To each his own Dan O. I give guitar lessons and I have some students who have the same approach to learning. some of them are very talented. The problem is when they learn leads from tab,I want them to know why they are playing these notes and what scale they are playing so when they start to create their own music they will have a foundation. I try to teach my students cool songs to keep them interested but it has to go along with their ability and their progression of music theory. but then again I know some good players who are self taught.

Lessons is the best way to start! Gives you the basics and then you can learn stuff easier.

they may be playing good but they don't know why it's good, or how to do it on their own.

1. learn scales and chords
2. listen to the song to figure out what key it is in
3. screw tabs, play that sucker and improvise if necessary (works for most of the bands out there. GnR is still i b**** though)

Great quote from a friend...a fantastic luthier named Jack Fortner, who I worked with at Encore Music:

When asked "which pedal will help me sound best?"

He responded "your gas pedal. In your car. On the way to your lessons."

LOL...gas pedal.

Anyways, I'm trying to learn chords and scales from this book...its kinda dense. Idk..they have these pictures that confuse me..root notes...ah!

I am starting think learning tabs and learning the actual notes are almost of equal difficulty. I was messing around with tabs, and at first it was really easy, but that was because the song i was playing was as simple as they come. I tried to move a up a bit, having the song in my head, and cocked and loaded on media, nothing happened just played random notes that sounded like nothing. Maybe i'm just stupid, but i think i have to find another way to learn, in a way that i can maybe learn from tabs and the actual sheet music. But hell, I still don't know.