Last fall I bought a guitar on the spur of the moment. Have to say that it was
@gardenmary who provided that particular spur. I started with an instructor and am still at it. I'm a very VERY slow learner, and despite that, it is quite satisfying and fun. I use the Hal Leonard Guitar Method book (3 books in 1) that comes with CDs. The Snark electronic tuner is great, is very reasonable < $10. My nails have to be quite short (no whites or barely anything) to avoid fudging the notes and chords, for now anyway, I think that'll improve later on. My guitar is a Taylor Mini GS with metal strings. I thought a smaller, more compact instrument would be easier to learn on, for my shorty fingers, but in reality it's more about getting the proper hand position down. Hope you enjoy it too! I bought another book, one of those idiot guides to learning Guitar, but use only the Leonard book for lessons & practice. I did try doing online lessons at the beginning--the freebies on Mac Garageband--but abandoned that quickly once I started with an instructor. It's an expense but I have learned to read music, am working on mastering all 6 strings & learning chords. I entertain hopes that it'll stave off future dementia. It's enjoyable to learn something like this.
So I just ordered the Hal Leonard book you mentioned, as well as some other Hal Leonard books on acoustic guitar tablature method because those books looked to have music from lots of artists that I love. I want to be able to read music, but tab is a bit quicker to get into things so I figure it'll keep me motivated and give some instant gratification when the other stuff will probably move much more slowly for me. I can't even count the amount of times in my life that I've been taught the very basics of reading music, but then never really went on to use it enough and therefore lost all concept of it.
I'm REALLY enjoying Jamplay.com! I think that the book will be a nice accompaniment to what I've been doing so far, and fill in some of the questions I've been having come up in my head about music theory. In my lessons so far we've been getting into chords to start, this is a fun challenge with some progressions and easy songs to practice them. I've been going between a couple of different instructor's for lessons, they have both started out in different places so I feel like I'm getting different things out of each of them. This does make me wonder though about what the most efficient way forward is, I'm thinking the method books will add in some nice structure and focus to my practice.
I've definitely made progress from where I started, though I wish it was faster as with everything haha. My fingers are doing much better, they still get sore with practice, but I can go a lot longer now and never have to really stop because I'm in pain, just some quick breaks does it. I do notice that the beginning of my practice is always better than the end, my fingers tend to get tired and then things get sloppy.. I think that's more my hand muscles that need to get stronger. I am amazed at how fast my finger nails grow now that I'm paying so much attention, I have to cut them down constantly to keep them out of the way!
The best thing is it feels really good to "play" guitar already, I can't wait until someday when I can actually play all sorts of cool stuff! I've continued to practice right before bed, and it really relaxes me.. the bad thing is it also energizes me and then I sometimes practice later than I should so I'm tired in the morning haha. I should probably get into a better habit of practicing earlier, but then I fear I'd get nothing else done because I become quite engrossed in it and lose track of time.
How do others here schedule their practice time? Is there a time of day / length of time you stick to, or just whenever it works for you that day? If I was a morning person I'd do it then because I think it'd be a great way to start the day on a positive note, but a morning person is about the last way I'd ever describe myself so that's completely unrealistic!
