advice needed from guitar players

Hi I have a guitar and have no idea what to do with it. Id love to learn to play a few tunes on it, but I really dont want to learn to read music, is that possible? Plus whats the best way to go around learning the guitar? Do i need a private tutor or are videos any good? Ive seen some online lessons but they look pricey and might be a scam? Lastly, is it really hard? I wanted to crack on, not wait till sept when the next Adult education classes begin. thankyou

(This is Mr Scrobble by the way!) It depends on what you want to play: if you've a classical guitar, and want to play classical music, you'll need to learn to read music (which isn't super-hard) or find the stuff you're interested in transcribed into TAB. If you've a regular acoustic or electric guitar and want to play stuff you hear on the radio, the lead parts will all be available in TAB anyway, so there's no need to learn to read music. Guitar TAB is explained here http://www.freesheetmusic.net/guitartablature.html amongst other places (the explanation makes it look semi-complicated, but it really isn't!). And guitar TAB for lots of popular songs is easy to google (although the stuff freely available on the internet isn't necessarily accurate; but there are plenty of books that are). If you fancy easyish rhythm guitar then it's even easier from a reading point of view, you just need to learn some chords and find which chords go over which bits of which songs - instant busking! I haven't looked much at the online stuff but I wouldn't really fancy it myself. I've found the "Progressive X Guitar" books useful, e.g., http://www.learntoplaymusic.com/UK/product_info.php?products_id=1616&osCsid=a27b83d2da3b492115f96fcf0e7431f4 has all of the "easy" chords and provides a good introduction to lead playing IMO. Hmm, I don't know if I'd say it is hard as such, but you do need to practice lots if you want to progress, and it is frustrating for a while at the beginning when you can play literally nothing. I'd say you should practice at least half an hour a day; doing this, I could play rhythm on some REM songs after a couple of months, which was kindof nice. There is a definite early phase where you just take an age getting your fingers in the right place for each chord, which is dull, but it passes! Bar-chords take quite a bit of getting used to, I just sucked at them for months. With respect to adult ed, it might be good to be able to play a few chords before starting classes, so grabbing a book now and going for it in september might be a good way to go (I found it helpful anyway, but the adult ed classes I went to weren't really structured classes, they were just a bunch of guitarists of varying degrees of skill getting to play together). I'd definitely recommend private tuition if you can afford it and want to progress quickly; otoh my brother has never had a lesson in his life and can rock my socks off:) I am kindof weak-willed, so I found having a lesson to go to every week made me more likely to practice as it kindof sucks going to a lesson you are paying lots of money for and having to get out your shame-face. If you want to PM MrsS with some more details (e.g., the kind of music you're interested in playing) I can perhaps point you at some books or internet sites or something. The rhythm part for "Find the river" by REM is a reasonably satisfying song to attempt fairly early on as it sounds quite nice but is playable without bar chords.