Reddit reviews Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Complete Edition: Books 1, 2 and 3

In your case, yes, I'd recommend a guitar over a lower end keyboard that you'll find very limiting very quickly. You can absolutely learn theory on guitar, though it is a lot more well laid out on a piano keyboard and therefore easier to visualize.

But for someone just wanting to have fun, start with guitar since it will have a much quicker return on investment of your time to get to a point where you're able to have fun playing. You can quickly pick up 3-6 open position chords on guitar and play hundreds of songs probably within months... which would not be the case on piano.

I can also absolutely recommend this guitar which falls well within your budget and leaves you a little more room for other stuff.

If you want to learn theory, I would make sure you supplement you learning of basic guitar chords and strumming patterns (tons of resources everywhere online) with some actually sheet music reading using a method book like this one.

Also, if you're working out of a book like that (or doing scales or melodic playing in general) I'd strongly recommend you get a thick, hard pick like this. You'll have a ton more control and less long-term frustration.

You'll probably also want some softer picks (maybe .50 -.70mm) for general strumming stuff though, particularly early on where you won't have good control of pick distance. You can work up to using hard picks for strumming once you get a bit better hand control, but I'd never recommend a soft pick for non-strumming work.

After all of this, you can easily grab a better keyboard in the future if you want to get more serious and delve a little deeper. Even as a hobbyist the two instruments will compliment each other and the theory stuff will make more sense on piano.

The problem is, the entry point for a decent keyboard is much higher than guitar (usually $400-600). Keep an eye out for used Yamaha P series or Casio Privia keyboards. The older models are fine and can be found used quite a bit cheaper if you're lucky.

As for guitars, I'd recommend against starting electric. There are benefits (beginners find the softer action easier to deal with), but the downside is that there's a lot more gear involved and the entry level is honestly a bit higher for an electric. You probably don't want to spend much less than $150-250. Below there you start to get instruments with uneven tuning and lots of other problems. If you want to look at a guitars in the lower end, the Yamaha Pacifica is well known for being an amazing bang-for-the-buck in terms of quality and not cutting as many corners as other budget guitars.

But you have to worry about amps with electrics and very low end amps are going to be very frustrating to play with and mid-tier amps are going to add a lot of cost... so you'll be looking close the same entry point as a keyboard if you want to go electric from the start.

The acoustic Jasmine I linked is great though. The action is fairly light, the tuning is consistent across the neck and, and it holds in tune very well and the tone is very good for the price. Mine came well setup direct from the manufacturer. I bought it years ago planning to just use it as a beater and expecting very little, but I've been using it for 8 years and it continues to work well for me with the bonus of me not worrying at all about taking it outside or anything like that. Which, obviously, portable music making is the other huge advantage of an acoustic guitar.

I use this book to teach all of my students how to read. Then I supplement with some basic sheet music I create of a popular song that they like that they use to help them sightread the melody. :)

You would try taking some online courses from Berklee.

I'd also recommend getting Guitar Pro and dloading plenty of tabs from Ultimate-Guitar.com, since it's much easier than looking for old copies of Guitar for the Practicing Musician and such.

Lessons are good, but beware that you'll be made to concentrate on the fundamentals of music, which many pupils think is not related to playing guitar.

Finally, if you're learning to sight-read, probably good to start at the beginning, such as with the Hal Leonard Guitar Method set of books. If you're interested, I wrote a small python app that writes randomized music based on which notes you choose, so that you can get around the problem of having memorized the notes on the exercises (so that you are actually forced to sight-read). It works quite well, since it creates notation for only the notes you want, and coupled with the method books, is very useful for getting a good sense of sight-reading.

Lines are: EGBDF

Spaces are: FACE

BOOM!

Something like Hal Leonard Guitar method may be useful because even though it is their beginning guitar book, everything is in standard notation. No tab to fall back on. So even if you've been playing a while, you'll start right off with this dot on the staff = this string/fret. I have the epub version that has the audio embedded in the file, so I can click on the staff on my ipad and it will play. The printed version I think all the audio tracks are online.

I think the Hal Leonard Guitar Method book is really good. I was in the same boat... took several years off and wanted to pick it up again. I thought the book was great for helping me get back into sight-reading and remembering my notes/frets/scales. Definitely simple at the beginning if you've played before, but it's a solid review.

I mean, you can always buy one of the many many instructional books that are out there. Hal Leonard is a pretty well-known company, and it's probably good to have some kind of reference or learning books around for looking things up.

The other thing I'd suggest is basing it around the types of music or songs you want to learn. There's some super basic stuff that you should learn like keeping in tune, knowing the strings, basic open chords, etc; but beyond that it might be worth making a list of decently easy songs you want to learn and what techniques or concepts you'd need to learn to be able to play them.

When I started out (back in 2003 or so) I found a website that had a bunch of beatles tabs, and I learned chords and various types of playing styles to go with the songs I wanted to learn.

It's always a good idea to try them out in person to see how they sit with you as if it's uncomfortable you won't want to practice with it. Since you said you can't, the MS model you're looking at looks like a good option. From what I can tell, the only difference is that it's matte finished which shouldn't be much of a difference at all compared to the S model. Yamaha makes some great instruments so I think you're safe with whichever you choose.

A tuner and picks are a must (in my opinion) but it's also nice to have a strap so you can practice standing up. A good beginners book that teaches you chords and some basic notation is also good to have around when starting out. This is a good one that will give you some structure when you practice.

Good luck!

Have you considered buying a book? When I was taking guitar lessons I used this to learn and it helped quite a bit. I've since stopped but I'm thinking of going through the books again to improve my playing.

As an older employed guy, he charges me $40 for 40 minutes. The is the basic going rate in town for professional lessons. But I have heard from others that he will work with some on a sliding scale. But, if you truly only have a couple hours playing so far, the very first thing to figure out is how serious you are. In the beginning, you have to devote a least several hours a week practicing both scales and chords. Both finger strength and dexterity are the key to getting anywhere, and there really are no shortcuts, other then practice, and practice some more. Consider getting this book set: https://www.amazon.com/Hal-Leonard-Guitar-Method-Complete/dp/0634047019/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485995196&sr=8-1&keywords=learn+guitar
It will both teach you how the very basics of reading music, and make you practice putting your fingers on the right frets. Do you have to know how to read music? Well, not if you are only looking to sing around the campfire.. but if you ever want to play music with others, and not be totally lost, it is pretty much a must that you know some level of chord structure. Speaking of, here is one of the cheapest chord books you can buy:https://www.amazon.com/Alfreds-Basic-Guitar-Chord-Chart/dp/0739048953/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485995714&sr=8-1&keywords=basic+guitar+chords
Learn the following chords C,D,E,F,G, Em, Am, Dm. Most songs can be played in the key of C, (which is C, dm,em,F,g,am). There are an mind numbing ways to play each and every chord, so learn the ones that you can play in the first 3 frets to start with. Then learn the E, em and A barre chords, again practice will give you strength and you will start to build up finger callus's too. Once you can jump from chord to chord somewhat comfortably, then go see Ron (or a taskmaster of your choice) Consider finding others that want to start, and meet once a week. OK, enough babble... ( you can tell I love playing....)

My instructor had me get this book for learning how to read. It's a great resource in my opinion as it goes through the notes of each string in open position step by step (literally lol).

For a complete beginner I recommend Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Complete Edition: Books & CD's 1, 2 and 3 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0634047019/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_pmbkub0RHR583