Baldy

Rock music and any sort of associated genres, (Punk, Metal, etc) are always going to be live experiences. I doubt we'll ever get another moment where rock captures the public attention, but as long as musicians keep wanting to tour, the fans will show up. Case in point, Download festival happening right now, still pulling in huge numbers every year no matter what. I mean, a few weeks ago I went to see Example (For any who don't know that'd be electronically driven rap) and while it was a great show, it didn't compare to the Machine Head gig I was at last week. It just seems like rock music will always come up top when it comes to live performances.

In my experience, no matter how you do it, as long as you put the hours in you'll progress in some way. But it really depends on what you want to learn. I started wanting to learn metal, so the first thing I did was learn how to read tabs and then just started finding songs I wanted to play and kept at it until they weren't sounding totally awful. But that said, if acoustic music is more your kind of thing, then start with the chords and build up from there. Consistantly playing is the real key I think, at least it was for me.

I quite liked your version of the Lady Gaga track. Not being too fussed on her personally it made a nice change from what I'd expect from a cover of that. In response to the thread title, I think instrumental music is great, but only if it manages to keep the interest going, a lot of music can sound bland without some sort of vocal in my opinion.