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Started on piano in 3rd grade, had 3 years and did very well. For some reason I wanted to also play the trombone in 5th grade, my parents insisted one or the other.
I was broken hearted about leaving piano but wanted that trombone. Played through college and for many years in the local summer band. Still pull it out occasionally.
10th grade, a "cool" neighbor kid a couple years older showed me some chords. And this was 68/69, church youth gatherings were built on a ton of folk, so I got a cheap nylon string acoustic and quickly decided learning chords as I iim7 IV V7 made a lot more sense than thinking C Dmin7 etc. Because every flipping group dud the same songs but in different keys.
Then a cousin taught me the chords for Wooden Ships. And I went to college, decided to get a Les Paul copy and amp, playing rock and blues. Also took classical guitar lessons though my major instrument was officially trombone.
Got married while in college, and was in a band for a bit, practicing in our second bedroom. Neighbors were cool as long as we always did several runs of our take on Smoke on the Water and Johnny B Goode.
Worked in a music store for a while, the owner an amazing jazzer. He was willing to teach me at no cost on account of he thought I could master it while the rest of the rock and country players were a wasteland.
I thought cool, and then he started working on what I needed to learn. I didn't want to work that hard. Broke his heart and pissed him off simultaneously. "I'm offering you my mastery and you're walking away?"
Of course I look back and sigh at how freaking STOOPID I was. Sheesh.
So I piddle around with jazz. Haven't play rock/blues in 20 years or more.
And every time I pick up the guitar I'm reminded I could have been far more knowledgeable, skilled, and capable for a few hours of effort.
I was brilliant to chase and get that amazing young gal to marry me. And incredibly stupid not to accept that training. Simultaneously.
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02-03-2021 04:38 PM
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The biggest reason why the guitar is so much fun and people want to play it is because their favourite songs can be played by the guitar. Whether they enjoy acoustic, folk to metal, rock or pop music. Many songs can be played using the guitar. Even if the song doesn't contain guitar parts, it can still be played.
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Yeah, but did you get the girl??
Originally Posted by jameslovestal
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OK what really happened is that when I was about 10 years old, my parents acquired a cheap record player and 2 LPs, one was Holst’s Planets and the other was Beethoven’s 3rd symphony. I listened to them constantly and got hooked on music, I wanted to play an instrument but I didn’t know which one. Really I wanted to make a sound like the whole orchestra, but I didn’t know of any instrument that could do that. Originally Posted by grahambop
Then one day I saw Julian Bream playing the classical guitar on the telly and I immediately knew that was the right instrument for me. So I pestered my parents for a year until they got me a cheap classical guitar (they had very little money back then). A year later I had a stroke of luck when my school took on a very good visiting classical guitar teacher, so I started lessons and that got me started properly.
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There was one in the house
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No. I never talked to her again. Note that one other reason I was so embarrassed and never returned was that my older brother was in the same orchestra a few years before under the same instructor and he was 2nd chair violin. I.e. the instructor really liked him. I just couldn't face the instructor (who was also the father of a friend my mine). I just cut ties with all of these folks, joining the school theater crowd. (where my instructor was the brother of Laugh-ins George Schlatter,,, but he didn't keep his promise to introduce me to Goldie Hawn). Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
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It was portable.
My parents had required me to take piano lessons. Eight years of weekly lessons, and nightly practice sessions in a dank, pine-paneled basement room, sitting at an upright piano with my back to the wall. Metronome ticking, and me clock-watching for the requisite 30 minute minimum to be done.
Like so many others, the "British Invasion" and then the "San Francisco psychedelic sound" had a major impact on me. When I learned my best friend had an old acoustic guitar he never played, I bought it from him for $10. It was an awful guitar! I call it a "Kay Warpedneck." But I bought music books and played along to records, and taught myself
Because it was portable!
I could sit on the porch, I could put it in the car and go places. No more musty, dark basement room for me!
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Exactly. Stiff competition. Originally Posted by grahambop
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I played trumpet in school bands because my uncle had one he wasn't using. You can't sit under a tree with your girlfriend and play the trumpet.
My father got a cheap Stella acoustic but quit after 2 lessons, so I started fooling around with it.
The rest is history......
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I remember asking for guitar lessons very early on.. but of course my parents had me learning piano because when you learn piano you can then play guitar!
So I played 7 years of piano as a child, never connected with it, partly cause of the strict classical methods used, partly because I was listening to rock.
Had an uncle that had an acoustic around, and when we would visit I would just get the guitar and sit with it in another room for hours. No idea what I was playing, didn't know anything, but these were my first guitar sessions! (When later I became a musician I helped him buy his first electric at 70+ .. him and my aunt were living in a village, and their house was like the community center They were always having parties, playing cards, singing, playing the guitar and keyboard, and he said the acoustic wasn't cutting it! - he's almost 100 years old today still at it!)..
I remember humming solos all the time, listening to a lot of Rock and metal music. At some point I got a friend to loan me his acoustic.. an awful guitar that I played all day. From there on it was all guitar guitar.. which very quickly led me to appreciate all these other styles of music, blues, jazz, flamenco, classical..
For jazz, what drew me was the harmony. All these tv series where the band plays an interlude between the scenes, loved that! The first jazz albums I bought were Linda Ronstadt with an orchestra! and a fine 6 record collection of old jazz guitarists!
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My mother knew Jeff Beck’s partner.
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It wasn’t accordion that my parents wanted me to play...
In 1977 one of my Jr high school teachers made me discover Bob Dylan. After that, man, I had to play guitar.
A few years later, if someone would bring a guitar in high school then he/she was the king/queen.
Quickly after, I dived into jazz which was everything but popular. I didn’t care, it was such a magical universe.
Best.
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I know people who have guitars on their walls and never touch them. Originally Posted by christianm77
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wow...that's interesting. Originally Posted by Litterick
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Celia Hammond: top model in the sixties, animal rights campaigner in the seventies – which is how she knew my mother. She would visit us on her way home from London. Curiosity led me to Jeff Beck’s music.
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For me, it probably was laziness.
I started as a "campfire guitarist", then I learnt playing bass guitar because most of my schoolmates played guitar, nobody wanted to touch a bass. When internet ceased to be an awful scarce in this country and lessons/e-books started to be available to me, I returned back to guitar and started with some jazz blues. It has been more than a couple of years since I started to think "I should start learning to play the piano" (my wife is a pianist so there is one at home) and ... needles to say, this New Year's resolution hasn't materialized yet.
And since I used to smoke like a lignite power plant until recently, wind instruments are out of question :-D .
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Guitar fascinated me when I was little, a neighbor had one and I saw him play on his porch. Another friend's mom could fingerpick. The VBS at church always had a guitarist for the singalongs...
And of course when I was 12 or so I became aware of rock and pop music that featured a lot of guitar!
I got my first job when I was 16 so I could buy a guitar and take lessons.
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Fun stories, thanks for sharing them! In my case it was affective, purely emotional. As a wee lad, my parents took my brother and I to one of those large amusement parks in New Jersey. There was a live band playing. They introduced the musicians individually, who played something on their instrument. When I saw the guitarist bang out chord, it was the first time I ever heard "guitar" as opposed to "music." From that point on I was hooked; I needed to make that sound. No rational thought, just feeling. My parents rationally got me lessons and after the teacher told them I was doing well they bought me a 1960s Telecaster and Princeton (how wish I still had them!). Soon I was in a garage band. There was music around the house growing up--Englebert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, etc.--but no musicians in the family and no instruments around, except I once found an old trumpet in my uncle's attic when I was a kid, but he hadn't played it in years and so there it sat. Recently, my aunt took a lockdown hobby interest in tracing the family tree to Europe and found that there were polka musicians in the lineage. She says maybe I ought to have taken up the accordion!
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First, I heard ELO. The opening chords on "Do Ya" is just a great tone to my ears, and the moment I heard it (10 years old), I knew I had to make that sound:
And then Ace Frehley made me want to learn the wheedly-we-diddley parts.
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ELO was popular in Poland also.
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Originally Posted by emko
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my older brother got one of these
I was probably 12 or so
I used to tinker with it when he wasn’t around
an awfull instrument really but it made
some kind of sound
he’s a bass player now
I’m still on the guitar ....
I’ve got a better one now
(I’m 64)
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This guitar looks like from old German factory. Originally Posted by pingu
my older brother got one of these
I was probably 12 or so
I used to tinker with it when he wasn’t around
an awfull instrument really but it made
some kind of sound
he’s a bass player now
I’m still on the guitar ....
I’ve got a better one now
(I’m 64)
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Back in the old country, it was either the guitar or some folk instrument with a way more restricted repertoire. Buying a piano or a saxophone was in the same realm of possibility as buying a Boeing 747. So the guitar it was.
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There wasn't a piano or a cello in the house of my childhood. There was an acoustic lying around on which I learnt to play Lemon Tree, then I saw Jimi Hendrix on TV miming to Burning of the Midnight Lamp. All very hallucinatory. Originally Posted by kris
I've been trying to play piano on guitar ever since then, though the bendies and percussive efects are a cool bonus.
Moi, je déteste les Rolling Stones.
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