My only advice to you is practise , practise , practise ..... all good things come in time , and as you progress and get better and learn that song you always wanted to hear the motivation will come to you , just listening to your favourite CD will inspire you play and learn the tune . but the golden rule is practise

Practise practise practise!

Dont get fed up with playing the same chord progression over and over again...just keep at it and it will come ...eventually.

And yes having a teacher and someone to jam with helps tremendously!

my 2 cents:
all it is is practice...but you can only learn so much by yourself
get motivated to jam, I highly recommend a teacher...

I was classically trained and this opened many doors for me in my progressive playing.

try play with a guitarist that is better than you, you will learn a lot from them...

Thanks guys. So ja, practice, practice, practice....

Appreciate the advise, just wanted to know that I am on track.

?

Herman

Practice is good, but try and learn some riffs as well as the progressions. This gives you quite a bit of a rush, when you can play even something simple like "smoke on the water".
The very first thing I taught myself was the chord progression to "house of the rising sun" which was quite simple but I was impressed when I got it right.

Learning to play the guitar from my limited experience is very much like my other hobby. I think it vital to find a few things in the whole package that gives you goosebumps and use those for motivation. Like said earlier it's awesome to have discipline and keep practising the stuff you are not good at, or well the more difficult things but it's more important to come back to things you enjoy doing at the very same time. Just like in RC Model flying where doing some of the manuevers is a really technical affair, heck some of the most simple looking things took me up to a year to get the hang of, just so in guitar playing some of the simplist things can really tie up a nooby. Don't just crack a skull focussing on the things you struggle with, always spend just as much time just having fun and playing something you can handle already.

Rudolf nailed it in his last sentence.

Focus on a riff or phaze or techique that you are struggling with. even if it's just 10 minutes a day. (but don't pretend to focus by watching TV with your guitar in your lap ?).

ALSO (like Rudolf said) spend time having fun playing your guitar for just as long as you spend bleeding your fingers. ?

Practice, and practice towards a goal. I've noticed that guys who start performing or, for whatever reason, have to master something by a certain date improve noticably. I know that when I work towards mastering something, when I identify specific things that I need to work on/learn, that's when I improve. If my "practice" consists of 90 minutes of pentatonic noodling then I have fun, but I don't improve.

i set myself goals to do within a certain period of time,whether it be a song or a technique...makes you try harder and be more focused at doing it

but then again that worked for me ?

and i agree with the PRACTICE PRACTICE AND MORE PRACTICE aswell ?

Thanks gents, appreciate the advice.