My lad is starting guitar lessons at school so I thought I’d take the opportunity to learn with him.

I’ve got the wife’s guitar out of the loft.
I’ve cleaned it up.
I’ve tuned it.
…and that’s it.

Can anyone recommend the next first step as I have no clue!

https://www.justinguitar.com/en/BC-000-BeginnersCourse.php

What Seosamh says, also has Youtube links for songs.

I always recommend getting your guitar properly set up (intonation/action/neck). Either learn yourself or get a tech to do it. A well set-up and tuned instrument, even a cheap one, is easier to play and always sounds as good as it can and helps in learning to trust your ears. Also learn how to tune using harmonics (5th/7th fret) and octaves – this really helps to tune your ear in. Learn to tune from recorded music too. You should be able to depend less on your tuner pretty quickly.

Practice in the morning, play in the evening. Doesn’t work for everyone, but I’ve always found my playing improves most when I do it that way. Most of all, enjoy yourself. It gets pretty hard and you’re more likely to get through it if you can enjoy the tough stuff too.

Justin Guitar is the best (I paid £50 for another online course / lessons years ago but Justin is free and much better, buy a songbook or two to show him some love). Follow on Facebook too.

I am perennial beginner but do as I say and not as I do, try and play 10-20 mins every day.

learning a 4th chord will mean you become a show-pony jazz-bastard.

err, those appear to be ukulele chords, hence the four strings… 😆

Yep, those 3 chords are most definitely not the guitar version of A, D and G. 🙂

As the others have said, get on to Justins Guitar and try and do a little bit each day. The great thing about the guitar is you can get something sounding good and tuneful really quickly. Don’t be surprised if your fingers start to hurt in the first few days. A bit of perseverance and it will pass as those fingers harden a bit. The other valuable piece of advice is to try and not learn / develop bad habits / poor technique from the start. Concentrate on trying to do things properly and well and it will serve you in the long term. For example, get used to using your little finger on the left hand and don’t press the strings too hard.

Enjoy!

err, those appear to be ukulele chords, hence the four strings..

Justin guitar is great but …. you may (like me) jump about all over it and end up surfing the web rather than learning guitar… its the same when looking at other Youtube vids

Like most things Apps may well be the way forward.

Have a look at Yousican…. its pretty good and there may well be others

Good luck

*ahem*

Decide on your goals.

Do you want to be able to bash out Wonderwall, play some fingerstyle blues or replicate classic rock solos etc. This will crystallise what you need to know and the skills you’ll need to acquire.

Pick a teacher or online course and stick to it. Jumping around from teacher to teacher on YouTube will just lead to confusion. Having clear goals will stop this happening.

You have to enjoy practising or it will become a chore. Practice every day and remember its a marathon not a sprint.

I’m a few months into learning and have used Andy Guitar on you tube. Only recently discovered Justin guitar so have looked at his as well.

15 – 20 minutes a day is enough to start with. My fingers took a good few weeks to toughen up and stop hurting.

Patience is the key and accept that it will take quite a while to get to a decent level. Making your fingers work independently is frustrating at first but you’ll soon notice improvement.

In the short time I’ve been trying I can now swap between at few chords, know most of basic ones and can even play a few basic songs.

Stick with as it’s very rewarding

Start by learning “A”. Then work your way alphabetically through to “G”. Easy!

Seriously though, 10-20 minutes every day is better than 1 hour once a week. Guitar is all shapes and patterns rather than music theory so that it makes it more accessible than most non stringed instruments. Learn the chords to something simple like “Wild Thing” or “knockin on heavens door”. Once you can play something you know then you feel you’ve achieved something and it won’t take you as long as you think, and when learning something new, learn it slowly and concentrate on playing it correctly, build the speed in over time ensuring good technique.

A song you like that looks/sounds easy to play. You’ll have less trouble with Whatever than La Grange. Then put effort into what you do with your right hand (assuming you’re right handed) than what you do with your left. It’s easy to make a chords, learning the strumming/picking to make it sound like the song you’re playing is a lot harder. This is one of the areas Justin sometimes falls short IMO.

Learn to play stuff you like first, with easy chord shapes, then once you can play along with something simple it’ll spur you on to learn more stuff. Bin learning scales and shit off until you can play chords and simple songs ok.

Learn to play on what you want to learn to play, ie if you want to learn how to play electric then learn on an electric. If it’s no fun you won’t practise!

It’s nice to learn on nice stuff so buy yourself some nice stuff as soon as you think you’re going to stick with it. My OH bought me an Epiphone SG after years of me putting up with cheap guitars and I’ve come on loads* in the last couple of years 😀

* I’m still bobbins, just a bit less bobbins now 😆

Electric is easier to start than acoustic too … easier on fingers and to bar!

And you don’t even need to bar. Two or three strings are all you need.

Edukator – Reformed Troll
A song you like that looks/sounds easy to play. You’ll have less trouble with Whatever than La Grange. Then put effort into what you do with your right hand (assuming you’re right handed) than what you do with your left. It’s easy to make a chords, learning the strumming/picking to make it sound like the song you’re playing is a lot harder. This is one of the areas Justin sometimes falls short IMO.

you’ve said this a few times, I disagree, each hand is equal imo. And the left arguably more difficult for the beginner to get to grips with.

Yeah I’d agree. Strumming is easy compared to good chord shapes and changes.

Keep strumming patterns simple at first then when chord changes are quicker try more complex strumming. It’s what I’m doing and what most of the tutors on YouTube recommend.

OP don’t be lulled into a false sense of thinking one hand is easy. It’s all difficult 😉 I mean it if wasn’t ferociously difficult I’d be able to do it surely ? 🙁

I’m in a play at the end of the month where I have to play a bit of guitar onstage, so I’m well incentivised. 🙂 I’m finding Yousician a genuinely enjoyable experience, well graded and wven on the free version there’s enough to keep me interested. Yousician FTW. 🙂

Give me a shout and I’ll pop over one evening with mine

That would be ace!

HtS, I did a bit of this with my daughter when she was in primary school, I did not get very far…depending on how old your lad is just beware of picking it up before he does (he might be fine btw). I tried to help and did too much so she thought it too hard for her, luckily she is now much better;) Enjoy.

Burt Weedon ‘Play In A Day’ – some of the best guitarists learned from this.
http://www.bertweedon.com/video.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/apr/20/bert-weedon

I used to have Guitar Pro on my pc, with some downloaded files to play along to.
Some of the sounds are dodgy, particularly the drums, but it’s not meant to be an exact copy.

I seem to remember some copyright issues so a lot of the free samples disappeared, but it’s still a useful tool. Must re-load it one day…