What was the VERY first thing you learned on guitar?

[Mr Bojangles]

"She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain", and then "Greensleeves".

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by ADK

I was 16 when my brother showed me how to play open G and C chords. I played them over and over for weeks.

1st position "D" & "A7" chords to play "Tom Dooley."

[gfspencer]

Originally Posted by RRuskin

1st position "D" & "A7" chords to play "Tom Dooley."

Me too.

[Shadowfox]

Jumbalaya by Hank Williams

[EZYPIKINS]

Thinking back through the controlled substances of the 90's 80's70's and into the 60's. When I was little. The first thing I did was to pick out the melody of Marty Robbins , El Paso on the piano. A couple years later I would pick out the bass line of Tommy James I think were alone now

[TorzJohnson]

My sister and I took lessons for about a month from this friendly Hippie dude that lived near the High School. The first thing he taught us was "A Horse With No Name" by America.

He had an ES-335 and a strat, which impressed me mightily.

[dltw]

I started from absolute basics: scales. After that, whatever in the Hal Leonard's guitar book and songs.

[Mickey_C]

In 1972, I learned Malaguena as taught by my father on his flamenco blanca.

Not even a year later my brother shipped off to boot camp and left me his so-so electric and his amazing fender princeton reverb in safe-keeping until his return. He showed me how to play Ride Captain Ride. By the time he came back when I was 16 (1976) and I had to surrender back his toys, I was better than him, thanks to lessons from my Dad and my Uncles, and blew his mind with a bunch of Led Zeppelin songs. Sadly he gave up on learning guitar after that.

[golfreggie]

The first thing that I "learned" was how awful the strings felt on my young teenaged fingers!

[MartinGibsonFan]

I believe the first thing I learned was to tune the guitar.

Always remember, fret five all the way down except the 3rd string.

J

[ataylor]

Originally Posted by golfreggie

The first thing that I "learned" was how awful the strings felt on my young teenaged fingers!

Agreed.

Something else I learned later was that you don't put steel strings on classical guitars, which is what I unknowingly did with my mom's old Hohner spanish guitar. That said, when my parents got me my own steel-string acoustic guitar some months later, it was a comparative breeze to play. The initial poor choice in strings ended up being a guitar equivalent of Rocky training in Siberia to beat Ivan Drago.

[Villamarzia]

“signe”, the instrumental intro to the Eric Clapton’s unplugged album which, IMHO, is a cornerstone in acoustic guitar music. Not an easy piece to boot, but I played cello in the past and that helped.

[Photojeep]

Wow, that was a long time ago! I THINK I learned some basic position 1 chords I found in the Mel Bay book I bought along with my first guitar.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I skipped the "How to Tune" page. Yeah, it sounded pretty bad but I didn't care! I did eventually go back to that page and learned why I sounded so bad but at first I was just happy to have strings ring out clear!

Best,
PJ

[Rinaz]

I learned it when I play a right handed guitar like a left handed guitar

[saxonblue]

Hard to recall exactly as I was 8 & that was 1970 but I wouldn't be far off the mark with "Blowin' in the wind". It was at least one of the earliest.