The Lessons

Part of my intention of this project was to go through and review some of the lessons out there or at least get a general idea of what was available. I also intended to be a resource for what worked and what didn't. As preliminary work I had just poked around on youtube, done some quick google searches and watched a few videos on how to play specific songs.
Today I really delved into what it available on youtube and it's a real fucking horror show. The main issue that I'm running into is how fragmented things are. Even some of the more professional videos send you to their regular websites to get the tab or fingering for chords. That is straight up bull shit. If you're trying to be effing pro do a couple of good lead up lessons to let the viewer in on the basics and then send them on chases around the web for various resources.
Right now I'm trying to focus on chords so these are the fairly specific results I'm found so far. I'll go into more detailed descriptions later on.

Professional Videos
These are done mostly from people running their separate websites that are offering some of their videos on youtube to draw traffic over, or to sell dvds and other training media.

TrueFireTV http://www.youtube.com/user/TrueFireTV
This appears to be the people behind the Play Guitar in 21 days series

RockingGoodPeople http://www.youtube.com/user/rockongoodpeople
Have their own site and apparently offer DVD guitar lessons

TomFontana (theguitarlesson.com) http://www.youtube.com/user/TomFontana
Seems to be less of a professional youtube channel but a more professional lesson

Song Lessons
There are a ton of lessons based on how to play individual songs. One thing that I have noticed so far is that most of them expect some basic chord knowledge so are a bit fast for starting off.

Flynnersfolksongs http://www.youtube.com/user/FlynnersFolkSongs
Should be a good resource most of the songs aren't too complex and video is done well

Guitarjamzdotcom http://www.youtube.com/user/guitarjamzdotcom
Not the most professional but he seems to have covered a lot of songs

Amature Lessons
These are lessons that are a little more thrown together not necessarilly from a professional

Expertvillage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGDj8e5y_6M&playnext=1&list=PL9D4FDC36F81CD27D
The lessons here are a little bit more all over the place

cmusicvid18 http://www.youtube.com/user/cmusicvid18
There is a rather random assortment from this guy

yourguitarsage http://www.youtube.com/user/yourguitarsage
an assortment of lessons and song instructions

I'll try to dive into the lessons and videos in more depth soon!

Somehow it's been four days

I'm four days into this and I still don't have everything laid out. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do before I started but I don't have lesson plans or daily projects to get through yet. I have picked up my guitar every day so far which in a small way is a big step. A big problem is that I haven't been doing chords yet, just tuning and scales.
This brings me to the next couple of projects to work on.
Songs. I need to pick out a couple of songs to have learned by the end of this project. Ideally they will be simple folk style songs that are rather upbeat and easy for me too sing along to, a couple of country songs would be fine too. I'm looking at songs by John Denver, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Mark Lanegan (and Isobel Campbell), James Taylor.
Lessons. I need to take the time to go through some of the online lessons available through youtube and other sources and figure out what is available.
Chords. I need to decide one some key chords and get some good practice in. It would be best if these are ones that are commonly used in the songs that I am planning on playing.
On that note I'm going to take a quick look at So Long Maryanne

What I begin with and goals

This is what I'm starting with. Not much but I have a fresh set of strings on it and it's not falling apart (aside from the pick guard). Half of the pegs are broken in it but I have a replacement set just in case and I've also picked up a backup set of strings.
Also going for it this nice little Harmony guitar also has a steel reinforced neck, so it might come in handy if I get into a street fight while playing.

Now I have learned some guitar in the past. In 7th grade I had a class where we learned some basics on the guitar and I've gone through some lessons in books in the past. But I have never really dedicated some real time to learning it. Knowing that I've tried and failed in the past I want to have real realistic goals.
First I want to learn the basic chords. I don't need to know everything but with about 4 - 8 chords you can play a lot of songs.
I also want to get used to a couple of different strumming patterns and more importantly I want to be able to recognize the strumming cues in tab (if there are any) and be able to hear the key differences in songs. This will make it easier for me to learn more without having to do rote memorization every time.
Now this one is the big one. I want to be able to play through at least 5 songs without looking at the tabs/sheet music. If I want to be able to make it through live performing I should have enough material to make it through about half an hour, and because I'll be outside I don't want to deal with sheet music. This will also be interesting because I need to have songs that are easy enough for me to learn them but popular enough and appropriate for public performance. I won't be sitting next to a campfire so singing "Puff the Magic Dragon" wouldn't seem like a good choice.
I am intentionally not focusing on picking or finger work. If I have enough time I would like to learn some basics but I feel that chords will be a better focus for my time, but then again the experts may disagree........ I'll look into that for my next post.

The Project

I've gone for quite some time without having a proper instrument that I play. I've played the alto sax and the bassoon in the past but I don't have either one in my current apartment and there is something about them that just doesn't seem that social, and they aren't exactly the types of things that people would have laying around their homes in case you want to play. I have also been dying to do more singing, so the logical thing was to get a guitar. In this case I ended up taking an old acoustic on permanent loan from my dad. I threw some new strings on the beat up thing and messed around with it a bit but wasn't getting far.
With the weather getting nicer and living so close to Cambridge I thought of an interesting way of motivating myself, become a street performer.
Now nobody would appreciate someone practicing scales and messing up chords while they are trying to enjoy a lovely day so I'm giving myself a little prep time and that's where the 30 days come in. I have guitar, just picked up my street performers permit and I have my voice in good enough working shape. I'm giving myself 30 days to learn guitar and then success or not I'm hitting the streets!