Should I learn to play guitar? (with a pic!!)

[Gforce]

If you have a good ear for music, it shouldn't take too long to get the basics down. When I first started playing it was about 2 months before I could listen to a song and plunk it out, and not too long after actually be playing the song by ear.

With a good teacher you will be well on your way quickly. The hardest part is learning to read music. If you aren't interested in that and want to get started right away, pick up some tablatures and a chord sheet. It make take a couple weeks before you get comfortable with a few chords and transitions from one to the next. But most of all....

Practice practice practice!

A lot of people start out the wrong way and buy a cheap pos guitar and ten wonder why they give up 6 weeks later. The cheap guitar was probably a pos that wouldn't stay in tune and had poor action and too wide a fret board making it hard to play in the first place. In your case you are starting out with a Fender strat which has been the staple of Rock, country, blues and jazz for the last 50 years. You have no need to upgrade. I have seen many paid musicians using lesser guitars. Good luck!