Originally Posted by: TiddlesThe advantage of prcaticing on an electric guitar, is that you can unplug it, and it becomes very quite. This means that you can do physical practice (building up muscles and improving coordination) whilst watching telly. It might sound stupid,but when you sat watching telly, have your guitar with you, and rather than trying to actually play anything, just hold it properly, practice putting your fingers on different frets, one at a time at first, then maybe try changing chords. do it as slowly as you need (a minute at a time if you need to) but just keep doing it.
By the time you've finished watching Emmerdale or whatever - 30 mins practice!. I got into the habit of having my guitar with me when watching telly, and I was clocking up anywhere up to 2 hours practice a day without even noticing!!

Taping yourself once a week is a good idea too - and as early as you can, get yourself a metronome to practice with.
Good luck!!!!

This is actually a very good idea.

First off, you don't need an acoustic. If you are just learning, there's no point in going out and buying an acoustic just because someone says it's easier.

I learned on an electric guitar, later bought an acoustic and there's not much difference.

Just take your time. When you first start doing anything, it's hard to do. Learning to play the guitar is a study and it takes time and practice to get better. Chords can be tricky at first, but with time, you'll be able to switch between them like nothing.

Sitting in front of the TV with the guitar is a great idea for any level player.

What happens is this: Your brain is telling your fingers to move. You are actually thinking about moving your fingers. Well guess what, when you think about moving your fingers, it's a lot harder to do. Sitting in front of the TV builds on your subconscious mind. Meaning that you start doing things without thinking about them. They become natural. This is a reason you'll see a lot of people on this board saying "I'm stuck in a rut."

The reason they get stuck in a rut is from playing the same things over and over. Eventually your subconscious mind takes over and thats all they want to do, play the same licks over and over again. Do you think when people change chords while playing a song, they have to stop and think about where there fingers have to go? No, they do it subconsciously.

Just remember this, if guitar was easy, there'd be a lot more Steve Vai's and Joe Satriani's walking around. There's not. These people have devoted a lot of time to playing the guitar and mastering it.

You're only going to get out of your playing what you put in.

My advice is play your guitar everyday. Don't play 2 hours one day, 15 minutes the next day, 4 hours the following day, and 5 minutes the final day. You need to set aside an even amount of time. Practicing 30 minutes a day is better than doing 2 hours and then 20 minutes.

Perfect practice makes perfect. Don't cheat yourself. If you aren't doing it right, stop and start over until you are playing the chord correctly, and all notes ring out that are supposed to.

Stick with it man, in a month you'll be looking back saying, man I can't even believe I asked that.

I hope that helps.