How do you learn to play a guitar?

Answer 1

If you want to teach yourself guitar, there isn´t much to it, just reading and practicing... you have to read about the guitar, chords, scales, etc. and then just start practicing.

Nobody will sound perfect from the get go, so it´s mainly about sticking to it and putting effort into improving, you can tabs for almost anything on the web so you can practice to your favorite songs. Also YouTube has some great lessons for free, that can help you out a lot, those things weren't around when I started playing.

And of course, the other obvious answer is... get a guitar teacher, if you have a good one that´s probably the best, and fastest way to learn, at least at the beginning.

Start off learning just chords and scales with some fun in there also. Memorize them...and faster and faster. Learn notes though too, but you can do tabs also.

I think the best way to start playing guitar is by picking one up and messing around with it and if your a true destined guitar player, you will create stuff that is cool and stuff you will like the most from your heart. Be yourself when you play. it's very cool.

Just get a teacher, learn the basics, and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! And if you work on your scales (pentatonic, octive, etc.) you can improve your sweeps and it will look super awesome

In the end I agree with what everyone has to say. You just need to pick one up and play around with it. By doing so, you will find out you build what you hear or that you need to be told what to play. Once you do that then you know where to look but the long you stick it out you will find your self doing the following, Practicing, learning techniques (friends, instructors, book, etc.) and putting things together. So it is ok to learn other peoples music first to build a foundation and then make it your own or you can learn to be able to play your own and in the process figure out songs of other people/bands.