Anecdote, from someone who gave up. I was fortunate to grow up with parents that played various instruments. Mom played the piano. Dad played the guitar and

Anecdote, from someone who gave up. I was fortunate to grow up with parents that played various instruments. Mom played the piano. Dad played the guitar and clarinet. Grandparents played the piano and the pipe organ at church. We kids were encouraged to pick an instrument we liked, and even though we didn't have much money, lessons were always something my parents figured out how to pay for. In return, we were expected to take it seriously, and learn both the instrument and the meaning of a commitment to something difficult. I took piano lessons from age 5 until 12, when they agreed that I could stop piano lessons if I took up another instrument, so I played the violin for 5 years with the public school's music & orchestra program. I quit playing altogether about the time I started driving, because having a car meant having a job, and that took the time I was using to practice. Fast forward many years, through college, and a decade afterwards. I don't have the room for a real piano; keyboards & digital pianos just aren't the same for me. The violin is something I don't really enjoy any longer, especially without an orchestra to play in, and I do not have the time for such an endeavor. In college, I fell in love with classical and flamenco guitar. Figuring that another instrument wouldn't be terrible to learn, since I already knew how to read music, I picked up a $200-ish classical guitar, some books of chords, and attempted to teach myself. After that miserable failure, I then attempted to find someone who could teach the style of guitar I wanted to learn, and teach it to someone who wasn't a little kid. That turned out to be a nearly impossible task, and I think that's a big point of failure. The teaching methods out there have a focus on "kid music" to the exclusion of nearly everything else. On top of that, there is the assumption by most teachers that wanting to play guitar means you want to play rock 'n roll or pop-country. Those that don't assume that fall into the trap of thinking that you want to play in a gospel band. None of them were willing to sit down and teach the fundamentals without pushing me into playing extremely simplified versions of music I hate. So my guitar sits in its case, in the back of the closet, unused. I gave up. Not because it was too much work. Because no one wants to teach what I want to know.