SATCHMO, I had piano lessons as a child. I was forced to classical piano lessons every week because my mother thought it would make me better at maths. I don't know if it made me better at maths, but I know that when I was older and started playing guitar and bass, I could learn the instruments pretty effortlessly. All of that theory was a huge help. I know people say that you don't need to know heaps of music theory to be a great musician, which is 100% true, but if you do know theory it makes everything come together so much easier.

As for learning other people's songs that have ****ed up tunings and you can't understand at all - I gave up on that a long time ago. Learning other people's songs, especially songs which are hard to grasp because of the tuning or time signature or key, is futile. That person has written that song so it makes sense to them, it won't necessarily make sense to other people. Apart from learning much more basic songs, I think the biggest thing that helped me learn guitar and bass was making up my own riffs and bits and pieces.

Well I count the piano too because I wouldn't say I "know" it, and my girlfriends father had an accordion he would play that they were going to sell. I suck horrible, horrible balls at it, but I love what the possibilities are.

Its an Hohner 1622 "Black Dot" Double Ray.

I've been playing the guitar for about 6 years and I teach flamenco and jazz music in my city.

One suggestion I give you if you wish to learn how to play the guitar is:
No matter what kind of music you want to play, always play in standard tuning.

Unless you understand the shapes of variations on the guitar neck it's futile to learn songs in different tuning than standard.

If you just can't help yourself and have to do it try starting slow, by this I mean that you learn a song and then tune one string differently and you try playing it in that tuning. Then you tune the next string... etc

Granted this will take some time so here's an easier solution to your problem:
Take the tab of the song you want to learn and put it in guitar pro or whatever. Then have the program rewrite the song in standard tuning. Chances are most bands change the tuning so they make the song easier to play so you will probably have a little trouble playing it.

Best of luck

Thanks man, yeah I'm actually trying to do what Lat suggested because I think it fits best with my mindset. I'm always open to suggestions though, I'll check out this guitar pro you speak of.

Many people have multiple guitars tuned differently so that they dont have to bother with this each time. Personally I keep my main axe in standard and my humbucking guitar with h10 gauge strings downtuned to D. It makes my life that much easier.

Do you mean drop D or an E to D tuning where each string is flattened a whole step?

E to D. Or when needed to C. So each string is dropped.

I completely fail at the instrument.

So now I'm trying my hand at what most failed guitarists do, the bass. :laughing:

Boobs, there's a much greater breadth of talent when it comes to the bass. As an instrument it's very easy to be mediocre on but extremely difficult to be a virtuoso at. The whole "guitarists that suck play bass" is basically a cop-out for guitarists to insult people who don't play guitar. Which is terrible, the last thing the world needs are more guitarists.

And to jump on the tuning discussion, I almost always have my guitar in D standard or open D. I like not having to mess around with chord shapes but sometimes it's refreshing to play atonal scales without much effort. And my guitar sounds like dick when it's in E standard, if need be I just use a capo.

Boo boo how dare you say that! I am with sam here... they are completely different instruments that require different techniques/ talents. I didn't fail at guitar but I decided to pick up the bass anyway and it was a challenge but is now my favourite instrument to play out of the many I have... or maybe I just say that to make myself feel better.