Hey Fretsmith -

That thread was here and I had it mind when I wrote my post. So it's funny you should bring it up :-). It had to do with learning by ear vs. learning from tabs.

There's another aspect to what you are talking about regarding learning covers and being dissatisfied with the result. I've discovered that there is great satisfaction in developing your own style through improvising solos and coming up riffs. That helped me appreciate the skills and abilities I already have. So when I get frustrated with learning a cover my self esteem as a guitar player doesn't take as much of a hit - I know I have my own style and I can play it well. Secondly, there's nothing wrong with using the cover version as a framework and incorporating your own style into it. Unless you are in a tribute band where you are expected to completely emulate the style, I see nothing wrong with this. I would say it's better to do that and have some soul in it rather than have the timing and phrasing slightly off where it comes off sounding lifeless.

To kind of illustrate this, at last night's practice I got to go through this solo twice. The first time I kind of hit it, the second time was a "swing and a miss!". I fell back to my own ideas for this solo but it felt like a trainwreck. I listened to the recording after the fact and it wasn't bad. The first one you wouldn't even know I messed up, the second one would have been OK if I just let myself go with what I started to do rather than try to get back on track to the "real version".

I hope that makes some sense. These realizations have really helped me enjoy my playing as it is and keep motivated to keep going and improve.

Regardless, it's always nice to know you aren't the only one struggling with this sort of thing!