That's when I posted my "Five Reasons Guitar is Hard to Play," or whatever I called it.

Where is that? I looked through all the pages back to when I first posted and didn't see it.

It's on page 5, somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure how to post a link to it.

That post is here. (A direct link to any post can be obtained by clicking on the little icon to the left of the poster's name at the top of the post).

Now I know why I'm so bad at trying to play a guitar. Actually, I guess I'm not just too musically inclined.

*disappears*

3. Your fingers must be tough enough to play. Thin strips of metal tend to hurt your fingers after a while. I can no longer feel textures such as sandpaper or rough velcro with my left fingertips.

That type of thing you have to just work at. I think anyone can probably play the guitar or the violin or the flute or anything if they try hard enough. Unless maybe you're tone deaf or something. It's like anything, you have to persevere, get past the intial pain, and then you're ok.

4. To strum, you must either hold a pick (and not drop it), or hit the strings with your fingers (prone to cause bruising if you do it wrong; this is rather painful). You can pick the strings (sometimes called 'plucking'), but using softens and 'fuzzes' the sound, and using a pick for this task is difficult and a daunting task to learn (I'm still working on it).

They make these little picks that have a loop on the end to hold it to your fingers. I personally have tried them on and think they'd be annoying but they work for some people.

5. When playing a tab, your hands move not only left to right, but up and down, oftain at the same time for the full length of the fretboard.

The distance moving on a guitar is much less than the amount you have to move on a piano. A piano keyboard is about one and a half times the length of the guitar neck. And you have to move from white keys to black keys.

Bonus 6. On piano, one note is one note with only one key to play it on; likewise, one chord is one chord. On guitar, you can have six ways to play one note, and I have yet to discover how many ways there are to play each chord (at least five, I think).

On piano, no there is not one note for each note. There are 8 C's on a regular 88 key piano each an octave apart. And there are several ways to play chords. I'll take C major for example because it's easy. You can play a regular C chord (fingers on C, E, and G in that order) or you can play inverted chords (E, G, C in that order is a first inversion or G, C, E in that order is second inversion). You can also play a C suspended chord in which (in a C chord) the E is lowered either a full step or a half step, I can never remember which. There's also C7 (in which you play C and the seventh note up from C which is B), C2 (in which you play C and the D next to it), C6, C9, C13, C+, and some others. I'm sorry, I can't explain those. My teacher just mentioned those but I haven't learned them yet.

I don't mean this as an argument, Katie, I just wanted to point out some things. Also, I don't mean this to say piano is better than guitar or that people who play guitar aren't as talented or anything.

edit: I just added a few more descriptions of a couple more ways of playing C chords. My teacher just told me about them today.

Kat: Nice new cover on "Do You Feel"! I already commented on the vid itself. I enjoyed it!

Julie - On the chord thing. What I meant is not how you interpreted it (from what I can tell; maybe I'm mis-interpreting you). What I meant is this: on piano, your fingering for a C Major is always the same. You can play it in different octaves, but the fingering is the same. On guitar, there are at least five different ways to finger a C Major. Yes, there is C Minor, and C7, and C#, and so on, but they aren't the same chord. They are all C chords, but they are not the same chord.

winterlife: there is different fingering though. playing E G C is different from playing C E G. You're using different fingers. I should know, I play piano as well. And I've played violin, I have to say the strings aren't as hard to push down as on a guitar. That's mainly the thing right now that discouraging me from playing it. I don't really want callouses on my fingers...

GtG - I love the callouses on my fingers. I also love how they turn white when I play for about two hours. I don't know why I like it so much, I mean, it goes click when I tap plastic. My sister doesn't want callouses either, so she kind of stopped playing, which relieved me a little, but yeah... I like my callouses.

I just had piano lessons this morning. I'm learning a LOT. My piano teacher is encouraging me to get winterlife to sing the songs out of my BarlowGirl book while I play. I should try singing them myself while I play but I'm not super confident in my voice and I don't like singing by myself when there's people around to listen to me. Why isn't there a hiding smiley?

My modern worship fake book hasn't arrived yet. According to Amazon, it's supposed to ship this week or last week but it hasn't yet. I really want to play out of it! It's got some awesome songs in it like Indescribable, Above All, All Creatures of Our God and King, O Worship the King, Here I am to Worship, Holy Is the Lord, We Want to see Jesus Lifted High, Who Am I, We Bow Down, Trading My Sorrows, Strong Tower, Presence, No One Like You, Lifesong, Marvelous Light, King, I Can Only Imagine, I Could Sing of Your Love Forever, Healing Rain, Father Spirit Jesus,

ARGH!!!! I'm getting all anxious to play and it hasn't even shipped yet!!!!!

I might have trouble singing with you, Julie, because I don't know the songs from that album.
I'm waiting for my music book too. So we're both in the same boat.

And I'm waiting for my CDs...

I'm mad b/c my sister will most likely be taking piano lessons and she doesn't even want to. And I've been begging for guitar lessons for at least a year...Why give lessons to someone who doesn't want them!?!??!

I think I remember you saying you play piano, Glenstorm? If so, the most probable reason is that your parents want your sister to have some musical background/experience and since you've already had some, you don't get first priority. *hug*

My little brother does not like taking piano lessons but my mom won't let him quit yet because she wants him to have some musical experience.

Yes I play piano and I played violin for 7 years. Yeah they want her to have some musical ability and the only reason she agreed is b/c she will get voice lessons along with it, and she wants to take voice in order to do musical theatre. but it's still not fair I like, excuse me, love music so much more than she does! . But I'll accept the hug

Parents sometimes seem to think if they make you take an instrument for a long time you'll learn to like it. Not true. I took violin for 7 years and I still greatly dislike playing it.

I play the guitar and I find tabs very hard to read. Instead of reading all the numbers of where to put your fingers, I would much rather use chords and quickly play that combination. I understand that tabs allows for a lot more variation, creativity, and general good-ness, but it bothers me when people use tabs when they could really just use chords. What do you think?

Glenstorm: Do you have any friends who could teach you? I just play the guitar for fun and doubtless have many bad habits, idiosyncracies, and I know I'm not that good, but I just want to be able to play songs and accompany myself singing. If that's what you're looking for, you don't need a professional teacher. A friendly college student taught me. I paid her, but it was fun for both of us and less expensive. If you want to be really really good, you should probably have a real teacher. Some people can teach themselves though!

Kate: I use mostly chords, and I find chords easier. I know people, though, who have a harder time learning chords than memorizing tabs. And tabs are a bit strange until you figure out how to read them. I have an easier time with tabs than with sheet music, so I write down songs as tabs so I don't forget them.