years playing guitar

[brc]

I thought it would be interesting to ask the question to the members on how long they have been playing guitar, and what type guitar they started off with.

Its always cool to see how people get started in some thing they are so passionate about

I will start, Started playing in 1956, with a Les Paul jr. small Gibson amp, and a Martin D18

When I started, I was taking lessons from two teachers. They knew each other so they both knew what the other was teaching me. One would teach me the basics and lead guitar, the other would teach me chords. I took lessons 6 days a week, alternating days with both teachers.

[surfpup]

Seems like a good thread idea... I'll play

 

Started around 1978. Started on my sister's beater acoustic. My parents spent $150 to get me a 1978 Alvarez acoustic the same year for my birthday. That was a big deal cuz' we was po! Still have it. Still play it occasionally.

[kidblast]

Like the thread!!

 

first guitar for 8th b-day -- the year 1966. It was a nylon string student sized thingy,...

horrid, but it was a guitar. from there I got a "Sears Roebuck" import in I think 68, got a paper route, and a few odd jobs, saved up for 1970 white Telecaster with a maple neck. All the 'hood kids came to the house to see it. "Wow, It's a real Fender!!!" The rest,, as they say.. is history.

 

Surf, I also have a 78 Alvarez (Yari, Dy78 Snowflake inlays) fantastic guitar. Will never sell it.

[pippy]

You started with a Gibson Les Paul, a Gibson amp and a Martin acoustic?????

 

OK, it was a Junior; but still.............Bloody Hell ! ! !

 

Me? 1976.

 

Saved up birthday money and Christmas money and could just stretch as far as a 'Grant' copy of a Les Paul Gold-Top.

Played well but sounded rubbish. Next Xmas bought a pair of DiMarzio 'Dual Sound' 'buckers (Super Distortion with split-coil mini-toggles).

Still have it.

 

Amp-wise I played it through a 3 watt (they exaggerated) 'Zenta' practice amp. POS but I was happy. Saved up and bought a s/h cheap'n'nasty late '60s Marshall 2x10 combo in '78 which died early 1980.

So I bought my MM 2x12 65 which I still use today.

 

P.

[saturn]

I guess you could say I started at a young age.

 

But it was around 1983 when I got a no name Les Paul copy and started taking some lessons that I really started to play. So I guess I'm at the 30 year mark. WOW! Doesn't seem like that long. But I've never been one of those 8 hour a day or every day of the week type player, so my skills don't really match my 30 years experience.

[Pin]

I started playing in 1965. My first guitar was one of these (in white):

 

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tonyhartmusic.co.uk/store/music/guitars/Img_2946-6-3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.tonyhartmusic.co.uk/store/music/guitars/hofgal.htm&h=300&w=600&sz=27&tbnid=Hf8oq4_35TJekM:&tbnh=55&tbnw=109&zoom=1&usg=__xyxX77V0tIHZWKs_pPaf62bwtII=&docid=uhKpusVSEVrGoM&hl=en-GB&sa=X&ei=Fa2PUbvtCa-Z0AWw2IGIBw&ved=0CFgQ9QEwAg&dur=12610

 

I started lessons (there were very few guitar teachers in those days) with a friend and we went to an old retired ex-BBC "light music" musician who insisted that we learn the dots. I remember one day he showed us a "chord-builder" wheel and my friend just couldn't understand it and dropped going to lessons. I carried on for about a year and half - might have been two years. At least it taught me the rudiments of reading music and whilst I still regard myself as a very poor reader I can do it a bit and play the melody off, for example, a fake book.

 

I went through several guitars - including unplayable ones - but stuck with a Hofner Senator (non cutaway) jazz box for quite a while. I eventually got myself into a couple of groups (covers but I always wanted to play blues) and I ended up with a Gibson ES345 (1964 model) which I later sold (bitter regrets to this day).

 

And then I stopped playing for quite a few years. I had another spell of playing in the middle 1980s when I had a Gibson Les Paul Custom (ebony) but then I stopped again and sold that guitar.

 

My son had been born in 1980 and started keyboards when he was aged 8. He got to Grade 6 by the time he was 14 and then switched over to guitar with an Epiphone Les Paul and had lessons on that too getting also to Grade 6. He was in a School-based group that attracted some fairly serious interest (they did some good original stuff) from some fairly "big wheels" in the music industry but most of them (except the drummer who now works as a professional musician) stuck to their studies and went to Uni and on to various jobs.

 

But all this (needless to say) rekindled my interest and I started (seriously) again about 4 years ago.

[zigzag]

I started when I was ten in 1963 with a nylon stringed Flamenco guitar that was an early build by the father (Fred Nance) of the woman who taught me how to play. I played seriously for about 5 years, then only played sporadically until around 1985 when I bought my fourth guitar- a Takamine acoustic. Playing became a serious hobby in 1996 when I bought a Studio LP. In 2004, I started taking lessons again and continued lessons on and off for the next eight years. I kick myself for not playing seriously for the twenty years that I only dabbled with guitar. I'm sure I would be happier with my playing today.

[Guest Farnsbarns]

1990 for me. My brother's friend had come round with a red and white fender strat copy by Sunn. He had worked out how to play the theme from Top Gun but he had it wrong and I knew it. He wouldn't listen to his friends brat of a younger brother so, to prove the point, I got my mothers 1/2 size, nylon strung acoustic from the loft, worked out where he had gone wrong and stood in the doorway of my brothers room playing it. So now he wanted to talk to me and I told him how to play it. My parents were fairly impressed so a few weeks later they bought me the same sunn guitar only in black and white (coz that's what Clapton played) and I was off. A few years later I bought an Epi SG that I've recently got back.

 

Prior to that I had played cornet and baritone.

[cookieman15061]

Started on drums in 65.

 

This nylon string guitar in 73

 

and in 74 my first electric, an Aria SG. Recently found her and restored it.

 

So been playing guitar 40 years now.

[Kennis]

you guys are old...

[Guest Farnsbarns]

you guys are old...

 

And good! ;)

 

Well, so far, everyone else who's given a date started before I was born (possibly weeks before or after in Pippy's case coz I was born in 76). I am old enough to be really pleased about that though.

 

So, how long for you?

[DiamondJig]

I guess I was around 7 and my brother gave me some cheapo bass and told me to play these 3 notes over and over while he jam'd away on guitar. I would play many of his tele's and 335's he had come and go. I remeber a 50 watt Sears Silvertone 2x12 where you put the head in the bottom back of the speaker cab, great idea. I use to plug the head into the tiny transistor radio 3" speakers to get distortion and watch them catch fire, those little sucks would last a while before die'n. So I mostly played Bass for many years while also play guitar on the side, now it's more guitar.

[Ryan H]

you guys are old...

 

I'm with you there!

 

All of you started playing before I was born. Born in '93, started playing in '06. So about 7 years now. First guitar was a cheap old 60's Harmony acoustic, then another cheap Sears brand acoustic, then an '04 Squier Strat, then an '08 Epiphone Les Paul Standard, followed by a '93 Seagull SM6 dreadnought, my '64 Gibson Melody Maker, an '07 Takamine G5013S and finally a 2010 or so Charvel SoCal Pro Mod.

 

My amp for about a year has been a Traynor YGL-1. Before that, I played mostly cheap POS solid state and modeling amps.

 

-Ryan

[Kennis]

And good! ;)

 

Well, so far, everyone else who's given a date started before I was born (possibly weeks before or after in Pippy's case coz I was born in 76). I am old enough to be really pleased about that though.

 

So, how long for you?

 

I'll be 30 this summer. I first played guitar when I was about 11, got a red Squier Strat and went to a teacher, but then he got sick and died (cancer), and I didn't really get into it then.

But when I was 17 I bought a cheap strat copy from a friend and been playing ever since. so about 14-15 years all together at this point.

[chewy60]

yeah, i got serious about playin around '93. punk was on its second coming. death metal, black metal and grindcore were still kinda underground. thrash had just mainstreamed, and emo was pop rock. first guitar was a $99 white mexican squier strat through a cheap gorilla practice amp or my brother's stereo. the learning experience was good times. that fresh feelin. although, i don't miss the jangly trebly sound i used to emit. thank you, gibson....

[Tman5293]

I started playing in 2003 when I was 9 years old. Coming up on a decade this August. I'm starting to feel old guys............

[STEVIL]

Passed the 30 mark a few years back. Guess I'm a right old codger!

[jdgm]

I fooled about on my sister's classical but didn't get my own guitar until my 21st in 1975, a Yamaha FG-180 acoustic. That's when I got serious. Wish I still had the guitar. Coming up on 37 years.

[Tman]

A long time - 41 years, since 1972:

 

 

1976:

 

The V was borrowed from the local guitar shop owner.

 

 

1986:

2013:

 

 

Rock on!

[Pin]

Passed the 30 mark a few years back. Guess I'm a right old codger!

 

Nah, still in nappies!

[charlie brown]

Got my first guitar 50 years ago (1963), this summmer!

However, I haven't played nearly that long, as I took a 30+ year

hiatus, when I barely touched one. That's a deep regret, Now...

but, at the time I stopped playing (1972), it seemed appropiate

(for me)! Even now, I wonder if my returned interest, is merely

a hankering back, to my youth? But, I still love guitar playing,

even though my "skill set" these days, is probably mediocre, to

"adequate," at best! Things have "moved on, big time," since my

guitar playing heyday. I'm completely "self-taught," and don't read

music, at all. :unsure:

 

First Guitar:

(With Strings , and "Truetone" brand (Western Auto), on the headstock...but, it was made by "Stella!" Identical coloring, as well.

 

My second guitar (once it was obvious it wasn't a passing fancy) was a Harmony Acoustic, Idential

to this one:

 

Then, came the "biggie!" For my 14th birthday, my Awesome Mom, bought me my very first "electric" guitar: A Fender 1964 "L" series Strat! I still own it, today, obviously!

 

CB

[WRS]

My first guitar was a Sears-Roebuck acoustic my Mom and Dad bought for me when I was in first grade(1958).I banged aroung on it (could'nt tune or play).Next my Dad bought me my first Electric when I was thirteen,I took one guitar lesson and I did not want to play "Mary Had A little Lamb",I wanted to Rock.My oldest sister bought me a Bob Dylan and a Beatle chord book.I learned mostly by listening to 45 rpm records and trying to play along.The first decent guitar I bought was an Electra Muti faze Guitar(MPC)I own a Gibson SG Standard and a Gibson Les Paul.I wish I still had the Electra:

[quapman]

 

However, I haven't played nearly that long, as I took a 30+ year

hiatus, when I barely touched one. That's a deep regret,

 

 

Ha,, I did the same thing, and had a couple of hiatus's myself...

 

I started when I was a kid in around grade 5 and 6. I was going through the Mel Bay books with a strict boring teacher.

 

Then I started smoking dope and listening to Sabbath and Alice Cooper and was too stupid to put 2 and 2 together that I could learn that stuff so I packed in playing the guitar to only start listening to it.

 

 

It wasn't until I was 19 when I picked it up again and played hard for about 10 or 12 yrs.

 

Then our band broke up and it just sorta faded away.

Playing alone at home was too boring and I didn't have any players into what I was into.

So other than jamming with my brother 3 or 4 times a year after a few rums that was about the extent of my playing.

 

Until last year when my kids piano teacher asked me to accompany the kids on stage at their piano recital. I accepted, practiced, and got back into playing with a new found passion.

 

Been going at it pretty hard again(practicing) for the past year.

And am getting together with some old jamming buddies again too.

 

I think it's gonna stick this time... lol.

 

Life can be funny...

[quapman]

Oh ya,, first guitar was a cheap acoustic my guitar teacher used to call a cigar box.

And then eventually our parents got both us kids electrics.

Have no idea what they were but I'm sure they were cheap..

lol

[Rabs]

I was first forced by my mum to start learning when I was 11/12 years old.. I had an old nylon string guitar that she bought me which cost £10 :)

 

At first I didn't want to do it and hated being forced to do anything but boy am I glad she did..

 

After learning to read and play for about 2 years I stopped playing for a bit but always seemed to retain the first proper song I learned which was Greensleeves (which I can still play today :)) Then a few years later I started to get into rock in a big way so started looking at electrics..

 

My first was a Tanglewood Black Beauty copy.. But I was always so annoyed it wasn't a real Gibson that I part exchanged it for a Kay90 which was a double cut through neck in a natural finish (id love to still have that but gave it away to a friend who was learning to play).. When I was about 18 I was in a band and wanted a Gibson so bad.. What actually happened was I was hit by a car while delivering pizza on a moped and the money I got from that enabled me to by my first Gibson which was a Wine Red Studio (in about 1992 ish)...

 

And the rest is history :) I got my first expensive LP ten years after that which was a 2002 Classic and now have four (at one point I had 8 but scaled my collection down due to unemployment and money issues).