Equivalent means you can already change between the open chords E, A, D, G, C, Am, Em and Dm without looking at your hand, play single-note melodies in first position, read notes on the staff in first position as well as tab, and strum in time with a metronome at 80bpm in 4/4. If you are not sure, a demo class places you accurately in about fifteen minutes.

Equipment

An acoustic guitar, nylon or steel string, in playable condition with a reasonably fresh set of strings, a few medium picks, a clip-on or app tuner, a stable internet connection and a webcam placed so both of your hands are visible. A capo is needed from roughly the middle of the course.

Pricing

What it costs

You buy class credits, not a subscription. Pick the bundle that suits you, book classes with your teacher, and use the credits within the validity period.

Starter

24 Classes

3-month plan · valid for 4 months

$26.50

per class

Total

$636

for all 24 classes, in USD

Frequently asked questions

Does it have to be a steel-string guitar?

No. A nylon-string classical guitar works for the whole course and is kinder on your fingertips. The one trade-off is that its neck is wider, which makes full barre chords slightly harder at first — so we spend a little longer on barre technique with nylon-string students and use partial barres for longer.

How much practice does this level actually need?

Twenty to thirty minutes on five days a week is the target, and it beats one long weekend session every time. Barre chords are built by short, frequent repetition — the hand needs recovery between sessions. If you can only manage fifteen minutes, spend ten of them on the barre exercise and five on the song.

My barre chords buzz. Is that normal at this stage?

Yes, and it is usually not strength. In class we check three things first: how close your finger sits to the fret wire, whether the barre finger is rolled slightly onto its side, and whether your guitar's action is set too high. The third one is a setup problem, not a playing problem, and it is worth fixing before you fight it for months.

I only want to accompany my own singing. Is this level still right?

It is the most useful level for that. Barre chords unlock every key so you can play in the key your voice actually sits in, the capo work lets you move a song up or down in seconds, and the strumming and fingerstyle patterns are exactly what accompaniment is made of.

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🎁 Free · 30 minutes · 1-on-1

Try Acoustic Guitar Level 2 free for one class.

Meet the teacher, play something on day one, and get an honest recommendation on where to start. If it isn't a fit, you've lost nothing but half an hour.

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