Based on the idea that normal university education should serve the needs of economic and social development, focus on academic knowledge education and professional skills training, and aim at cultivation of application-oriented talents, this paper discusses four aspects of cultivation of application-oriented guitar talents: education goal, education mode, curriculum reform system and reform achievement. The goal is to train guitar players or teachers of different abilities to adapt to social development; the mode is to require students to possess basic professional ethics; the curriculum reform system focuses on creation of a entrepreneurship system in normal universities, and development of market guidance and employment courses for guitar talents. Based on current reform achievements, it's concluded that the cultivation of application-oriented guitar talents in normal universities is in line with the education goals and expected results, and the education and teaching qualities have been further improved.