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Now in the light of day, a few additional suggestions make sense to me.
When you pick a song that you want to learn, find a recording (ideally a video) that you like and make your first goal to sing along with it. If the notes are too high or low for you, either pick another song or find another recording that works better. Next you need to figure out what key the recording is in. Options here include checking a chord sheet or tab, or watching the chord shapes used and/or capo settings. (If you are lucky, you can just do what the guitar player is doing.) The short list of chords (keys) to try are the ones easily made on guitar: C, A, G, E and D. If none of these work, see if a capo will make one of these chords match the song. Listen carefully, especially to the last note, which almost always matches the key you want to be playing in.
When you can pretty much match up your singing with the recording, then you can focus on figuring out the cords. Chances are good you have already begun to recognize chords that show up together: I like to think of these as families, because the relationships are everything. Googling for a chord sheet is easy, but what you get may be really fancy, way too simple, or just flat wrong. Play what you have, strumming along with the recording and expect your playing to match really well. If it sounds wrong, you may need a better chord sheet. Rinse and repeat.
Now try playing the song without the recording and see if how that works. It’s OK to try other chords, but most of the time the correct ones will sound best. Playing along with a recording can be a serious win, and there’s a good chance what you are playing will start to be automatic because it fits.
Finally playing and singing is a real challenge. Use the recording to help keep things together and have some fun. When the song starts to live inside your head, you can focus on lyrics and enjoy telling the story.
If all of this sounds impossible, Fretboard Wizard is a great idea. Even for someone like myself with some serious musical training and experience, the Fretboard Wizard course was a huge help. It amounts to what I would call Practical Music Theory for Guitarists. One of the first lessons is all about figuring out the key of a song, so that’s a great place to take your guitar journey. I really hopes this helps!
