I think that all the advice here on practicing is exactly what I have found myself doing. I guess it's just lucky that we live in a smaller house maybe, but we have a computer in a corner of a large living room off by itself with my guitar on a stand right next to it. Perfect for me.
I actually find it difficult to walk by the thing without picking it up. I'm only two months now into guitar, having never picked one up in my life, but I find it's one of the best, and certaily most accessible ways to relax and forget a stressful day.
Funny too, I probably now know good pieces of about ten songs or more now that I can somehow summon up on demand. What the 30 to 45 minutes a day has given me is that memorization of not only pieces of songs, but chords. I wish that doing faster chord changes was as easy as learning the darn things in the first place!
You can't not improve if you are at least doing something.
Now I'm ready to start adding a few pages a day of theory and have a couple books to get me going there as well. Next, I'm going to try a community college group lesson class that starts in a few weeks. I'm hoping to get from it the feedback I could never give myself on what I do good, and of course, what I do bad. Learning on your own might seem convenient and simple, but I thrive on knowing what I am like to others when it comes to something like this.
I'm hoping an instructor can offer me some structure because like others I think that I'm bouncing around a bit too much. I like this site a lot and I love Guitarnoise.com. Those two are it for me mostly. I have a few books I like and more that I don't. Luckily I bought most used at Half Price Books.
But unlike many hobbies, I find that every tiny little thing I learn on the guitar has such an instant amount of satisfaction that I don't think of myself as being in a hurry. I go to friends houses who have many more years than me, but they are SO PATIENT and I know why, it's because we all have to go through the same steps and trials.
Soak up as much as you can, but definitely listen to the experts, because they have all been there and there really aren't shortcuts, just shorter trips.
TD
