Lesson
1

Lesson
2

Learn three chords and practice playing a song with them. The song should be simple and use first position chords with one strum per beat. You can do this with the A, D, and E chords in the first song in Getting Started. If you don’t have Getting Started yet, download The World Still Needs These Songs for free and start with the songs that have the fewest chords. Strum one downstroke per beat for your first song or two. The you can expand to using different strumming and fingerpicking patterns from the studio.

Start by learning the A chord. Practice going to it without referring to the chord diagram until it’s easy to do. When you’re able to do that, follow the same procedure for the D and E chords. Make sure you can go to the chord shapes from memory and you know the names of them. See the chord shape in your mind’s eye. Download this page of blank fretboards and practice writing your chords on it.

If you have trouble placing your fingers properly or quickly enough when you start changing chords in a song, you may think that you’re having problems with coordination. In fact, it will be that you don’t know the chord shape well enough—even if you feel sure that you do. The secret to guitar playing is that your fingers follow your mind. (Remember this!) Follow the same procedure of memorizing the shape and name for every chord you learn.

When you can change from one chord to another, put your three chords together to make your first song. But before you start playing it, make sure you can sing it. It’s important that you learn to sing the melody of the song while you’re strumming the accompaniment, even if your guitar goals don’t include singing. You don’t have to sing beautifully, but you do need to understand music and how the parts of a song go together. Find out about that in this article and learn how to do it here.

Lesson
3

With so many TABs available, it’s easy to skip this foundational knowledge. Don’t let that happen! Lesson B5 How to Read a Chart will show you everything you need to know at this level and help you navigate more complex music, as well. This is another lesson to bookmark for future reference!

Lesson
4

Use lesson G3Fretboard Familiarity  through 3:30 to learn how to find notes on the guitar. You don’t need to be able to find all of the notes quickly at this point, but you do need to practice the lesson enough to understand how. Once you have completed Module I, you’ll find the remainder of the instruction in the video useful. I’ll direct you to return to it and complete it at that point.

Choose one random note daily and find it on every string of your guitar. 

Lesson
5

Tuning without a tuner is a valuable skill. Read this article  to understand why you need to practice it, and use this video  to learn how to do it. Remember to make this a part of your daily routine! (Don’t worry—it won’t take long to get fast at it.)

Lesson
6

If you’re looking for clarity of sound and efficient movement (and who’s not?), hand position can make everything work! Study this video and go back to it often to understand how to consistently achieve the best position for playing both chords and single notes.

Lesson
7

Learn to use a pick for more than just simple strumming with this lesson: T5Pick Technique – Single Notes Practice it daily until you can play the patterns correctly with a metronome.

Lesson
8

Whether you plan to read music or not, it’s important to be familiar with the staff. Take a few minutes to memorize the lines and spaces and practice finding and writing notes on them with this lesson: ET10 The Staff

Keep some song books or sheet music on hand and spend five minutes a day for the next month naming notes on the staff. You can use the Getting Started book for this or any sheet music written on the treble clef.