Just hang in there and learn the sight readind. And yes Guitar should be and is fun. Otherwise why do it.Anything Worth doing is worth doing right.

Chell, I do not know how old you are as that would help me out with advice.I took 3 lessons in my life when I was 11 and it made me feel like not ever wanting to play again.I was reading or trying to read OH SUSANA by some 80 year old guy and it was not for me.If you are young I would say stay with it as todays teachers are in touch with what guys want to do.The guitar is something no one can fully master it is infinite,and the more you know the better you will be.Plus there is the God given talent aspect that some people are just special, but that is a very small percent.Now you should spend a lot of time playing the things that give you the most trouble,thats how you get good.If you just play stuff thats easy to you you will never progress,but also when something is difficult take a break from it and come back to it with a clear head,and always leave time in your schedule to just have fun and play the stuff you like the most as thats the reward of all those hours of hard work.I dont care how long someone is playing we all have things that we find difficult and yes the guitar can be so frustrating you just want to smash it,but then one day whatever the problem was you get it, and that satisfaction gives you that massive rush like nothing else and then before you know it the cycle starts over again.I play in the style of my Idols HENDRIX,CLAPTON,PAGE and many others.But when I practice it is more in the style of guys I admire like GILBERT,VAI,SATRIANI because I am not up to snuff with alternate picking that fast or playing legato like those guys so even if I never reach those speeds it still opens up a whole new book of ideas and runs to use in my playing and keeps me learning which we all will be till the end.KEEP ON ROCKIN

Just to give a slightly different perspective, it is terribly difficult to play and practice with todays hectec schedules.

Often when im at work i wish so much i could play some guitar , but when i get home, that motivating notion has passed and im too tired to pick up the axe.
When I do force myself to get the guitar out after work I generally find i just put on some BB King or Rory Gallagher and jam along. Im too tired for practice at this point.

But saturdays and sundays are days i try new songs and start learning new licks etc.

Pro guitar players are pro's because its their job. they spend their "working" day practicing and playing. its a job, most of them happen to love.

If we all could practice 8 hours per day instead of work:

1. would you?
2. imagine how good you would be.

So as we cant we have to make the most of what time we have and this is why we have to go through the not so fun parts, and when we only have an hour or so a day to play, and you spend a lot of that on not fun practice, it starts becomming a chore.

so, decide, realistically why you play guitar, if you are any where near satisfying this reason. if so, then enjoy your playing. if not, work torward it but not soo hard that you hate practice. after all, your not a pro musician earning a living from this, you cant spend 8 hours a day practicing so just enjoy it, the way you did when you started.

Chell,
I too have gotten to the point where the TAB method isn't good enough and keep finding songs I want to learn that aren't available in TAB.

My teacher and I started with the note E.

We put onto paper the locations on the neck where the note E is found.
I have to be able to play the first four places in a comfortably fast manner.
Then I get to doodle and "play" for a few minutes, go back to the first four E's, then add one, doodle some more, etc.

I am finding it very easy to "discipline" myself in this manner. It's not the fastest way to learn to read, but coupled with simple sight reading songs and more fun to play TAB, I find I am practicing more and enjoying the whole experience more.

I've often thought along the lines of the comment made by "schmintan",
How many hours did somebody like Eddie Van Halen or Eric Clapton "work" at the guitar in the beginning? Add to that decades of experience and there you have it.

Whatever your paycheck talent is, you're likely superior to someone that "plays at it" a few minutes a day.

I for one love tab as it makes life a hell of a lot easier,but I know enough about chord-scale ralationship that if a song I like is not available in tab I can figure it out.Unless it is some insane stev vai piece or something.and for those who do use tab never swear by it.A good thing I figured out long ago is when a band has one guitarist and the song has a lot of guitar parts is to check out how they play it live.Now with youtube it makes it real easy to see what parts they keep or if they even use something new.

I can read staff and tab, and (luckily) I have a great ear that can pick up things I hear pretty easily. If I can hear it in my head, I can play it.

A lot of jazz and other pro guitar players don't like TAB - the thought is that you should be able to read staff.

Yeah, that's BS. They are two totally different things. Yes, you should be able to read staff, but that's not a necessity. Yes, you should develop a good ear to you can jump into anything you're thrown in. That's more important that reading charts.

But with the tab vs staff thing - tab wins without a doubt. Staff is good for a piano where there is only ONE way to play a middle C. On a guitar, for scale runs and chord shapes, staff does NO good in helping you know how it's actually going to be played, what position that should be in, what fingering it was, if some open strings we in the middle, etc. Not to mention, all the little nuances of strings (mainly guitar) playing that are better suited to tab (bends, harmonic, pinch harmonics, etc)

Hey, you have to start somewhere.

Plus, what fun would guitar be if it weren't challenging?

find a teacher that teaches a style you like. don't think of practising as practicing but just as playing. also find songs you want to learn and learl them.

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"look mummy there's an airplane up in the sky"

guitar should be fun. learning the science and all that stuff is something i enjoy becasue i know it makes me that much better.

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Paddle faster! I hear banjo music!

Exactly. Enjoy what you CAN play now, and play the hell out of what you can do. Learn the science as well. Once they start to merge and you can understand "why" things sound good and why things fit together, this big light bulb will turn on and you'll be amazed at what you can do with all your knowledge.

But... butt.... always make sure you have fun with it.

Yes!

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.

for every 5 times you play a scale, play a song... Although I actually enjoy scales and sight reading and what-not, maybe I'm just a weirdo

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Go to people's funerals, or they won't go to yours - Yogi Berra

Holy crap!! O.O
Brian May was currently involved with the studio you were working with?
Man, how lucky were you?

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"If it's planned, it's boring." - Freddie Mercury

I have a college degree in music. With my degree--and consequently my improved reading/theory/composing skills--I got gigs playing big-band jazz and it also led to some great opportunities in the rock music world. Learning traditional music skills (reading, composing, theory, ear training, music history, sight singing) pays huge benefits, even if you don't ever have a reading gig.

Compare Music with English.
Reading and writing English is invaluable, even though you talk and listen all the time. Books, web pages, news papers, close captioning. Right?

The same benefits apply to reading and writing music.

Now that I've read all the posts, I have to agree with everyone here; put in the practice, but also make room for the fun.

I find it very interesting to learn all the aspects of theory, and I love it to bits. Including other things, I play all the scales I know every night, and then finish it off with one arpeggio.
However, it does get boring. I rarely ever play a song, but when push comes to shove, I find that it helps a great deal in getting my mind cleared and focused again.

And about sight reading....
Our instructor wanted all of us to get the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method Book 1 so he could start teaching us the fundamentals of sight reading.
Having played piano before, I already know the basics. I just want to become more proficient at it.
I think that sight reading is probably the most invaluable thing you could learn, besides how to actually play the guitar.
Even if it becomes boring, frustrating, and over-all suicidal , keep at it. It'll pay off.

And like you've read in the previous posts--if it's not fun, then why even do it?
The key is to have fun; the trick is to incorporate that with the actual work of playing those scales and arpeggios.
That's what almost all of us have to work on, I believe.

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"If it's planned, it's boring." - Freddie Mercury