Being a loner, I had no choice but to invest into learning some music software. The program of the choice for the guitarists back then was (and probably still is) Arobas Guitar Pro. Instead of regular music notation, it was displaying midi roll as if it was a guitar tab. Very accessible when your main instrument is a guitar.
It was very easy to find tabs, sometimes official tabs, from your favourite bands online. I have spent countless hours not just playing along, but also trying to understand what made certain songs work. This "music theory" studying was all guitar-centric: when you play guitar, you don't care about the scale too much; if you need a different scale, you can just capo on a fret you want, instantly transposing the sound of your instrument. So it was all about rhythm, pitch and melody.
