My first guitar was a Yamaha Spanish classical that my mom bought me for my 13th birthday last year. It was not the most wonderful guitar, but it was a guitar nonetheless, and I had wanted one very badly.

But now that I had my guitar, it didn't seem as special considering I didn't know a string from a pickguard. So there it sat in a dark corner of my room, rarely touched. This went on for maybe four months before I went to a concert at our local library to see a friend of mine play in his band.

It was by far the worst music I had ever heard. In reality, the only thing keeping them from just playing loud, bad noise was the bass player. It was a sad sight and sound. That night, I made a commitment to myself to play guitar well enough so that I could give a concert ten times better than they could.

But first I had to change my equipment! I bought my first electric guitar from a friend for $25. It had a built-in amplifier in the guitar case. My mother thought I was crazy because it looked like a piece of junk. I had recently seen a picture of Jimmy Page playing an uncanny match to my purchase, so since Jimmy Page was my guitar idol, I was proud of it.

I had to restring it since I was left handed and that didnąt do anything to improve the sound. I didnąt know much and no one else could help me because it was now for lefties only, so I just fooled around with it.

I was playing around with my guitar one day when my mom suggested I look up guitars on the internet. I didnąt think it was a bad idea: I found a bunch of sites pertaining to guitars and guitar tablature, a couple of which I still use today. Tablature, or Tab for short, is a notation for stringed instruments, with (in the case of guitar music) six lines (representing the guitar strings) and numbers (representing fret positions).

One of my favorite sites is OLGA, which stands for On-Line Guitar Archive. It posts guitar tablature for almost every band you can think of. This site really beats going out and buying magazines to get tabs!

Tablature was pretty easy to understand, but I also got the occasional dreaded chord progressions. I never really learned how to read chords, because the guitar teaching book I owned was written by and for right-handed guitar players.

All of the diagrams that showed how to make a chord were backward to me and I never made the effort to translate them. For a while I just learned tabs and ignored chords, but that got boring.

I took a trip into cyberspace, searching for something that could help me. I finally found a site for left-handed guitarists. We are a rare breed; you won't find left-handed guitarists around every corner, you know.

While browsing this site, I noticed that the creators were selling a book on left-handed guitar chords. I realized this was just what I needed, so I asked my mom if I could order it. After filling out the form on-line, we emailed it to them in Australia and I waited for two anxious weeks for it to arrive.

It was worth the wait: the book opened me up to a whole new world of guitar. That's when I really started to learn the ropes of my instrument.

Now that I can play not only tabs but chord progressions too, my guitar skills improved at a speedier rate. The OLGA website soon became my second home. I also found great tabs on Kaos' Guitar Tabs Links Page. Another site, Music 101 helped me learn the basics of guitar theory.

When I took my beat up electric guitar to the music store, the owner was impressed with it. He said it was a collector's item and offered to buy it from me for $150. So I sold it and bought a brand-new left-handed guitar and a new amp.

I was soon able to play some of the things I heard on my stereo or on the radio by ear, which – in my opinion -- is probably the most fun thing to do with a guitar. I also discovered the Ultimate Band List, which sent me to some real guitar experts.

After meeting up with a friend of mine who, like me, saw the concert with the terrible band and thought he could do better, we decided to play team up and in a local concert at the recreation center. The same band from the library was playing there, promising everyone that they would sound better this time.

That night, after the concert was over, both my friend and I knew that we blew the other band out of the water. Sadly, it turned out that band hadn't really improved much at all.

Today, I still play with my friend and we're in the process of starting our own band. I can even play some stuff on a right-handed guitar, which is a big improvement from the beginning. I'm always learning new things and enjoying what I do best.