The structure and guidance you need on guitar is right here!

Excel your skills on the guitar more effectively than ever before through the renowned collection of Darryl Syms’s best online guitar courses, exclusive to Fretwise! Join the community among hundreds of other aspiring guitarists on a journey similar to yours 🙏

Unlock Your Potential

Develop all aspects of your guitar playing including – songwriting, modern techniques, music theory, improvisation, tone, and applied practice. The resources available on Fretwise are a reflection of what has sculpted Darryl’s unique sound on guitar. These courses will help you skip all of the trial and error in your practice, and guide you on the right track to fretboard mastery.

What's New?

Check out these latest additions to the Fretwise catalog

Unlock The Full Fretwise Experience!

Members get access to many perks beyond just courses

Screenshot of a Lesson from the CAGED Fretboard Visualisation Masterclass

200+ Guitar Lessons

8 Masterclasses packed full of instructional resources. All lessons include detailed video instruction with on-screen tabs & diagrams, accompanied with full written transcripts. Where necessary, tabs, diagrams, and backing tracks are also ready to download!

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Progress Tracking

Keep track of your progress by marking lessons as 'complete'. Your progress will be logged so that it's easy to continue where you left off and look back on how far you've progressed through each course.

Video Exchange with students of Fretwise

Video Exchange

Get the most out of Fretwise by sharing videos of your progress in the private Fretwise Premium group for tailored video feedback on your progression.

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Community Forum

Create and discuss topics and your questions in the community forum. Surround yourself with other passionate guitar players on a similar journey to yours.

Screenshot of the Exclusive Content feed for Fretwise Premium members

Bonus YouTube Resources

Download Tabs and backing tracks for my YouTube lessons and music, watch extended uncut versions of my YouTube videos, and get access to other unreleased resources that don’t make it to Social Media.

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Gear Discounts

Save $100's off selected gear from your favourite brands or shops across the web with exclusive discounts offered to Fretwise members.

Fretwise guitar competition announcement

Fretwise Events

Participate in online hangouts and occasional group activities. These events are exclusive to Fretwise members for a more intimate learning experience.

14 day money back guarantee

Money Back Guarantee

If you're not satisfied with Fretwise within the first 14 days, you can request a refund - hassle free.

Access Future Resources

When new resources are added or updated, and new masterclasses are introduced to the Fretwise catalog, these will be available to you at no extra cost or inconvenience.

Screenshot of a Lesson from the CAGED Fretboard Visualisation Masterclass

200+ Guitar Lessons

8 Masterclasses packed full of instructional resources. All lessons include detailed video instruction with on-screen tabs & diagrams, accompanied with full written transcripts. Where necessary, tabs, diagrams, and backing tracks are also ready to download!

Screenshot of guitar lesson progress tracking feature

Progress Tracking

Keep track of your progress by marking lessons as 'complete'. Your progress will be logged so that it's easy to continue where you left off and look back on how far you've progressed through each course.

Screenshot of the Fretwise Community Forum

Community Forum

Create and discuss topics and your questions in the community forum. Surround yourself with other passionate guitar players on a similar journey to yours.

Screenshot of the Exclusive Content feed for Fretwise Premium members

Bonus YouTube Resources

Download Tabs and backing tracks for my YouTube lessons and music, watch extended uncut versions of my YouTube videos, and get access to other unreleased resources that don’t make it to Social Media.

Video Exchange with students of Fretwise

Video Exchange

Get the most out of Fretwise by sharing videos of your progress in the private Fretwise Premium group for tailored video feedback on your progression.

Sale

Gear Discounts

Save $100's off selected gear from your favourite brands or shops across the web with exclusive discounts offered to Fretwise members.

Access Future Resources

When new resources are added or updated, and new masterclasses are introduced to the Fretwise catalog, these will be available to you at no extra cost or inconvenience.

14 day money back guarantee

Money Back Guarantee

If you're not satisfied with Fretwise within the first 14 days, you can request a refund - hassle free.

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COUNTRIES

Choose Your Learning Path

If you want to tackle everything I have to offer, then Fretwise Premium is for you! Otherwise if you prefer to tackle one asset at a time without any ties – you can also purchase courses individually 🙏

Single Course Purchases

Access to only what you pay for.

  • Access to only what you purchase
  • Community Forums
  • Progress Tracking
  • Video Exchange
  • Bonus YouTube Resources
  • Fretwise Events
  • Gear Discounts

Fretwise Premium

Unrestricted access to all content and features!

  • Unrestricted access to all classes
    • Music theory
    • Fretboard visualisation
    • Technique
    • Composition
    • Learn and analyse Darryls music!
  • Community Forums
  • Progress Tracking
  • Video Exchange
  • Bonus YouTube Resources
  • Fretwise Events
  • Gear Discounts

Unbeatable Value

Get unlimited access site-wide with Fretwise Premium for less than the price of one single traditional guitar lesson

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*Billed as one payment. Subscription renews automatically at the end of term. You can turn off auto-renew from your account settings.

14 day refund policy

FAQ

Most frequent questions and answers. If you can't find your answers here, please send a message!

Is Fretwise right for you?

Fretwise is designed specifically for intermediate to advanced guitarists who find themselves at a crossroads in their musical journey.

  • Do you often feel lost or uncertain about how to progress?
  • Are you unsure how to practice effectively?
  • Do you want structure and accountability?
  • Have you been playing for years but you want to fill in the gaps in your understanding of the guitar?
  • Are you inspired to play in the style of Darryl Syms?
  • Do you want a concise learning pathway without all of the fluff and boredom from some YouTube teachers?

If you answered yes to any of these then you're in the right place!

What makes Fretwise better than other guitar lesson sites?

So many things!

  • I'm a firm believer of quality over quantity. Many lesson sites have many hundreds, even thousands of lessons and sometimes it feels like a game of numbers. There's already an overwhelming amount of lessons on YouTube, so I'm here to “cut the b.s” and deliver the juicy goodness in the quickest and most effective way possible. You'll spend less time getting lost, and more time on effective practice and learning!
  • I actually break down and discuss topics thoroughly, with demonstrations! Many other learning platforms post video demos, and only written explanations. I provide both video and written lesson notes, both in such intricate detail.
  • I recognise that teaching is a skill in itself beyond just being a great guitar player. Teaching is a skill I've been developing since my mid-teens, and not only in the area of music. I've taught thousands of one-on-one lessons, worked in schools, taught group classes in multiple venues, and helped millions of people via my YouTube channel. What you see on this website brings all of those skills together.
  • I settle for nothing less than best. Everything about this platform has been carefully put together and is always in a state of improvement.
  • My lessons accommodate beginners, intermediate, and advanced players. No matter what your genre or style interests are, there's something that every guitar player can take from this platform.
  • Fretwise isn't just a place that you come to learn, but also a place where you can get social in a community of like-minded guitar enthusiasts from around the world. Connect, get feedback, discuss, and grow together!

What's included in each masterclass?

At Fretwise, each masterclass is designed to provide you with a comprehensive and enriching learning experience. Here's what you can expect to find in every masterclass:

  • Video Instruction: Concise video lessons with on-screen tabs and diagrams to visually guide you through each topic.
  • Written Transcripts: Full written transcripts of every lesson, complete with diagrams and tabs available for download in both PDF and Guitar Pro formats.
  • Backing Tracks: Where applicable, we provide backing tracks to enhance your practice and enable you to apply what you've learned in a musical context.
  • Structured Learning: Fretwise classes are meticulously structured to help you build your skills progressively. You'll find a clear path from fundamental concepts to more advanced techniques.
  • Practice Ideas: We offer practice ideas and exercises to reinforce your understanding of the material and ensure you're making consistent progress.
  • Progress Tracking: Our platform includes tools to track your progress, making it easy to monitor your development and set achievable goals.
  • Support: Take advantage of the community forums to ask any of your questions or discuss challenges that you encounter on your journey.

With these resources and features, each masterclass on Fretwise is designed to empower you with the knowledge, skills, and the support you need to excel in your guitar playing journey.

How long should you expect to spend on each masterclass?

At Fretwise, we understand that every guitarist progresses at their own pace. Here's a general guideline to help you plan your learning journey with our masterclasses:

Time Commitment: On average, it takes about 3 months of frequent study to really grasp the material covered in our masterclasses. While the instructional time for each class typically lasts between 2-3 hours, we recommend that you watch and read through the provided resources multiple times to fully absorb the information.

Lesson Duration: Each individual lesson is designed to be no longer than 15 minutes in length. This provides you with bite-sized chunks of information that you can study and practice over the course of many days, without feeling confused and overwhelmed of your task at hand.

Practice Along: To maximize your learning experience, we encourage you to practice along with your instructor, Darryl. Repetition and hands-on practice are key to solidifying your skills and understanding of the content.

Remember, there's no rush when it comes to mastering the guitar. Take your time, focus on the details, and practice regularly to see steady improvement. Our platform is designed to support your journey, whether you progress quickly or prefer a more gradual approach.

How frequently are masterclasses updated?

Masterclasses are a big undertaking. We aim to bring you updates to Fretwise resources about once a month. However, creating entirely new masterclasses is a more extensive process and can take between 4-6 months to complete.

It's important to note that our main focus isn't just to flood you with "thousands of lessons" like many other guitar lesson websites. Fretwise is not designed to be an endless sea of resources, which typically leaves players feeling as lost as they were on YouTube. We believe in quality over quantity.

Fretwise Premium membership vs. Single Class purchases: Which is right for you?

At Fretwise, we offer two distinct options to suit your learning needs: Fretwise Premium Membership and Single Class Purchases. Here's a breakdown of the key differences:

Fretwise Premium Membership:

  • All-Access Pass: With a Premium Membership, you gain unrestricted access to our extensive library of masterclasses, bonus YouTube resources, and exclusive gear discounts. This means you can explore a wide range of topics, techniques, and resources to enhance your guitar skills.
  • Comprehensive Learning: Enjoy the flexibility to dive deep into multiple classes, allowing you to broaden your knowledge and proficiency in various aspects of guitar playing.
  • Community and Progress Tracking: Like Single Class Purchases, Premium Membership also grants access to our vibrant community forums and progress tracking features. Connect with fellow guitar enthusiasts, share experiences, and monitor your growth.
  • Video Exchange: Post videos of progress and playing, inviting personalised feedback from your instructor, Darryl.
  • Cost Effective: Fretwise Premium Membership offers the best value for money by providing you with an extensive range of resources and benefits at a cost-effective price.

Single Class Purchases:

  • Class-Specific Access: When you opt for Single Class Purchases, you gain access exclusively to the specific class you've purchased. This is an ideal choice if you have a particular area of interest or want to focus on mastering one specific skill.
  • Community and Progress Tracking: You still enjoy the benefits of connecting with our community and tracking your progress, just like Premium Members.

Choosing between Fretwise Premium Membership and Single Class Purchases depends on your learning style and goals. If you're eager to explore a wide range of topics and access additional resources, Premium Membership offers the most comprehensive experience. However, if you prefer a more focused approach or want to take one specific class, Single Class Purchases provide that flexibility.

Whichever option you choose, Fretwise is committed to supporting your guitar journey, ensuring you receive the guidance and resources you need to excel.

Is Fretwise worth the money?

Yes, you'll struggle to find a better and more cost or time effective investment in your guitar education. Here's why:

  • Affordability: Each of our masterclasses are priced more competitively than a single one-hour private lesson with Darryl or any top-tier instructor. This means you're getting high-quality, in-depth instruction at a fraction of the cost of traditional lessons.
  • Fretwise Premium: Our premium membership starts at just $18 per month which is less than $0.60 per day!

You're likely here after spending countless hours of learning from YouTube videos. YouTube and free online tabs are excellent resources, but if you want to get better quicker and ensure that you're not missing any critical knowledge, then look no further than Fretwise.

Signing up to Fretwise removes the need for guesswork, providing you with clear daily and weekly objectives to enhance your guitar skills.

Simply put: spend your time or your money - whichever is less valuable to you.

Can I cancel my membership at any time?

Yes! Cancelling your membership is completely hassle-free. Simply click the cancel button in your account settings. No gimmicks and no confirmation emails - it couldn't get any simpler.

Your membership will stay active for the remainder of your billing cycle, but you will not be charged again for renewal. Access to all membership resources will expire on the originally scheduled renewal date.

Should you wish to resume your membership, it's just as easy. Log in to your account and go to your account settings to renew or crossgrade your membership to pick up right where you left off.

Is there a free trial available?

No, we don't offer a free trial. However, we provide a generous 14-day money-back guarantee for all purchases! If, for any reason (though it's quite unlikely), you're not satisfied with the resources and materials on Fretwise, you can reach out to staff to request a full refund. We value your feedback, and if there's anything we can do to improve your experience before taking this step, please let us know!

Find out more from our terms of service.

Trusted by Students worldwide

5.0 Star Rating
5/5

All you need to know to gitgud

Stop reading and get started on his courses already! – For me, I decided to return to basics and despite knowing most of the material prior, it enforces what one may already know in a very easy to understand and structured manner. Not only did I pick up new ways to practice old tricks, it also provided me great insight on how to approach teaching this vast topic to my students. Absolutely great resource as always, can’t wait to go through the other courses. Less typing, more practicing 😉 Darryl, you da man!

5/5
Avatar for ETHAN
ETHAN

Challenging

I love it. He took a challenge concept and made it easy to follow. I knew about GAGED already but this way made it lot easier. I wish I discovered it sooner.

5/5
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Emeraude

Excellente course!

Everything is very well explained!

5/5
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Josefina

Another fantastic masterclass put together by Darryl.

I’m going through all the courses in Fretwise and I’m again blown away by the way Darryl presents material and gradually escalates the concepts and difficulty. This course starts by going over the basics of harmony, reviewing all the diatonic chords and inversions in a key, but also presenting the function these chords have in a progression. Then the most common (and useful) progressions are reviewed and analyzed in popular songs for you hear their practical application.

THEN the fun starts by going into the weeds of advanced harmony, where you will learn how to completely transform repetitive progressions into something completely new and interesting with diatonic and non-diatonic substitutions. The cherry on the cake is the run-down at the end where you review the whole course by creating everything from the ground up, from basic to complex; and then understand the different levels of melody/solo creation to perfectly tie in to your creation.

WELL WORTH the investment. Darryl, THANK YOU for such a well presented, thorough and easy to follow course. JUST TAKE THIS COURSE, beginning to end, then go through it again! You WILL be a different musician by the end.

5/5
Avatar for Alvaro
Alvaro

Excellent introductory course into the world of fingerstyle!!

Darryl is a soulful and gifted guitarist, and a methodical teacher who starts every lesson by impressing you up front with his performance to get you excited; and then slowly shows you exactly how to there at a very digestible pace. You will start thinking “this is impossible”; and finish saying “that wasn’t so bad, let’s try the next lesson!”. This is not easy stuff, but that just goes to show how amazing of a teacher Darryl is.

The course will start with the basics of fingerstyle, practicing finger independence and basic percussion, and then graduate you to more complex rhythmic techniques to use your picking hand as a built in beat machine while you pluck, hammer, pull-off and flick away. All the techniques used by all modern day popular guitarists. Once you’re playing songs, he will walk you through his process of choosing a basic chord progression, adding a melody, coloring with chord inversions and extensions, and then finally applying fingerstyle technique to make everything sound cohesive and beautiful. You’ll finish the course by learning Darryl’s actual compositions, tying in all the content of the course together in gorgeous songs you will play for years to come!

Take the course, you will NOT regret it. Just make sure your axe is well set up. A comfortable action is a must to nail the hard passes of sliding chords with hammer-ons and pull-offs. I will be taking EVERYTHING else Darryl has to offer!!

5/5
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Alvaro

A Profound theoretical AND practical Approach!

Very easy to follow and understand, plus practical exercises that provide a solid foundation! Loads of fun to work with those!

5/5
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Inf1nity

Simple Explanation of Complex Ideas

I’ve always respected and enjoyed Daryl’s content as he has a way of simplifying complicated musical concepts. He’s very thorough in his work and is able to appeal to all skill levels at once through detailed explanation. I look forward to each new course he puts out because of this!

5/5
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sdavisjr

As Good of a Theory Primer as it Gets

This course goes along perfectly with the CAGED course that he offers and I personally have gone through both at least twice and plan to reference it as needed over years to come. Lessons are concise, yet thorough. I’d recommend doing one lesson per day to really get the most out of the material and to help it stick. The material he’s sharing is all very relevant and pertinent to your every day playing. There’s actually no section in any of his courses thus far that I’ve found to be redundant or non-practical. Keep rockin’ my friends!

5/5
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sdavisjr

Best Teaching Method For The CAGED System I've Ever Taken

I ordered Martin Millers Fretboard Visualization Vol.1 and it had plenty of “exercises,” if that’s what you want to call them, but it explained nothing. Darryl’s CAGED Masterclass is just what I was looking for! If you want a fretboard visualization system to tie together Chords, Arpeggios, Scales and Interval mapping then do yourself a favor, get this masterclass…Like, NOW!

5/5
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Robert

A gem of a course from a gem of a player/teacher. Hands down winner here. I've learned so much from Darryl. Thank you!

I haven’t finished this course as I’m being as thorough as possible but its already provided so many incredible tools and lessons for hours of endless learning. It’s already a 5-Star course in my book. Darryl is an incredible teacher and player that has heaps of wonderful insight to the basics of guitar and music theory. Not to mention his tasteful playing is such an inspiration to my own. I’ve learned so much here and on youtube and I have you to thanks Darryl! Thank you. I love feeling the progress and finding connections through your lessons and my everyday playing. Hope to become my own best version of musical self on my guitar journey.

Personal side note as someone who has play guitar for over a decade and never learned a lick of theory. As I move through the course I make sure to take breaks in between learning the course material and try to apply it to both writing and learning other musicians music. I then go back and try to take a deeper dive and truly learn the theory behind what I’m playing and not just “memorizing” the shapes but really understanding the intervalic value and understanding what I’m playing (I happen to be learning triads). I find this more digestible and advise other to do the same if it feels overwhelming. I compare it to learning a new language – if you just memorize a sentence/words do you really know what your saying? It takes time and effort to truly understand it all. Multiple visits to the same lesson is it’s own lesson I’m learning! – You’re your own boss when truly learning and no ones watching so make it count! Good luck to everyone!

5/5
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ronnietyler