Learn to Read Music

Many guitarists don't learn to read conventional musical notation. Instead, they rely on playing by ear, guitar tab notation, chord diagrams and lyrics with chord letters.

Learning to read music seems like an extra hurdle to many beginners, and you can point to excellent blues and rock guitarists who did not read music.

The problem is that guitar tab doesn't tell you everything you need to know to play a song, especially in terms of rhythm and melody. Adding this information to a tab can overload what tab is best at conveying.

You are doing your bandmates a big favor by learning to read music. Nearly all keyboard players and singers can read music as well as most bass players I know.

It's easy to find resources such as books, videos, and learning apps to get any guitarist past the first hurdles of musical literacy.

Start with Nylon String Guitar

 Yamaha CG172SF Nylon String Flamenco Guitar

 Many aspiring acoustic guitar students, especially children, give up before they acquire the callouses and strength necessary to make a steel string acoustic guitar sound good. It's hard to learn to fret the strings properly, and the rattling and dissonance of poorly fretted chords is discouraging.

The problem is exacerbated by the high action of most beginner folk guitars. The large size of dreadnought bodies, the most popular and widely available acoustic guitars, add to the challenge.

Nylon string guitars are easier to fret, and have smaller bodies that are more comfortable to hold. They sound great for solo performances, and are suitable not only for classical, flamenco, Latin and jazz but also for finger style folk and many rock songs.  Willie Nelson plays a well aged nylon string guitar.

Yamaha offers great values in nylon string guitars, including smaller versions for children. Based on my first guitar teacher's recommendation, I started with a Yamaha CG172SF. If you decide to move on to steel string acoustic or electric, you can sell a quality nylon string guitar for nearly what you paid for it.

Do yourself or your child a favor by considering a nylon string guitar to start.