Originally Posted by: rtb67I feel like quiting sometimes but i know this is the right way to learn guitar. Should i keep it up or throw in the towel?

In my opinion, reading music is a lot like learning a new language. If you don't use it, you won't retain what you're learning.

There isn't really a "right" or "wrong" way to learn guitar. There are often better ways of learning than others. For instance, if you're wanting to learn how to play lead guitar, you could pick a very difficult, challenging solo to learn and just keep chipping away at it bit by bit. When you get discouraged, people might say "just keep at it, you'll get there!". Maybe you will, maybe you won't, but you might be a lot happier and motivated if you were instead learning the basics techniques of soloing, along with a simple, easy solo. Your chances of success are much higher when you see progress, and you're constantly applying your newly acquired skills in your playing.

Do you need to be able to read music to play what you want to play? Its not a loaded question, and the answer isn't always "no". If you are expecting to play with other musicians in a professional environment, you may very well need to learn to read music. Of if you're going to learn classical guitar, learning to read music is probably going to be a very good skill to have so that you can access sheet music.

For the kind of lead playing I'm doing, I don't need to read music, though sometimes when I'm looking at tab that has the music as well, I look at the music to help understand the rhythm. But I'm not able to read all the notes on the staff instantly or anything like that, and I don't feel its holding me back.

Another skill I have been working on recently is rhythm guitar. I have a book that teaches chords and rhythmic strumming patterns. The book explains the rhythm by using musical notation. It is very easy to follow. As they introduce very simple bass notes to be played with the chords, its written out in musical notation, and again, is very easy to follow. I notice that later in the book, they use musical notation exclusively... they slowly wean you off having the the chords written out in tab style. So, I expect as I progress, I'll learn how to read just the rhythm notation, but its serving a very specific purpose, so it sticks.

There's tons of great players out there that can't read music, and others who can, it just comes down to your personal needs.