Yetpraise,
I'll "amen" everything that's been said and add a little twist.
Sometimes learning as a beginner can be a little.......tedious. But it is still best to bite off small chunks of learnin' with a little spice thrown in from time to time and a real goal at the end. What the heck does that mean?
There are a few REALLY cool songs that you could learn quickly that build on elementary lessons. That's the spice part. Follow the advice that MikeGee, Saintlewis, and DTuned have given you (that's the chunks of learnin' part) and when it gets to be boring, pick up the spice part again.
Have in your mind a song that you want to be able to play. Something that you know when you get it, you can say to yourself proudly "I AM making progress". That's the goal part.
When I started playing many many moons ago, I started learning from the Mel Bay books. My "spice" song that a friend taught me was "Slide" by the group Slave (now you know how many moons ago THAT was). This song basically has 3 notes and helps you build your timing. My first target song was "Brickhouse" and when I got that one down, my next two target songs were "Strawberry Letter 23" by the Brothers Johnson and "Tune 88" by Jeff Lorber. I still play the target song game to keep myself motivated to learn.
If you decide to try that route, my suggestions for "spice" songs would be
We Fall Down (just playing the simple progression)
You Are The Living Word
Thank You Falettin Me Be Mice Elf (old Sly & The Family Stone, and yes, that's the way it's spelled
)
Slide
I'd be glad to show you simple tabs (fingering notations) for any of those.
As for the "goal", you'll need to pick those songs that you really want to learn and use everything else you work on as a way to build up to them.
Peace,
James
