Has anyone ever learned guitar on their own?

Both of my sons taught themselves the basics to playing guitar and neither have any experience in music. If you go to a good guitar shop they should have some learn the basics type books and DVD's. Get yourself started with those and then go take lessons once you have the basics.

Most of the people I know learned on their own or were taught by other people who knew how to play the guitar. They turned out good guitarists. My nephew also didn't take any formal guitar lessons. I think he was taught the basics by some of his friends. Now, he's part of a band :). It is much easier now with the kind of technology we have as there are a lot of available resources online. That gives us other options aside from taking guitar lessons. One friend only learned to play a song he used to serenade his wife during his wedding through online videos :).

I have. I learned it all by myself. The thing is, if you really want to learn something, you'll strive for it. And I did. Mind you, I am a left-handed guy and I learned to play the guitar with the normal right-hand guitar. Isn't that fascinating?

With your musical background, interest, and guitar books, yes, you can do it. Just get hold of a guitar and start strumming, making your fingers get used to the strings. I am sure you can do it very quickly. I learned how to play the guitar when I was in high school but I could only do those with very simple chords. My fingers have difficulty doing the difficult ones. But with you, I am sure that learning to play the guitar would be just a piece of cake.

I did learn on my own. I learned it from song books. At first I find it really hard. But I was really into guitar playing that time so I practiced really hard. I was just like 8 years old when I played a guitar. Internet during that time was not a hit in my country and we cant afford one. Good thing song books are there! Happy mylotting!

Well on youtube you can learn to play guitar for free, plus you'll learn how to play simple songs as well. That's how I learned to play a lot of different piano songs. Plus on youtube its like having 20 different teachers.

I had like 2 sessions for my guitar lesson when I was 10 years old. My instructor had to leave because he'll be transferring in a different branch. Since then, I never took guitar lessons anymore. I studied on my own and even had a band back in high school. You just need to know all the possible chords. To practice, choose a song and play with it :) I do that every day before, and it worked :) I'm 22 now and I'm still playing the guitar whenever I feel like it :)

I just started learning to play a guitar myself. I bought my first guitar just about 8 months ago. I also look to the internet for some free lessons. Now, I'm only able to play some songs like More Than Words (Extreme), Aubrey, If, Diary (Bread), My Body is a Wonderland (John Mayer) simple songs like that. I learned these songs through watching some free tutorials from youtube. I always wanted to be able to play a guitar since I was little but never had a chance. The truth is I still don't have much time learning to play it I just made a decision to learn it. I never took any type of music lesson when I was young so basically I'm illiterate when it comes to reading music. But I guess you don't need to be able to read music to play a guitar. Most rock stars aren't either. I'm only able to read guitar tabs. There are tons of guitar tabs of any song on the Internet all you need to do is just look for it using a search engine. For the basic guitar lesson, I picked up beginner books like Guitar for dummies and Complete Idiot's guide to playing a guitar. But I guess if you are really serious about learning a guitar and you want make a steady progress in learning it you should probably get a tutor. One more thing, if you are just starting to play a guitar for the first time your fretting fingers is going to hurt really really bad. Don't give up though. Just give it a rest and start practicing again. Once you've developed some calluses on your fingers you'll never feel the hurt again.