How old are you? I'm just trying to get a frame of reference for what music you've been exposed to.
I've been playing for 10 years. I'm not an expert, but do play well enough to rock out when the situation calls for it.
I had extensive formal training on other instrumentation before starting guitar, which certainly lent itself to me learning. Also I can tune and play things by ear, which also helped. What is your music background?
As for playing guitar, I've never taken a lesson in my life. Everything I've learned has been through experimentation and observation. I own a book for beginners on playing guitar, to learn the most basic of fundamentals, but after that never purchased any more books. This isn't necesarily the best path for you, which is why I'm asking for your background.
To answer your question of first song, it depends on what you consider a song. With some practice you should be able to play some real simple one-string tunes (Happy Birthday, etc) after a few hours, but as for your typical 3-5 minute radio-formatted popular music it will take at least several months. The first popular songs I began playing were the ones off of Green Day's first big album (Dookie), which was released around the time I bought my guitar. Simple stuff like that is easy to learn once you build up some endurance.
If you really want to impress people, regardless of your skill level, learn to play songs correctly, in their entirety, at the same speed and with the same nuances as the original artist. It will come in time...
One more thing, learning to keep a constant beat and subdividing your timing properly is the biggest thing I see inexperienced guys doing wrong, so concentrate heavily on learning to count well at first - it's a music thing not a guitar thing. Any questions I'll be happy to answer them for you. Now go become a :rockon: god!
RedPill
