I'm a new musician. I play guitar and just wanted to have somewhere to go for advice. I'm not real good yet but I'm learning so I just wanted to start talking and meet some people.

welcome welcome

what kind of guitar interest do you have?  i know it's hard to just label it, but are you interested in a kind of rock, something slower...?  or maybe you do whatever it is that fits your mood, like me :P

whazzeahh, essaeh?
hauzeet goin mang?

you'll need to describe your interests further if you want us to post anything resembling adivice, or anything much more than a cursory "hello" type of glance.

my suggestions?

go buy some good guitar music

The Beatles
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Jimi Hendrix

whoever

get some lessons... buy some books... practice practice practice...

there... now... wait... who are you?

careful, entheon   don't beat him down! :P

you could be more like me, who has never had a guitar lesson in his life, has no idea what chords look like (i know a G chord, but that's it), and yet make songs because of what they sound like, and not learning "the way everybody else does it" for the sake of being original.

i feel silly sometimes saying stuff like that b/c i don't have any of my songs on bandamp yet, but i'm hoping to do at least one within the next little while.  i'm trying to work out 5 at once at the moment 

and silly... but for real though... i am trying to be encouraging actually... and it's true, practice practice practice. the ear comes first, but the knowlege is just as important. your ear will get you where you want to go, but the more tools you have in your aresenal the better you'll be at whatever you do. music theory is just a set of tools. learn them, love them, but more importantly, learn to USE them, and don't worry if you don't know all of them.

also, seriously... listen to the greats, they will inspire you and help you see what CAN be done with a guitar.

what i mean by "who are you" is just... tell us more about yourself, who you are, what you wanna do, where you're at, where you wanna go, what you can do now, what kind of music you like, what kind of music you wanna play. etc etc etc...

your ear is the most important instrument you have, and your soul is more important yet.

the more tools you have in your aresenal the better you'll be at whatever you do

definitely   also, you mentioned inspiration.

i second that motion.

If you want to become a good guitarist, then coming home and playing guitar is what you're gonna look forward to doing when you come home. You shouldn't practice just for the sake of being good, you should practice for the love of it.

Tryng to learn licks? Play the songs with Windows media player, click "view" on top, and scroll down to enhancements. Get to play speed settings, and you can actually slow down the song and play it at the part you want to learn. I learned Rushes (Spirit of Radio) toughest bass lick this way, and the intro to "Mean Streets" (VH)

Sometimes even if you love it though, you gat sick of it when discouragement hits, because you're failing in every attempt to play stuff you want to play when you're starting out. I recomend serious repetion and rehearsal without an amp as well as regular playing. Sometimes I play the same lick or difficult chord change 100's of times while watching t.v.,or listening to talk radio, so as not to get bored .I've been playing for over 30 years, but there's no substitute for good old fashioned brass tax repetition!

Its not the tool your using, its how well you use it. Thats the best advice you can get. You can have 800 guitars and be a complete turd at playing or you can have 1 crappy squier and be a god!!

Practice makes perfect so practice alot. You will get better. Start with east songs and riffs. Like "louie, Louie, or knocking on Heaven Door"
Once you start to learn those you can get to more difficult stuff. But stick with your guns.

as far as what DirkDiggler suggested there are also numerous other programs for this purpose as well...

There are plugins for Winamp and XMMS

and there's also a freeware/shareware program called "Guitar and Drum Trainer" which accomplishes this same thing. It will speed up and slow down without changing pitch or it can change the pitch without speeding up and sowing down and or any combination inbetween.

as far as what nunly81 said, he's right... your guitar doesn't matter... it's your skills on the guitar that matter

so in relation to that comment there is a saying that goes:

"you can't polish a turd"

or the corollary

"a gold covered turd is still a turd"

which means, that if your skills suck no guitar in the world will make them sound good, but on the reverse, if your skills are awesome a shitty guitar will still make you sound kinda shitty.

anyway... I hear a rumor that BandAMP is going to be starting an online lesson archive... just a rumor, don't take my word for it... cuz I don't know when, so watch out