Strum chords and pick out melodies on an interactive acoustic fretboard. Click frets or use your keyboard to play warm acoustic tones, hit Play for a built-in song, or work out your own part — right in the browser, no download required.
The acoustic guitar is one of the most beloved instruments in the world — warm, resonant, and endlessly versatile. From campfire singalongs and folk ballads to fingerstyle pieces and pop hits, its natural, woody tone has carried songs across nearly every genre. Our free virtual acoustic guitar brings that warm sound to your browser, with no instrument required.
This free online guitar is part of ButtonBass, a music platform that has been helping people make music in the browser for over a decade. The acoustic guitar joins our family of string instruments alongside the electric and distorted guitars, the bass, and the banjo — all playable the same way, with a clickable fretboard, keyboard support, animated strings, and built-in songs.
Click anywhere on the fretboard to hear warm acoustic tones that respond instantly, or use your keyboard keys to play notes. The interactive layout shows every note position across the neck, so you can experiment with chords, melodies, and fingerpicked patterns. Animated strings add a visual dimension as you play.
Pre-loaded songs are ready for instant playback — just hit Play. Use Stop to halt playback, Next and Previous to move between songs, and Clear to empty the note box. Sequence notes across the neck to work out your own part, and adjust the tempo value to speed things up or slow them down so you can learn a passage at your own pace.
The acoustic guitar's ancestors stretch back centuries to instruments like the lute and the early Spanish guitar. The modern steel-string flat-top, developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, gave the instrument the volume and brightness that made it a staple of folk, country, and blues. The nylon-string classical guitar, meanwhile, kept its warm, mellow voice for classical and Latin music.
Its hollow wooden body is what gives the acoustic guitar its character: the soundboard vibrates and the body amplifies it naturally, producing that rich, resonant tone without any electronics at all.
Chords are several notes played together and form the harmonic backbone of most songs — click multiple frets to build them. Melodies are single-note lines you sequence across the neck, perfect for hooks and vocal-style phrases. Fingerpicking patterns weave melody and accompaniment together, a hallmark of folk and singer-songwriter playing. You can explore all three on the virtual acoustic guitar by stacking frets, sequencing notes, and varying your timing.
Start by playing single notes up and down the neck to learn where the pitches sit, then group a few into a simple chord. Lower the tempo on a pre-loaded song and watch which frets light up so you can connect the keys to the notes. Use the keyboard rather than the mouse for faster, more rhythmic playing. Because everything runs in your browser, you can test ideas instantly with no instrument or setup — on desktop, tablet, or phone.
Beyond the acoustic guitar, ButtonBass offers a growing library of browser-based instruments and games. Strum the electric and distorted guitars, the bass, or the banjo, play virtual pianos and synthesizers, mix loops on 3D cubes like the Dubstep Cube 2, jump into the multiplayer Jam Room, or try rhythm games like Beat Slicer and Piano Drop. Every tool is free, works on any device, and requires nothing more than a modern web browser.
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