Acoustic Instrument Lessons - Roots Music School

String School Courses

Choose any course below to view an intro video and free Sample Lesson, see descriptions of existing lessons, and learn about the course instructors. Join us today!

Just $20 per month!

Browse By Instrument

Guitar Courses

Learn to play guitar from scratch and sing some of your favorite songs with simple but powerful chords and strum patterns. Includes 24 great songs to play, with chord and lyric sheets.

Roots and Bluegrass Rhythm Guitar

Learn the essential techniques of roots and bluegrass rhythm guitar by playing classic and contemporary songs, with flatpicking technique tips and strums, bass runs, and fills.

Intermediate Flatpicking Guitar

Learn to play fiddle tunes and other bluegrass and roots melodies, with an emphasis on alternate picking, simple scales, and developing good picking- and fretting-hand technique. Designed for guitarists just starting to play melodies as well as intermediate players who want to work on their flatpicking technique.

Fingerstyle Guitar

Stevie Coyle

Intermediate / Advanced

• 34 Lessons

• 26 Tunes

Learn to play fingerstyle guitar, from traditional Travis-picking tunes to arrangements of contemporary fingerstyle tunes, song accompaniment and more, with acclaimed performer, teacher, and entertainer Stevie Coyle.

Blues Guitar

Orville Johnson

Intermediate / Advanced

• 27 Lessons

• 19 Tunes

Become a complete blues player through these lessons in country blues fingerpicking, blues lead guitar, and bottleneck slide, with great technique lessons and blues songs from Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, and more.

Advanced Flatpicking Guitar

Learn the essential techniques of bluegrass flatpicking guitar through classic and lesser-known songs and tunes, from bluegrass blues to old-time fiddle tunes to country swing sounds.

Fingerstyle Blues Guitar

Orville Johnson

Intermediate / Advanced

• 32 Lessons

• 23 Tunes

Learn to play fingerstyle blues, with a bottleneck slide and without, through songs from blues legends Mississippi John Hurt, Big Bill Broonzy, Lightnin' Hopkins, Tampa Red, Blind Willie Johnson, and more.

Learn to play the 1920s and ’30s chord melody and rhythm guitar styles of Eddie Lang, Nick Lucas, Freddie Green, Carl Kress, and other early jazz greats. With chord melody solos to popular swing melodies, advanced rhythm guitar techniques, and acoustic jazz picking techniques.

Learn to accompany jigs and reels and other traditional Irish dance tunes in the style pioneered by Irish guitar greats Paul Brady, Mícheál Ó Dhomhnaill, and Dáithí Sproule and used at Irish seisiúns. With chord voicings, rhythm patterns, and practice tracks.

Clawhammer Guitar

Steve Baughman

Intermediate / Advanced

• 21 Lessons

• 12 Tunes

Learn how to use the traditional clawhammer style of old-time banjo on the guitar to play traditional dance tunes with a powerful groove or sweet, contemplative melodies. With clawhammer technique exercises and 12 great tunes to play.

Learn to play reels, jigs, airs, and other traditional forms, both fingerstyle and with a flatpick. Celtic guitar master Tony McManus walks you through melodies and shows you how to bring tunes to life with the ornamentation that defines Irish and Scottish traditional music.

Advanced Fingerstyle Workshop

Meet 15 of the best players in the international fingerstyle guitar community, as they demonstrate their techniques, playing styles, and signature tunes.

Weekly Guitar Workout

This series of exercises will help guitarists learn the fingerboard and expand their knowledge of chord and scale theory, with handy tips on picking and fretting techniques that will improve their sound. Includes 100 workouts.

Guitar Chord Theory

Mark Goldenberg

Intermediate / Advanced

• 20 Lessons

• 0 Tunes

Learn guitar chord theory in-depth with Mark Goldenberg, a respected touring and session guitarist and a student of the legendary Ted Greene. You'll explore basic major and minor chord inversions all over the neck and on all string sets, as well as wide-triad voicings; harmonized major scales; major, minor, and dominant seventh-chord voicings; and more.

Mandolin Courses

Get started off right on the mandolin, with basic techniques, scales and chords, and simple and popular bluegrass and old-time tunes to play. Includes downloadable Play-Along audio practice tracks for rhythm and melody on all tunes, advice on embellishing melodies and playing tremolo, and more.

Theory for Mandolin and Fiddle

Chad Manning

Beginner / Intermediate

• 43 Lessons

• 6 Tunes

Learn the basics of music theory as it relates to four-string instruments tuned in fifths. Chad’s practical approach will deepen your knowledge of chords, scales, and arpeggios, and help you integrate them into your playing.

Bluegrass Mandolin Fingerboard Method

Learn to play solos to any bluegrass song in any key with Sharon's intermediate-level method for learning the fingerboard, based on arpeggios, chop-chord shapes, and double stops.

Bluegrass Mandolin Jam Favorites

Learn the essential instrumental tunes you’ll encounter at bluegrass jam sessions everywhere. Designed for intermediate level mandolinists, with tunes, techniques, and solos from mandolin greats.

Intermediate Bluegrass Mandolin

Sharon Gilchrist

Intermediate / Advanced

• 68 Lessons

• 53 Tunes

• Monthly Updates

Learn to play solos on classic bluegrass songs and instrumentals using bluegrass mandolin techniques like tremolo, double stops, two-string melodies, and more.

Irish Mandolin

Marla Fibish

Intermediate / Advanced

• 71 Lessons

• 63 Tunes

• Monthly Updates

Learn traditional Irish mandolin, with an emphasis on playing the dance music of Ireland with an authentic Irish feel and rhythm.

Monroe-Style Mandolin

Mike Compton

Intermediate / Advanced

• 66 Lessons

• 62 Tunes

• Monthly Updates

Learn traditional bluegrass-style mandolin as exemplified by the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, with original transcribed solos and tips on reproducing Monroe’s sound, rhythm, and feel.

Melodic Mandolin Tunes

John Reischman

Intermediate / Advanced

• 52 Lessons

• 49 Tunes

• Monthly Updates

Learn great traditional and original tunes in a variety of styles—old-time, bluegrass, Latin, jazz, and more—from a modern mandolin master.

The Advancing Mandolinist

Joe K. Walsh

Intermediate / Advanced

• 80 Lessons

• 77 Tunes

• Monthly Updates

Explore all the modern mandolin techniques, from tremolo, chords and double stops, and soloing and improvisation tips, with plenty of bluegrass, old-time and swing tunes to keep you moving forward.

Chord Melody Mandolin

Learn how to combine chords and melody to play jazz standards in the style pioneered by jazz mandolinist Jethro Burns and guitarists like Joe Pass and Bucky Pizzarelli.

Banjo Courses

Beginning Banjo

Bill Evans

Beginner / Intermediate

• 35 Lessons

• 30 Tunes

The driving sound of the banjo is at the heart of many styles of roots music. Get started with basic chords, strums, and fingerings, along with simple bluegrass rolls, accompaniment patterns, clawhammer style, and more.

Bluegrass Banjo

Bill Evans

Intermediate / Advanced

• 81 Lessons

• 65 Tunes

• Monthly Updates

Learn to make your banjo drive the band or play sweet melodies, with solos to well-known songs and tunes, backup techniques, and more.

Clawhammer Banjo

Evie Ladin

Beginner / Intermediate

• 77 Lessons

• 61 Tunes

Learn old-time clawhammer banjo from the beginning, with basic clawhammer technique exercises and lots of great old-time and traditional songs to play.

Wade Ward–Style Banjo

Bruce Molsky

Intermediate / Advanced

• 12 Lessons

• 11 Tunes

Learn the tunes and techniques of one of the legends of old-time clawhammer banjo, Wade Ward, taught by one of the icons of contemporary old-time music.