Why did you first pick up the guitar?

[Micsan28]

I was just wondering how everybody first came to start playing the guitar, or just music in general

 

When I was a Junior in high school, my buddy was a drummer in a band. I was at his house when they were supposed to be practicing, but their bassist never showed up (It turns out he got arrested on the way there). So they tought me a few bass lines, and we jammed for a bit and I filled in on their next gig a few days later.. The next day, I went out and bought me a guitar. I started learning some songs, and never looked back after.

[Dom_JEM]

2 things...

 

1. my dad, who is the drummer in Lawnmower Deth (music is in the blood)

2. Angus Young....i wanted to be angus young (who wouldnt?)

[MojoRedFoot]

I first became obsessed w/ music when I was 5 or 6. The band was INXS. I started playing guitar Christmas 1993. My parents got me my first one for Christmas. I was a very happy boy.

[MojoRedFoot]

Oops...the question was why.....simple. I was no good at sports.

[ShredAstaire]

I was 21 and at a party....we were...umm....pretty messed up. We went in the basement and there was all sorts of music stuff (my buddy played guitar but he had a bunch of stuff)

 

So we just picked up instruments...I grabbed a guitar and played it HORRIBLY....but somehow I still fell in love with it....i think it sounded good in my state...

[RichCI]

[ksdaddy]

My father sang old C&W songs and had expensive taste in guitars. There was never a time when there wasn't either a Gibson or Martin in the house. I learned early on that they were the Gold Standard.

 

My brother graduated from a POS Kay (which he gave me) to a Holiday solid body to a nearly new '65 or '66 blue Mustang with Heathkit amp (with reverb and tremolo!).

 

My uncle was a drunk c&w singer (with Hummingbird) that could have run alongside George Jones. Drunk, black Robert Blake Baretta t-shirt with smokes rolled up in the sleeve, thumbing a Hummingbird, cigarette dangling from the lips, glassy eyed.

 

So between the three, I had no choice but to pick up a guitar.

[marvar]

1. I'd had a facination with the guitar, from seeing Elvis doin' HOUND DOG on TV.

My uncle had an old guitar he gave me- I was only, like 6, and just banged on it, until it disappeared- (hmm)

Then a few years later- the Beatles came along- and it was all over- I was hooked.

2. I also was no good at sports.

3. to get girls!

[albertjohn]

Someone played Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who.

[DAS44]

I just did. Not because of any single guitarist. I always loved the way it sounded so I wanted to learn. Simple as that.

[Twiz]

One of my earliest memories is seeing Chuck Berry 'duck-walking' across a stage at an outdoor concert in Pittsburgh. It was at Point State Park, probably around 1979 or 1980. Six or seven years after that, I heard Metallica's Master Of Puppets. I play guitars because of those two experiences. Also, guitars are cool.

[SweetMarie]

A Suzuki Classical was delivered to the house by accident in 1967...God works in wondrous ways!

[zigzag]

I loved rock and roll of the '50s and '60s. I wanted to play music and the guitar was the signature instrument. Took my first lesson at 12 back in '65.

[Witmer]

To make music.

[eallenb]

On Sundays my Dad would break out his Jimmy Rogers Vinyl. Play along with it on his Gibson. Mom who was a concert violinist would accompany (Daddy sang Bass Momma Sang Tenor ....etc. He bought a Kay/w matching amp 44 yrs ago. Now It's the "Jazz thang"

[lespaulj45]

2006 Gibson Les Paul Std

2007 Gibson J-45 Std

assorted tube amps

 

On March 22,1970 a friend got tickets to go see a relatively new band called "Led Zeppelin"

at the Seattle Center Arena. I heard Jimmy Page play his solo in "I cant quit you baby" and I have

been a guitar player ever since.

[DanvillRob]

To stand on to get out of my crib.

 

You couldn't swing a dead cat in my house without hitting a guitar.

[grampa]

Music was always part of my childhood in the early 50's. The only instrument around at the time was an old fiddle that had been my paternal grandmother's. I never met her - she died in 1920 - but my dad would occasionally play it. I was in the school band from 1956 playing trombone.

In the seventh or eighth grade, a buddy brought his guitar to school for show and tell. He had been taking lessons and he played an absolutely beautiful Gibson ES of some sort. It was stunning and I was hooked. I started plunking on a classical that my uncle had and in 1962 I asked for and got as a Christmas gift a Silvertone steel string that completely destroyed the fingerprints on my left hand. Seeing the bloody fingers convinced my parents that I needed a "good" guitar and on the summer of '63 I got a Gibson classical. I didn't think of it as a chick magnet, I just played because from then on, I couldn't not play.

I guess it was just the beauty of the instrument that got me.

[milod]

Grampa's experience is really similar to mine.

 

Music was always something important in our family, although my parents were pretty decent amateur vocalists back in the '50s rather than instrumentalists. We always were singing in the car. My sis and I did duets kinda emulating the folks.

 

One of Dad's car/motorcycle dealership's "competitors" was one of his longtime friends who sold Chevy - but he, his wife and a drummer played music on weekends. Come to think of it, I think that also had an affect on me that playing music for money and audiences was "cool" regardless of a day job; and that you didn't have to be a rebel, alkie or druggie to play.

 

Mom got me into piano at 4, which I hated. Dance too. Then it all changed with a trumpet in 4th grade. I wanted to play swing-style jazz. I ended up playing it as a hs senior in a combination rock/jazz combo.

 

But the summer of '62 I got into the folk scene around Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass. I lusted for a guitar to do my own music by myself. The electrics in our combo didn't quite make it for me at the time, but the summer of '63 I got my guitar, a cheapie classic, and a psyche-devouring desire to become skilled to the maximum of available talent. <grin>

 

Trumpet playing ended the summer of '66 with my front teeth broken out - but no big deal, 'cuz I already was playing rock for money, classical/jazz/folk for myself, and having a ball with guitar.

 

m

[charlie brown]

1963 (age 13), because of "The Beach Boys," and "The Kingsmen!" But, it was "The Beatles," that got me "serious" about playing.

 

CB