Notes or chords

Really you need to start learning at least the basic chord shapes.

Start with Am, C, G and D. There's a ton of songs you can play with just those. When you have them down, move on to other open chords, A, E, and a cheat F (xx3211) to get you going.

But equally don't give up on learning the notes either!

Matt

It's probably not a big deal either way.

But I started on notes first and have been glad I did. I began with some pretty crappy books with lots of ancient out of copyright music, but at least they had CDs to help me hear what it was supposed to sound like.

The result was that I started to develop the ability to read music. This has come in handy when I try and figure out songs I haven't heard, and so on.

When I felt I couldn't plough through one more dusty old song I switched across to chords for a while and started nailing down some of those chords Matt mentions. Now I try to keep both strands going.

Good luck with it, either way. :)

i agree wholeheartedly with Chris. i learned chords first without any inclination of wanting to learn notes/scales and it really hampered my getting a grasp on theory later when i needed to learn more and branch into improvisation or soloing

It depends on the style of music you're going to play... and the size of your hands.

I teach both chords and single notes to almost all students starting with lesson 1. Chords let you strum to songs, quickly develop a sense of right hand rhythm, and feel like you're 'making music' faster than single notes. But learning single notes gives you a structure to build on for later theory - once you get beyond the basic open chords and a couple simple barre chord forms, you'll need to really understand scales to progress, even if you never want to be a 'lead guitarist'.

The exceptions:

If a student wants to learn classical guitar, or has exceptionally small hands, they start with single notes.

If a student is only interested in doing folk or folk/rock songs, they start with chords.

I'm confused, don't most lead guitarists play one note at a time and the rhythm guitarists are the ones strumming chords?

I'm confused, don't most lead guitarists play one note at a time and the rhythm guitarists are the ones strumming chords?
You are fundamentally right however, a lot of single notes are played from a chord formation which makes it easier to pick multiple notes without moving your fingers. For example House of the rising sun (Am, C, D, F, E etc) and the song you were having the ringing problem with last night.

BOTH

You can lean towards one or the other depending on what you like to play
rhythm or lead, But you still need to know both to have a good understanding how they both work together, I love to play lead and express the melody of a song but you can use chords along with the notes
and play some nice strong melody. So I would say practice both notes and chords.

:D

I'm confused, don't most lead guitarists play one note at a time and the rhythm guitarists are the ones strumming chords?

Except ina blues "power trio" then the guitar player gets to hold down both ends :D

I'm confused, don't most lead guitarists play one note at a time and the rhythm guitarists are the ones strumming chords?
Don't confuse lead with solo.
Lead guitar plays many roles and quite often plays multiple strings as much as single notes.
I would go as far as saying that most lead parts are built on chords, meaning if you finger the chord most of the notes you need are right there with little to no finger movement.
So yes knowing your chords are very important to a lead guitarist.

Yeah. I do know my chords in that I know how to play them. Though I don't know the names of a lot of them. A lot of times I play a song or chord then realize later it has a name.