Originally Posted by: JFRICK
I did it the hard way. When I first started guitar, I bought the tab book for the first Van Halen album....Took me a while, but I learned that whole album as a beginner.

on a similar note, my mom's boyfriend got me metallica's "kill 'em all" tab book for my 15th birthday, not knowing my budding ability level. my two previous tab books had been 'beginning lead technique' and 'blues solos'. needless to say, the "hit the lights" solo tab kept me awake until 2am every night, and i nearly broke my guitar because of that book.

but hell, i learned how to alternate pick at 196bpm pretty quickly, so who's complaining?

there is a maturity level that comes with learning (or trying to learn) music that is above your ability level. you have to take what you can from it, but understand that you might not fall asleep at the end of the day saying "wow, i really nailed that." i got into some bad habits with my sweep picking, and i took a few days just to sit down and re-learn most of my right hand technique. wasn't fun and it didn't exactly make me feel like a pro, but we all have to accept that we're not as great as our girlfriends think we are sometimes. ;)