I bought an acoustic guitar back in the mists of time, when I was a student. I lived with a few guys who could play and learnt some basic chords and a few bits of songs from them. When I left uni the guitar went under the bed and I hardly played it.

Wind forward 25 years and my daughter has taken up guitar lessons so I dug out my guitar and have started messing about on it. I’m really enjoying just putting notes together, making noises that sound OK to me but I’d like to be a bit more organised about it, learn some theory, scales, etc

Do I need to get lessons or are there good books, websites that will help me? I’ve found tutorials on YouTube and tabs here and there but I’m really after something more structured. What do you recommend?

Other than finding a local teacher, Justin Sandercoe, his website and his YouTube videos are pure teaching genius.

Just search for “guitar Justin”. All free as well.

As recommended to me on here a while back

Justinguitar

Cracking website with easy to follow instructions and videos.

Check out the beginners course on the left.

Great stuff. I’ll check it out. Is it worth getting a few lessons just to correct all the bad technique, etc that I must have picked up. Don’t think I want lessons long term

Nice one thinking of taking this up myself

For me i found using the justin site enough for the first couple of months then i got regular lessons, Give the site a try and see how you get on, remember it is aimed at complete beginners so you should be able to fix poor habits along the way.

If you want to improve your playing then lessons are essential. There isn’t really any other way of getting feedback and no matter how good the websites are these days they really aren’t a substitute.

Pretty much all professional musicians and singers will still take lessons they are an important part improving and maintaining technique and ability. I’m thinking about starting to play again (not guitar though) and if I do I’ll certainly take lessons.

+10000000 for lessons. It’s the fastest bestest route to becoming a rock star 🙂

You can learn using books and websites, the recommendations here are good, but a website cant tell you you are doing it wrong and can’t tailor the training to your learning style or tailor the course to your goals as a musician.

I think that at the start lessons are a good idea. However, the key is regular practice – minimum 30 mins a day to improve to a good standard but an hour is ideal. Every day is better than mammoth sessions once a week.
One of the best teachers on the web is on You Tube – deltabluestips. Here’s an example of one of his videos but there is more basic stuff and you’ll learn about The Blues with his teaching and learn some great techniques and songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGbXLcZRqn8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEv5LF-8waQ
If you like his stuff on You Tube then buy his box sets which are great value and expand on what he teaches via YT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tixhjsSgCbI
Cheers

To add to what hitman said about the importance of regular practice*: do it first thing in the morning if you can. You’ll find that you retain much more.

*try thinking of it as playing rather than practice.

Learn theory and technique from the internet, learn to play music with other musicians, whether it be through lessons or through jamming.

I’m not a complete beginner – I can bash out a pretty decent noise (to my ears!) and improvise a bit but I don’t really know what I’m doing which limits what I can do and i’m sure I’m making all sorts of schoolboy errors.

I really enjoy practising/playing so that’s not a problem.

Think I’ll see if I can get some lessons but will try these sites in the meantime.

Find a pub that has an accoustic night – not an on-stage thing, more a sit round tables taking turns thing. Learn a couple of songs, take the songsheets with you and have a bash. It brings you on in no time – you learn to play by ear and pick up chords etc and it’s much more fun than bedroom practice.

But I agree lessons are good too. In fact both work by making you practise so you are better each time you go.

Cheez
I also think it depends upon what sort of style you want to play. If its playing the chords of the latest tune and singing along, then almost any decent book or website should show you how to do this. If you want to do more than this then a teacher will help, but don’t discount You Tube – there’s loads of great videos out there with lots of tips to embellish and improve on the basic chord sound.

Check out Marty Schwartz (hey guys whazzup!) on youtube too

Oh, and learn to work out your fave songs by ear, and then play along.

+1 for justin, also scales, scales and more scales. get a book full and play em all over and over again. practice every day, 30 mins minimum. i used to practice 4 hours a day, now its like breathing. did i mention scales?

definately another massive thumbs up for Justin. an excellent variety of tunes for an audience of mixed ability as well as well explained, detailed but not OTT lessons on theory. Great results are very achievable in a comparatively short space of time. the guy is a saint.