Our Story
This Is Where Guitarists Finally Break Through
The Truth Is, Most Guitarists Stay Stuck Forever.
Maybe that’s where you are right now.
You pick up your guitar and play a few familiar chords. Maybe a lick or two you’ve played for years. And then you set it down again, feeling like something’s missing, but you’re not sure what. You love the guitar. You always have. But deep down, it feels like you’re chasing a dream that keeps slipping further away.
We get it.
In fact, Guitar Mastery Method was built for you.
Keep reading & find out why below the timeline…
Guitar Mastery Method: The Origin Timeline
2011 – 2012
The Spark, The Plan, The Build
The idea is born.
In 2011, Charlie Wallace sat in a bedroom in Hawke’s Bay and asked, ‘Why hasn’t anyone made this simple?’
He decided to be the one who would and begins building everything needed for Guitar Mastery Method to become a reality.
2013
First Course Filmed at The Cabana
After years of planning, Charlie films the first-ever GMM course at local music venue ‘The Cabana’ in Napier, New Zealand.
2014
GMM Goes LIVE
After learning web design, video editing, and doing everything by himself, he barely slept to make sure everything was ready.
Sitting on a creaky, broken fold out couch that was his bed, Charlie hits ‘Publish’.
17 minutes later, on August 4th 2014, the first ever GMM member joins.
2015
Building from the Bedroom
Working from a cramped room, with just a desk, a dream, and a cat named Bear supervising operations.
(Bear still supervises operations to this day)
2016
Growing, But Still Cramped
The VIP Club is launched, including live group lessons.
Courses start multiplying.
The community begins to grow.
We’re still recording in a room so small you had to crab-walk sideways to get in front of the camera.
First team members join who are still with us to this day:
Elmar our video editing wizard
Jonny Meechan who now runs almost everything. He started out helping me in the evenings on a tiny desk we cut down to fit inside a wardrobe (it was all the space we had!).
2017
New Courses, 100,000 Guitarists Sign Up & Mike Baelde Joins The Team!
Charlie releases the Texas Blues Mastery course.
Over 100,000 guitarists have tried GMM lessons at this point.
The word begins to spread and we start creating a bigger impact around the world.
Instructor Mike Baelde joins the GMM team.
2018
First Office, First Full-Time Team, First In-Person Live Event: GMX (+ Arielle & Eddie Join!)
The team can no longer fit into my tiny bedroom, so we moved into our first office and the team started to grow fast.
The first Guitar Mastery LIVE in-person event, Guitar Mastery Experience happens, where GMM members from around the world flew in to New Zealand.
Instructor Arielle joins the GMM team.
Instructor Eddie Haddad joins the GMM team.
2019
Global Growth & One Million Guitarists Served
The GMM impact starts to spread, we reach over 1,000,000 guitarists worldwide, more courses, more lessons and the community grows stronger.
2020
When the World Paused, Music Played On
The GMM Community lit up during a time of global isolation. GMM continued expanding globally – now with more instructors, livestreams, and the GMM community taking off during lockdown.
2021
VIP Elite Coaching Is Launched
After many requests from our members we launch the coaching side of GMM allowing members to get more direct access to instructors through webcam lessons.
2022
International Best-Selling Book & Lexi Rose Joins
Charlie releases his first book, teaching his methodology on how learn the fretboard in his book The Guitar Pattern Recognition System and it instantly reaches ‘International Best Selling’ status getting sent to every corner of the globe.
Instructor Lexi Rose joins the GMM team.
2023
2 Million Guitar Players Served
GMM crosses 2 million students.
New music, new lessons, new energy.
2024
Impact Spreading, Meeting Members On The Road
Charlie toured Australia & UK/Europe with his band Black Smoke Trigger, and had the chance to meet more of our incredible GMM members from the community.
I love meeting members around the world and hearing their success stories. We’re a global family.
2025 – Guitar Mastery Live – We’re Just Getting Started…
Millions of guitarists have already joined the movement. We’ve filmed lessons around the world, shared stages with legends, and helped players go from uncertain beginner/intermediate players to confident performers.
We broke a world record for the biggest online guitar lesson on YouTube
And the best part? The next chapter hasn’t been written yet.
Because maybe… the next breakthrough story is yours…
From a Cramped Bedroom to a Global Movement
Guitar Mastery Method didn’t start with a big team, fancy studio, or slick production.
It started in a tiny bedroom in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, the kind of room where you couldn’t even fully open the door without hitting something. Charlie Wallace was running on next to no sleep, learning how to edit videos on a slow and struggling laptop, surrounded by gear and empty coffee cups. With giant bags under his eyes, and a fire in his heart. He knew his dream was real.
He didn’t know how to build a website. So he learned.
He didn’t know how to edit videos. So he learned that too.
Design PDFs? Build a membership site? Shoot promo videos?
Every skill was earned through bloodshot eyes and brute-force perseverance.
He’d teach students during the day, play in his band at night, and build Guitar Mastery Method in the hours most people were asleep – chasing this insane idea that he could change the way people learned guitar all around the world.
He wasn’t trying to build a company.
He was trying to build a time machine.
He was building something that he dreamed he could send back to his younger self, to make learning easier, faster and better. He knew if he could create that – it would make a big impact on people wanting to learn how to play.
He was doing everything himself: filming lessons in between day jobs and band rehearsals, learning how to edit videos, how to build websites, how to write emails, design PDFs, and set up payment systems all from scratch. There was no team. No budget. Just belief, and grit.
The early students still remember those days, when Charlie was responding to every email personally. He was fixing bugs at 2AM, teaching by day and editing by night. Some of those students are still with us today, proud to have been part of the foundation.
And somehow, through all of that, it grew. First came the need for an office. Then a small team. Then more instructors.
Now, Guitar Mastery Method is an international company with world-class instructors, an incredible crew behind the scenes, and students in over 74 countries around the globe.
But it never stopped being personal. Every breakthrough a student has still means everything to him. Because this didn’t start as a business. It started as a mission — to give guitarists around the world what Charlie never had: a clear, powerful, step-by-step path to guitar mastery.
From a cramped bedroom to global stages. From one struggling laptop to over 4.5 million hours watched.
From one guy with a vision, to a movement that has changed the lives of over 2 million guitar players.
“Why hasn’t anyone made this simple?”
Years later, while touring Europe with his band, Charlie realized something: online guitar instruction was still just as fragmented, dull, and uninspiring as when he started. So he made a decision. He’d create the resource he always wished he had.
He spent three years learning everything: how to film, edit videos, build a website, create a membership platform, write the lessons, design the materials, and lay it all out in a way that was fun, fast, and actually worked.
In 2014, he launched Guitar Mastery Method. 17 minutes after the website went live, the first member joined.
But before even creating GMM, there had to be a spark…
It all started in a dusty garage in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, when a teenage Charlie Wallace heard “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath and knew he had to learn it. He picked up a beat-up acoustic guitar, pulled up a tab online, and taught himself the riff.
That was the spark. And it never went out.
Charlie fell in love with guitar in the early days of the internet, when online lessons were scattered and confusing. So he did what many players do: he pieced it together, painfully, slowly, obsessively.
But along the way, one question burned in his mind:
What happened next was magic.
One sale turned into ten. Ten turned into a hundred. And over time, over 2 million guitar players from 74+ countries joined the movement. Students who had been stuck for decades suddenly started getting it. They were jamming. Soloing. Writing songs. Performing. Smiling. Crying.
One man wrote in saying, “This is one of the most significant moments of my life. Right next to getting married and having kids.”
Another said, “I’ve been playing guitar for over 50 years off and on. I learned more in this 10-week course than in all those years combined.”
And another, laughing, said, “Now I’m bloody Eric Clapton. I know I’m not, but I feel like I am!”
This isn’t hype. It’s what happens when you finally have a method that works.
Since launching in 2014, Guitar Mastery Method lessons have been watched for over 4.5 million hours. That’s more than 513 years of people learning, growing, and finally getting it. That’s not just lessons… that’s a legacy. Lifetimes’ worth of breakthroughs, goosebumps, and proud moments where someone said, ‘I can finally get it!’.
Guitar Mastery Method is not about gimmicks.
- We teach real musicianship.
- We give you a step-by-step path.
- We show you exactly what to practice each week.
- We set you challenges.
- We give you results.
Because here’s the truth:
Most of our students come to us with a story. Maybe they played a bit when they were young, then life got in the way, careers, families, responsibilities. Decades pass, but the dream never leaves. And now they’ve finally carved out a bit of time, only to find that most lessons out there are confusing, boring, or leave out the crucial steps.
That’s where we come in.
We help you go from someone who just owns a guitar, to someone who is a real guitarist.
That identity shift is at the core of everything we do.
With courses built around the way the brain actually learns, and a teaching philosophy grounded in simplicity and momentum, you’ll finally feel like you’re making real progress.
You’ll solo in any key. You’ll understand your fretboard. You’ll jam with confidence. And you’ll feel that quiet but powerful pride of knowing: this is who I am now.
And you won’t do it alone.
Our global community is one of the most passionate and supportive guitar groups on the planet.
With over 60,000 guitarists in our members community and over 10,000 in our VIP Club, it’s the place where players go from isolated to inspired.
We host live lessons, weekly challenges, and Q&A sessions with real, world-class instructors who walk the walk, from Arielle, who’s performed with the likes of Brian May, to Eddie Haddad, who played lead for Eddie Money, to veteran educator & pro guitarist Mike Baelde, internet sensation Lexi Rose, and the entire GMM crew.
These aren’t just guitar teachers. They’re performers. They’re mentors. And they’re living proof that the passion you have can take you places.
In fact, Charlie himself has said, about touring with his band Black Smoke Trigger “I’m blessed to play to thousands of people at a time at some of the most iconic music venues in the world, and I’ve had moments looking out at a sea of people and seen fans holding up Guitar Mastery Method T-shirts. That’s when you know this is bigger than just guitar lessons. It’s a movement.”
Today, Guitar Mastery Method is run by a world-class international team. Charlie still teaches and leads the vision along with his best friend who helped him with so many of those late nights to make GMM what it is, Jonny Meechan, while instructors like Arielle, Eddie Haddad, Mike Baelde, and Lexi Rose, all guide students with passion, precision, and heart.
But we never forget where it started:
One guy. One guitar. One mission.
To help you become the guitarist you were meant to be.
And if you’re holding onto the dream of finally getting good at guitar… this is your moment.
If you’ve ever wanted to finally understand the notes on your fretboard and how to use them to sound great… this is the place for you.
We’re still that same gritty company. We’re still cheering for every breakthrough.
We’re still building something we believe in.
The only thing missing… is you.
You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need hours a day. You just need the passion.
If you’re on the fence, wondering if you belong here, the answer is simple:
If you’ve still got the fire, we’ll give you the path.
Welcome to Guitar Mastery Method.
Guitar Mastery Method: Powered by Our Students
At Guitar Mastery Method, our story isn’t complete without the voices of our students. They are the heart of everything we do. We’re not just a guitar lesson company. We’re a global community where real people transform their lives through the power of music. And their words say it best.
“Over 20 years I’ve been messing around, not getting anywhere. Now I’m bloody Eric Clapton!”
— Matt White, Kings Langley, UK
Matt isn’t alone. We’ve had over 2 million guitarists from every corner of the world dive into our lessons. Why? Because they’re finally finding a method that makes sense. A method that works. A method that helps them feel like real guitarists.
“I’ve been playing guitar for over 50 years off and on, and I learned more in the 10-week course than I have in almost all of those 50 years combined.”
— Sam Collins, Georgia, USA
Most students join Guitar Mastery Method with a familiar story: they started playing when they were younger, but life got in the way. Work. Family. Time. Confidence. They picked up their guitar again, hoping this time it would finally click.
And when they found Guitar Mastery Method, it did.
“My wife walked past the room while I was jamming, stopped, and asked, ‘Was that you playing?’ She couldn’t believe it.”
Inside our courses, they finally discovered the step-by-step structure that had been missing. Our Guitar Pattern Recognition System™ removes the guesswork, reveals the roadmap, and connects the dots.
But it’s more than just lessons. It’s a place where they belong.
Our private communities are alive with encouragement, feedback, and transformation. Students post progress videos, join weekly lick challenges, attend live feedback sessions with instructors, and support one another every step of the way.
“This has been one of the more significant moments of my life. There was getting married. There was the birth of my children. And this.”
Whether they’re playing in front of friends, jamming at church, or finally writing their own songs – our students go from feeling stuck to saying: “I’m a guitarist now.”
That’s the real power of Guitar Mastery Method. And if you’re reading this wondering if it could work for you too, here’s the answer:
Yes.
You’re not too late. You’re not too old. You haven’t missed your shot. The only thing you need is the desire to play.
We’ll give you the tools, the structure, the support, and the fire to make it real.
“I’m a million miles from being Eric Clapton, but I feel like him.”
Click that first chord. We’ll help you play the next hundred. Welcome to Guitar Mastery Method.