What is the best way to learn to play an instrument

[astondog]

I have never know how to play or read music, is it best to learn to read the music first or start with an instrument. I am interested in a guitar or an organ.
Anyone have any ideas please.

[matt1e]

well you can learn both together but definatly leaning to play more important

[Mortartube]

I play guitar ( though most who hear it would disagree) and I am self taught. If you know any guitarists, the quickest way is to get then to show you a few basics, from how to hold the guitar to a few basic chords.

You do not NEED to be able to read music to play guitar or keyboard as there are things called tabs, which are basically diagrams of where to put your fingers. The only problem is, that the tune has to be familiar to you with tabs, unlike sheet music. This may help you with understanding tabs and chord diagrams. Once you get the hand of it, it is pretty straightforward.

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/tab/

Here is an excellent site that will help you with finger positions for chords. I would suggest that you learn the chords. D,A,G at first then when you have learnt those you can strum a reasonable sounding tune.

http://chordfind.com/

Getting a guitarist to show you these chords will help a great deal. It will take a few minutes to show you but maybe quite a bit longer to work them out yourself.

Keyboards also have tabs and chord diagrams that work in a similar way showing finger positions.

A lot of the things you see first will seem alien to you but if you can get someone to show you that will help a great deal. Also very good instructional DVD's are available from most musical instrument shops or online.

Finally, a couple of pictures showing parts of a guitar.

http://www.learnthat.com/courses/fun/guitar/im ages/guitar1.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Pl

[saxy_jag]

I know a lot of people who can't read a note of music, but who are brilliant musicians. Conversely, I can read music very well, but it certainly doesn't make me a brilliant musician.

A sensible mixture is best. Pick up your instrument (unless it's a piano or something, obviously) and make sound with it. Find out how to make different types of sound, bad sounds, nice sounds, unusual sounds, maybe see if you can play couple of familiar tunes. Then get yourself a book (or find a website) and start to read up on the theory. Little and often is the secret. Eventually you'll find yourself putting the two together and turning into a very useful player.

[Scarlett]

The best thing you can do is have some lessons with a good teacher. They will show you everything you need to know, in the right order. Then you can carry on teaching yourself. Lots of people do this with guitar and keyboard. It is hard to teach yourself from scratch cos you can get into some bad habits.

[huzee]

Reading music is not essential but is an advantage later to play tunes you have never heard before as it contains rhythm information unlike tab. The Tab system is the easiest to understand. I found you tend to pick up standard notation whilst learning through tab anyway. You are not gone to learn music unless you have an instrument to try it on!

If you are going to learn guitar do so now you can get cheap guitars to see if you like it. I started with a encore guitar with amp, tuner and stand for less than �100 now I like it I then bought a better guitar.

I started late to guitar and now wish id taken it up ealier as there is so much you can learn. Do not let that put you off as you can play most tunes basically quite quickley. My first was Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison and 4 months later I have covered to some degree Guns n Roses, Nirvana and Deep Purple stuff with some success.

Patience and building finger strength is the key.