How to play the guitar for beginners books are sold on ebay one is free.
Put bandaids on the tips of your fingers, BEFORE they get raw.
Make sure the guitar is set up correctly. If the strings are too high off the fretboard it will be very difficult and frustrating to push them down to engage the frets. When first starting off it might be better to use thinner strings.
Learn how to play with your hands/wrist/fingers in the proper positions. This allows you to finger notes and chords cleanly, without interfering with adjacent strings. If you don't learn proper positioning,, it makes it harder later.
Experiment a bit. The nicest thing about becoming a player, of any instrument, is that you can use the instrument as a means of expressing yourself.
Have fun!
Make sure to first find a guitar that feels comfortable for you and that has a neck that is easy to play. These “ergonomics” will be different for everyone. Getting the right instrument FOR YOU will reduce the fatigue and frustration that comes from struggling to learn new chords and developing muscle memory.
Great post
It’s different for everybody. There’s many different ways to go about it, depending on what your given talent is, what kind of music you are interested in, lead guitar or rhythm, whether you want to sing along or just play, and many other factors.
UltimateGuitar.com is an excellent resource. Find a song you like and learn to play it.
Youtube is also an excellent resource. There are tutorial videos to teach you to play all levels of songs.
What genre of music interests you?
Why guitar? Why not tuba? Nobody plays the tuba
Learn a few scales. Pentatonic major and minor, in all five positions. Easy now, harder later. Then learn how chords are developed from those scales. If I could go back and start over, that is what I would do. Where I grew up there were no teachers, so I learned by ear. I do not recommend that if you have access to a competent teacher. Lessons are definitely worth the money. That way you don’t have to relearn all the nonsense you figured out on your own. I’ll never forget the days of moving the record player tone arm again and again, learning a riff, only to finally see the band play live and realize I was playing it nothing like they do. That said, playing guitar is a wonderful pastime. Especially if you play electric and have a specific sound in your head that you are compelled to chase by buying amp after amp, pedal after pedal, then speakers, then…..$$$$
Study and learn music, it is like a language. Then what you play on any musical instrument will make sense. Intervals and timing are all the rage.
Go to JustinGuitar.com... and follow the course...
Look into buying a Squire electric guitar at a pawn shop for @$100. Then get a Spark amplifier for @$150. The software is magical.
Take a few private lessons.
I taught myself how to play guitar starting in 1964 with the various Beatles song books that were popular then. They had chord names and fingering charts along with the words, so I tried to play along with my records. It was brutal at first, but worth the effort and persistence.
As other comments have said, before anything else, make sure your guitar is set up properly. A set of lightweight strings of the proper gauges is essential. Getting the bridge height and angle correct is essential. Making sure the neck is straight and the string height is low enough for your fingers is essential. If you don’t do those things first, it makes learning much more difficult and frustrating.
Beyond that, practice, practice, practice.
“Starting to Play the Guitar: Chords and Notes”. E,A,D,G,B,E. I’m learning too, my hands don’t work as well as they used to. Enjoy your journey.
Mel Bay.
These are all good. In addition, find a good mentor or teacher. Play along.
Pick your favorite, acoustic or electric, but play both. The experiences are different.
These YT lesson sources helped me a lot!:
Uncle Mark's Cigar Box Guitar Lessons
Shane Speal - How to Play Cigar Box Guitar playlist
Enjoy!
Plenty of guitar tutorial videos on youtube along with beginner guitar books at your local music store or amazon online.
Much easier than when I first started in the 1960s.