I have been playing for a long time. Honestly just focus on being able to hit each note clean, make sure your thumb is between 11-12 oclock (this might change on chord changes etc also based around how big your hands/fingers are). look up the tabs/chords of the songs you are into and start there even if it seems difficult. You will start putting the shapes together into memory and you will find similarities of other shapes and things will start to click for you . This will be a benefit , but make sure you're paying attention to shapes. you can google the major minor pentatonic scales and you can really play them over """""""most"""""" things .I honestly dont play with a pick, I do for tone for somethings but that's more for sonic choices. memorize the chords to the songs you like. Learning the basic way everyone else does just feel extremely boring and noob at guitar center like. As for theory . after awhile of you playing songs you like you will have accumulated most basic chords ( prob w better and cooler inversions) and you could then paying attention to circle of fifths and learn the basics of scales and progressions. I think its important to build up muscle memory and FEEL first then add the "basics"

 

Get a teacher - saves you some 3 or 4 years. Stay away from everything StichMethod or Rick Beato. :-( Learn to love Jimi Hendrix and ask yourself every day what the f he does and you don't.

 

Love it

 

ffs guys, don't tell me you still engage in "discussions" with that satanic little troll foster?

you won't get anywhere with him, its why he is a troll. save your energy.

btw, just to remind you, if you see the troll getting encouraged or congratulated by others, well yeah, he is the kind of troll that takes the time to answer himself with multiple accounts.

in case you didn't know....

 

Last edited: Aug 25, 2022

fsgsdytf

 

Last edited: Aug 12, 2022

He talks about it around 7 minutes in but I would watch the whole video, it's very good.

 

Not bad lesson, but his left thumb is in a bad position. Your left thumb should be in the center of back of the neck. So your left fingers could be as much as possible perpendicular to the neck.

 

Exactly, so please, stop bringing this useless "debate" all the time.

Op asked how to play guitar, not your opinion about " understanding music" Foster .

And guys, please, don't feed the troll.

 

I think it also strongly depends on what genre you mainly want to focus on.
Get basic Chords first , practice your picking hand (Downstrokes , Upstrokes ) and your left hand to correctly hold the guitar.
Also try to learn some basic riffs and play them with a metronome this will make sure that you are in time and will be able to record later.
What makes the guitar so unique in comparison to other instruments is that a lot of technical details vary strongly on this instrument.
Many Guitarists have different picking techniques as well as positions so there is no 100% correct answer.

Troy grady has a lot of video's concerning guitar technique if you want to get a picture of it