I've had a metallic blue electric guitar for ten years now.
Bought so many beginner materials and they're fucking awful. I can't understand jack shit.
The closest I got to sticking to anything were the eMedia programs, at least the acoustic one. I bought the metal one but I'm not sure it works anymore on current Macs and I didn't want to rebuy it.
Bought a piano and the situation is even more dire.
Music is awful for self teaching. Absolutely awful.
The best starting point is undoubtedly justinguitar.com. He offers a complete course in guitar, absolutely free of charge, with video lessons and transcriptions. His course will get you from "never picked up a guitar" to being a self-sufficient musician. He has glowing endorsements from Brian May, Steve Vai, Mark Knopfler, Tommy Emmanuel and Woz.
Moving on from the beginner-intermediate level, I recommend TrueFire. They offer a huge range of video lessons from expert tutors in most genres. An all-access pass costs $19/mo, which is outrageously good value IMO.
> Bought a piano and the situation is even more dire.
https://pianowithjonny.com It's awesome :-) I'm playing passable blues riffs and have taught myself to read music with the help of some free apps (Music Tutor on iOS).
There's also a great series of books by Joseph Alexander for the guitar (fretboard fluency, etc). Definitely worth checking out.
For me, the most important thing has always been motivation. Right now I want to be able to walk into a bar/hotel/train station and bash out "Great Balls of Fire" a la Goose in Top Gun. So damned cool... :-D
Ignore all that, sit down with your guitar and start picking out simple melodies by ear, note by note. Begin with "Happy Birthday" or the alphabet song. That's hard and scary, but you'll make more progress in a week than you did in your whole life. Most importantly you'll defeat your fear of music.
It's not awful. It's just hard. It takes a long time to get to anything like basic proficiency, and the first few months/years are spent stumbling around thinking "I am really shit at this."
If music was a video game no one would buy it, because the reward curve is so unrewarding.
At some point you have to accept that unless you're in the 0.01% of the population with genius-level talent, you will only ever make slow progress towards a distant goal. Because that's how it is for everyone who isn't a genius.
The people who can play are the ones who started as embryos, and/or are motivated to keep at it. Not everyone has that motivation or that background, and that's fine too.
When I was age 7-12 and taking piano lessons, it was torture. At 16, with classical/folk guitar lessons, it was still a real slog, as I'd get very bored.
At age 50, when I took up piano lessons again, it was _so_ much easier. After 30 years of working, staying on-task for a 30-60 minute practice session was a piece of cake.
Also, a good teacher ($), a good instrument ($ to $$$), and a tolerant family all really help.
I'm self-taught, and I've been playing guitar for 25 years or so. If I hadn't picked it up as a teenager, I doubt I'd have gotten as far with it. I was obsessed with reproducing the sounds I heard on records, and it didn't feel frustrating at all to spend hours working on a riff until I got it exactly right.
The thing that worked really well for me is MIDI keyboard + Synthesia (+ custom midi instruments to make it sound nice). I wish I had more time to practice.
Bought so many beginner materials and they're fucking awful. I can't understand jack shit.
The closest I got to sticking to anything were the eMedia programs, at least the acoustic one. I bought the metal one but I'm not sure it works anymore on current Macs and I didn't want to rebuy it.
Bought a piano and the situation is even more dire.
Music is awful for self teaching. Absolutely awful.