how long, what music, what guitar...

yeah, Vic, I don't know what I was writing there. and yes I agree,
life gives good experience, grist for the mill, manna for the creative soul.
it goes so well with guitar and a side dish of amp.

136

.... and several playing stations.

Yeah, that one is quite weird. Two of them make sense. Keeps me out of trouble. I don't hear the "you're always in the other room playing guitar" line like a couple people I know. (learn from others) That's why I have one downstairs. The office one is a lot more "not needed" than the others. Oddly enough, I play it the most if I play when no one is home.

I have guitars and gear in almost all the rooms of my house now. batching it for ten years allows me some freedom, unfortunately.
I have a uke on the TV room couch for those commercial breaks, I have a guest room that holds my ouds and lap steels and beater guitars. I have an upstairs room thta has become my recording studio. there I have pedals, cords, and the guitars I use the most.

Been playing for 3 years. 7 guitars, a POD XT Live and 4 amps and a PA. can play alot of different styles. Not great, but can keep up with the guys around here. My main love in music is Pink Floyd and probably practice it 80% of the time. Throw in some AC/DC,Led Zepplin, Dokken, Neil Young and some assorted Hair Bands and that's my slice of heaven. Usually practice between 2 and 3 hrs a day. Just received my first boutique pedal in the mail about 30 minutes ago (Wampler Superplextortion) so today will be a marathon. 09 will be my year of the pedal as I move away from the POD and try to dial in my own tone. Next up will be a Skreddy TopFuel then on to delays, fuzz and compressor.

My best friend and neighbor in High School had an acoustic and took lessons. I used to get him to show me how to play songs. Finally I talked him into selling me the guitar, this was late '72 and I was 18. I was a practice freak from the beginning, used to spend almost every spare moment practicing. Another buddy sold me two electrics, I have always thought they were stolen, the guy was known to do stuff like that, but of course he denied it when I asked. My younger brother and two of his school buddies took up the guitar, bass, and drums so we formed a group. We practiced like crazy and performed an outdoor gig. But everybody was getting out of school and moving on, so that soon broke up.

I met my wife a year or two later and moved to New England. Ran into a guy who saw me playing guitar on my porch and he invited me to join his band. We were pretty good. Broke up, joined another band, then another. After that kids came and I didn't play in a band for about 15 years. Finally ended up getting divorced and really didn't know what to do with myself, so I found some fellow musicians and started another band. That was about 12 years ago and have been playing in bands since.

Ive always had a guitar available to me, from three on. Though there was a time when I was five, and getting internet savy. I looked up a video of the Who, and saw Pete Townshend doing his 'windmill' strum. I did the same in front of mother, and the guitar was promtly taken away. This was a Ensenata spanish guitar from about 65ish (thank god I didnt see Townshend bashing a guitar) So I took up the piano to fill my time. I played piano for about 6 years, when I turned 11, my brother gave me his old Yamaha classical guitar, along with a few of his Chuck Berry and Beatles albums, when he went away to the Airforce. He asked me to learn a few songs from each, I fiddeled with it a little bit, but I was a classical piano player, I wouldnt disgrace myself by playing Rock music. So instead, I started playing a bit of classical on the yamaha after about a year (the first song I learned was Fur Elis by Bethovan). Then I started getting into Rock/blues. Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, BB King, Chuck Berry, Beatles. Mid 60s to late 70s music. Really Hendrix and Clapton got me into playing a lot.
My gear: Ensenada spanish acoustic (Mother let me have it back last year), Yamaha G-55A Classical, and a Squire Strat affinity series. Line 6 Spider III 30 watt amp, and a Boss DS-1 distortion pedal.
Music I play: Mostely Chuck Berry, I use the clean channel for the melodies, and the DS-1 with the tone and distortion set to 0 for the solos to give my sound some bite. I play a lot of Hendrix and Clapton. As well as some Beatles. I find when Im just inprovising though, I still sound like Im playing classical.

preacher, nice post. classical piano, wow, but I only see guitar stuff in your list. :lol:
piano and early rock had great affinity. I wish I could play the piano parts I hear in my head.
what year did you first play the Who on that 65' acoustic?

scott58..congrads on the boutique pedal. I haven't heard of that one. my favorite pedal is one that was modded
by one of those well known mod guys on the internet.

and Wes has to be the president of bands on this site.
:note2:

176

cool post.

I actually started in the 5th grade, however old you are in 5th grade. 10? i think it was ten. I took a lesson or two on the huge classical my parents bought for me. then they got me a smaller one. I didnt like it as much as I thought I would. This guitar thing lasted less than a month and it was gone.

Fast forward to Freshman year of college, 2002. I bought a cheap Johnson acoustic for $50. Used kit guitar, in bleh shape. Learned me some chords and taught myself chords and scales and some simple songs. Two years later came home with my Martin which is the best guitar ever...now I have that and a Strat and a bass and a Gretsch.

So let's see, that's 7 years of playing, on a Martin or Fender, and I play rock/blues/maybe a little jazz/folk...sometimes all of em together. Discounting that single 10 year old lesson, I've never had a lesson in my life. It's been my favorite hobby, and even though I've been getting more and more into photography I still go back to those guitars and always will. I've been working on a photo series of my guitars, actually.

btw, shameless self-plug...my photo site's in the signature...check em out!

I have a ton of old camera stuff from my dad. SLR stuff etc. film! imagine. digital photography is different all together.
I have a bit to learn. I think guitars are perfect models BTW..

183

preacher, nice post. classical piano, wow, but I only see guitar stuff in your list. :lol:
piano and early rock had great affinity. I wish I could play the piano parts I hear in my head.
what year did you first play the Who on that 65' acoustic?

oh, haha. I have a Yamaha keyboard. But its rather short, its missing an octave. :lol:
I played the Who in the late summer of 99. Im still reminded to this day, 10 years later.

dogbite, not all of the older ways of doing things are lost on us youngsters. I shoot film and digital, though yes my only SLR is a digital I've got a drawer full of cameras that use 35mm film and 120 film. film is cool, i love the grain it has. digital has a certain sterility sometimes.

anyway this ain't a photo forum right? hahaha.

Preacher, did you play piano before the guitar? i tihnk there's something cool about piano that's very rock and roll.

Preacher, did you play piano before the guitar? i tihnk there's something cool about piano that's very rock and roll.
Yes I did, I played classical piano for about 6 years before I picked up a guitar again. (So I was guitar-less from 5 to 11, which at that age, I was just messing around with C and G chords) I still play a lot of piano (about 2 hours a day).

I've dabbled in photgraphy some. I started to do a guitar series back a couple of years ago, but doing so turned me on to a spot on my sensor. It's cleaned now, but I have not re-started the project. Anyhow, here's a shot using only candle-light. It's pretty soft for using a tripod and remote, but it is dim natural lighting.

hey careful with those flames 'Jmi'

I've been playing music in one way or another since I was four when my Mom started me in piano lessons. That was 1981. I took the lessons for seven years and hated every minute of it. I rarely practiced and my teacher wasn't all that happy with me. Finally my Mom let me quit when I was able to join the school band in 7th grade. I played trumpet for a year then switched to horn, which I played through two years of college. When I graduated college, my parents bought me a nice horn, and when I got married, my wife snagged her parents' piano. So I continued to keep up my musical chops throughout my life, although I was never actually very good at anything, but I had the basics of music notation, theory, etc long sinced burned into my brain.

I got my first guitar (a Takamine GS-240R acoustic) back in 2001 or 2002, when my wife decided she'd like to learn. We both messed around with it some and she moved on to other distractions. I eventually managed to learn a few chords and my first real song was an Internet tab of U2's cover of Lou Reed's Satellite of Love. I can still play a rough version of that, it's been embedded in my fingers for life.

Between having a new baby and other factors, I never really progressed beyond that point. I lost all my picks and the strap at some point along the way. I'd pick up the thing every once in a while and mess around with what I knew, but I was basically frozen.

So this past fall, that baby from the beginning of the story is a seven-year-old who wanted to learn violin, and my wife has become a fan of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. So on a trip to the music store to get supplies for my daughter's lessons, and spurred on by the fun we've been having playing fake guitar on the Xbox, I picked up a guitar strap and a few picks on a lark.

A little searching online yielded a Homespun Tapes introductory video, I bought a better method book, and I moved the guitar from its perch on the landing down to the living room where we're always hanging out. One or more of those steps were what I needed to start focusing again, and the progress has come swiftly. So it's been a few months of real practice now, although I admit to being a little ahead of the game given my years of music lessons. I manage to practice pretty much daily, and I rewarded myself a few weeks ago by spending my Christmas money to get a MIM Strat, which I've been having a ton of fun with.

As for songs, I've been trying to focus on my basic technique probably more than learning songs. I had some luck coming up with chord progressions for some Christmas songs to accompany my daughter singing for the family. I've been messing around with a few song lessons from this site and from JustinGuitar, and I've also been working on transcribing some songs, but making slow progress.

I'd love to learn to play some Black Keys tunes, and some fingerstyle Dylan. I'm working through Blues You Can Use, starting lesson 3 now. That's a ton of fun on the Strat. Basically my tastes are all over the place. I'm having more fun with riffs and licks right now. There's some bossa nova riff out of my method book that I can mess with for 10-20 minutes on end.

Enough rambling. Thanks for the topic, Dogbite.