What to learn first on guitar?

You are just getting into the wonderful world of guitar. Welcome, now where do you begin the journey? There are so many resources and theories on what to learn first. Long internet searches will drive you into purchasing system after system of the so called best way to learn guitar. Let's narrow that down a little. Please read on, and don't worry I'm not trying to sell you yet another system.

Let's first examine why you decided to pick up the guitar in the first place. Was it a live performance, a song you heard that grabbed you and pulled emotionally, is it a discipline you want to master, or is just something you wanted to do, a hobby to say.

How did you get here, for most people its an emotional thing. They heard a song that was awesome and hit them right in the feels, or they just saw the best live performance from their favorite artist. That energy is a wonderful thing. Great, we figured that out but where do you start? I would start by learning the song that got you here. There are a number of free resources on the web that will be able to provide free tablature. This is a great way to start learning a song and learning how to read tablature is a great way to keep the energy going. From here you can branch out and begin exploring the guitar. Once you learn a song you can try playing at different speeds(tempo) and experiment with different improvisations. Its ok if this phase of your learning doesn't sound good. Think about this for a minute, all your favorite guitarists have put in hours of study and playing time before they hit the stage or studio. You'll get there. What now? Learn another song, keep this up and pretty soon you'll have a play list that you can dig into any time the mood hits.

So now you are rolling along with all these songs you learned. With these songs you have a pretty good library of chords, how do you keep building? Learn scales, learning scales can show you how the notes work together and lay down another layer to your foundation. Better yet learn the solos that your favorite guitarists use in their music. This is the real world application of scales. You can improvise these as much as you like.

That's awesome if all you want to do is jam with your favorite songs, but if you want to master the fret board what do you do? Start by learning a song! I know I just went on about this in the above rambling, believe me when I say you will need it. Why? It helps to keep you sane. Learning scales will become tedious and lack luster, after some time you need to be able to just play something in order to stay on track, and keep from burning yourself out. So if you want to become a master, I would start with a song, then I would suggest learning the notes on the fret board.

Here is a start: The base string is E, when you play the base string open the note is E. Place your finger on the first fret, now this note is F. So it looks like this on the base string (E) open, F-1st, G-3rd, A-5th, B-7th,C-8th,D-9th,and back to E-12th, and continues up from there. The High E or the treble E String has the exact same pattern. You'll notice that there are some notes with spaces in the middle. Those are going to be Flats and Sharps. When you go up the scale (higher pitch) they are sharps, when you go down scale (lower pitch) they are flats. These are all the notes we use in music. They just get arranged in different patterns and combinations to make our favorite songs. These are the notes that build scales, modes and chords.

Where do you start first? There really isn't a right answer and there really isn't a set organized way to learn. It boils down to what your goals are and how you got here. The suggestions above will help you get your journey under way. I would just like to point out that you need to be able to play something in order to stay motivated, don't burn yourself out. You are going to find that somethings will come easy and others will be difficult. Don't give up, I know. I have started and stopped many times.