Im new

Well Im 46 years old ,I am a father of 3 ,I have been a paramedic for 19 years and I live in Ohio . I have been playing the drums for a while and can read drum music(not tabliture) ,and I have a drum instructor.

I am now going to try and teach myself the acoustic guitar,I just purchased an ibanez acoustic /electric and thought this is the place to come for help.

So Im wondering the best way to get started,Should I start with chords?

I was told to buy a fake book with some songs in it that I like and to go about it that way..

Ill take any and all suggestions..Thanks

Howdy and welcome.

My advice would be to start at the beginners section. Good tips to get you going and then onward and upward. Perhaps one of the techno-genies will link the place for it here.

Good luck and looking forward to seeing you around the boards. :)

Hello and Welcome to GT.

Reading tablature will help you out as a lot of the material on the net is using them.

When first starting out the guitar you should learn

- Major Chords
- Notes on the fretboards

Once you've learned the major chords and that you know what notes are where on the fretboard, you'll be able to tackle the minor chords and start learning scales such has the C Major (most important scale).

You can also look at our Absolute Beginner's Guide

Heya what the instructor said pretty much covered the best way to start. I personally started with Major Chords, then Minor and moved on to scales and so on and so forth. What is really important when you first start is not to get frustrated with yourself it takes a lot of practice.

Good luck and welcome :)

A, C, D, E, G are the five Major chords you will want to learn first.. not necessarily in that order. Many people learn E, A and D first.. since that is used in so many songs.. but the open C Major and G Major chords have such big, resonating sounds that they used in a lot of acoustic stuff.. every style has it's "common" chords of course but definitely learning these five to start with is a good idea. The most common minor open chords that I come across are A minor and E minor. So they would be a good idea to learn too.. the other chords can be learnt as you go... I forget exactly how many possible chords there are.. but it's in the billions.. 17 billion.. or may be 1.7 billion.. I can't recall exactly.. but what I do remember is laughing out loud when I read it. :p

No need to freak out though.. like I said.. there are only about a dozen chords that get used frequently and those seven I mentioned above are the most common. Do what Benoit said as well.. learn a scale or two or three..

Originally Posted by: aunksterWell Im 46 years old ,I am a father of 3 ,I have been a paramedic for 19 years and I live in Ohio .

Welcome! I'm a grandfather of 3 and live in Ohio. If you are near Dayton, maybe we can get together and jam sometime.