What to learn?

Been in that boat recently mate so decided to have a few lessons to get pointed in the right direction. Had my first one on saturday. The basic jist of the advice that the first important thing to get down is a decent chord repetoire and rythm. So stick with them chords, learn the open ones and find 1 or 2 easyish songs to learn with them. Working slowly and building up the rythm until you can play them at full pace.

I would recommend having a couple of lessons. The biggest thing I learnt on saturday was how different strumming patterns can effect the way a song sounds, even if you use the same basic rythm putting upstrokes instead of downs in places can alter the feel a lot.

Have a look in the easy song index and try and find a song you like and know fairly well and then try and work through it bit by bit. Concentrate on one small section at a time and when you have that down move on to the next bit.

Also worth playing a few scales, as warm ups and to get you used to playing individual notes. The minor pentatonic and the major scale are the ones my tutor gave me. As a warm up I'm playing each from the first fret down to the 12th and then back up again. But it's easier in the first place to play them around the 5th fret until you're comfortable with the fingering.

Not expert advice by any means mate but as I'm in a similar position as you thought i'd say what i'm doing. Hope it helps.

The next step is to get playing some songs. Check out the songs for beginners on the lessons pages of this site.

Best,

A :-)