Postby LadyRushia » Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:47 am
If possible, look for videos where the instructors also know some music theory. My guitar teacher, who I saw for four years (and I'm seeing him again tonight for a singing lesson), knows theory and having that has really helped me to understand the structure of chords and chord progressions. I think knowing some theory makes it easier to pick out chords in a song, which makes it easier to learn them (although, your ear for that stuff improves anyway with practice).
I'm sure that any professional guitarist with videos online will know theory and go over it, so you shouldn't have too many problems.
When you're ready to start learning songs, I suggest looking up chords instead of tabs overall. That way, you get used to connecting the chord name with how it sounds. Plus, I've found that tabs can be very wrong more so than chords, not that that happens all the time. There are some songs or parts where you'll need to look up tabs if you can't figure them out yourself. Looking up tabs and chords and things like that eventually gets you used to hearing those same chords and sounds in songs so you'll recognize them in the future.
One thing to remember when you're just starting out is not to get discouraged and quit. As I was fishing around for chords last night, there was a video playing on the website that talked about the discouragement and frustration that comes with guitar playing. The guy said that if you're learning something that's a little bit difficult for you and it's frustrating you so much that you can't get it, to go back to playing something easy that you already know.