I have been wanting to learn the guitar for a while now, so went to a local shop the other day and after a lot of help from a very helpful lad bought a nice Walden acoustic.

Apart from buying a beginner book can anyone recommend any youtube links or websites for the absolute beginner.

Ill get a few lessons but cash flow is a bit tight this month after the guitar.

Ta

http://www.youtube.com/user/JustinSandercoe he has lessons for all ability levels.definitely worth looking at his lessons 🙂

Try justinguitar.com.

really knows his stuff and takes you from the very basics.

edit:

Beaten to it but this is Justin Sandercoe’s site and there’s a lot on here that you don’t get from YouTube

We all learn in different ways, but having somebody to make sure you don’t pick up bad habits can be useful when you’re starting out. The best advice I can offer is to buy a tuner and make sure your instrument is always in tune; but then learn how to tune by ear (comparing to songs you like and using 5th/7th frets and harmonics to tune each string, for example). And practice, practice, practice. First thing in the morning is the ideal time for learning/retaining. I know it sounds kind of obvious, but learn to use your ears (listen).

Great place to print off free chords and tablature for pretty much every song ever written.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com

If you don’t know what ‘Tab’ is, it’s music for those of us who can’t read sheet music – shows which strings are held down against which fret – really easy to read and understand.

Good luck, and don’t give up. It can be frustrating learning to play. Don’t try to run before you can walk either, or you will get disheartened. Pick a nice easy song to start with (no more than 3 chords) and keep practising. An easy one that everybody knows is Bob Dylan’s Knocking on Heaven’s Door.

You will also find when you start playing that certain chords are easier for you than others – try to find songs that use these chords initially, it should keep your morale up!!

Defo the Justin youtube site/channel is very good.

Sometimes its nice to learn from a book, as with the web/youtube you may end up finding yourself just watching loads of vids rather than actually trying to play yourself… well I did… so may I point you in the diretion of this book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Rock-Guitar-Player-Omnibus/dp/1844490505/ref=pd_sim_b_2

What is very good about this one is that it shows you the strumming patterns. I had a hard time getting my head around strumming to begin with. (Please dont be put off by the electric guitar on the front)

Good luck and to being with, superglue it to youself get comfortable with it. If you are sitting down on the sofa to watch Enders/QI pick it up! Waiting for the mrs to get ready, pick it up! Waiting for the kettle to boil, pick it up! Just keep moving your finger from E chord to A and back again.. A to D and back D to E and back C to G etc.

You will get better and see improvement with playing that baby….

I know damn well I’m in for some abuse for this but learning to read tab is a useful shortcut to getting around the fretboard. You can fill in the musical knowledge later. Most guitar magazines use tablauture as well as musical notation to help novices and non-musical types get to grips with the guitar better.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com is a useful resource for popular music tablature. There are also a few really good pieces of software such as Guitar Pro and Powertab that will play the tabs for you, often with a midi backing track. Be aware, these are never from official sources so may not be 100% but they’ll certainly help you to learn chord shapes and how the notes/scales are arranged on the guitar neck. Guitar Pro is particularly good as it features a tuner, a metronome and all the scale patterns on a guitar neck view as well as a bunch of other really useful stuff.

I hope that’s useful. I fully agree with three fish’s comment above. Your ears are the most useful tool for learning, and hopefully you have both of them in working order. I have been playing guitar for 12-13 years and could tune by ear fairly quickly but took a lot longer to start picking up songs by ear. My only other bit of advice is don’t get bored and don’t give up. It’s tricky to begin with, but a couple of hours a day will do wonders for your co-ordination.

I know damn well I’m in for some abuse for this but learning to read tab is a useful shortcut

Proper tab is actually much better than reading music for the guitar.

I can read music(to a point) and it always amazes me that i manage to interpert something completely different to others, for example, i’ll learn something from the music and then i’ll search on youtube to see how others have played it after i’ve learned it, and most of the time there are differences(Might be more to do with my limited reading ability mind). But tab is just more natural, and there’s not really a great deal of learning to it.

Written music is originally intended/developed for the piano, and just took over at some point for all music as a standard i think. If you go back to stuff like Lute music and that in the distant past, it’s all tab, not music as we know it today. Just a shame alot the tab on the internet is a nonsense really as it is a better format..

Nice one, thanks for that. Got a lesson sorted for next week to kick me off the right way and ill be checking the websites out. 😀

Lessons from a proper guitar teacher is pretty much the best way to learn. OK he’ll/she’ll make you do dull things (scales arpeggios music theory) BUT it will make you a better musician in the end.

Justin guitar is where I send most people who ask, then once you’ve a taste of it, get a teacher.

JustinGuitar

Excellent website, thhanks for the heads up. Bought the DVD set but using the online tutorials for now.