My .02.....
I think hard rock / metal tends to be a little easier (especially rhythm guitar) because you can "hide" behind all the distortion and effects. The rhythm guitar is mostly two-finger "power chords", which are very easy to play. The "shredding" stuff takes a lot of speed and dexterity, though.
Classic rock varies in difficulty from very simple to very difficult. There are so many great guitarists in this genre that it's hard to classify a difficulty level.
Blues is easy to get started with and fun to play. Lay down a I-IV-V chord progression and use the minor pentatonic scale to jam over it - probably the easiest of them all at a very basic level. But if you get into stuff like Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King, Buddy Guy, etc., that's some smokin' stuff....you've left "easy" far behind!
Jazz is very difficult because it uses a lot of extended chords and unusual chord progressions. Improvising is often done using chord tones, which is a whole different world from scales. There are a lot of jazz guitarists who completely blow me away everytime I watch/listen to them.
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Originally Posted by mritech75
Of course I could probably learn a few chords and play country if I wanted.
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(OK, you're talking to a country music fan here, so my viewpoint may be biased, but.....) Don't fool yourself. If you're talking about old-time "cowboy campfire" songs that may be the case, but more "modern" country (i.e. anything using electric guitars) is a lot more difficult than that. Country guitar uses a lot of hybrid picking, double-stops and other tricks, and you often don't have all the distortion and effects to hide behind. Give a listen to Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, Pete Anderson (formerly Dwight Yoakam's guitarist), Redd Volkaert, Brent Mason, etc. and you'll find that they are very skilled and spectacular players. I'd put Brad, Redd or Brent up against any shredder in the world.
Here are a few clips to give you an idea of what I'm talking about
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YouTube - Brent Mason and Vince Gill
YouTube - Brad Paisley
YouTube - Pete Anderson with Dwight Yoakam
YouTube - Redd Volkaert and Bill Kirchen