how long, what music, what guitar...

I agree with cnev.

It is a fun 'music themed' game.
Not anything like playing for real.... but it does sort of promote playing together in a band way.

The only time I played one, I was the bass player to start out with....
Now, I've always had a hard time picking out the lower bass parts of a song.
And so, I've really missed out on the bass this whole time....
I'll tell ya, I had a blast with the bass!
The guy I was playing with kept offering me the guitar parts, and I turned him down the whole night.
I was enjoying finding that (to me) ever elusive bass 'groove' :D

I'm not sure that it really improves anything music wise to play it....
I initially sucked at it.... I eventually figured that the key was all in the visual timing connected to the timing of the 'strum function' of the 'instrument' - which wasn't the same as listening to it and 'plucking/strumming' in time like a real musican.
Which is where I'm sure, alot of us get hung up on it.

The only problem I would have with it, is if it keeps some young person from actually playing a real instrument....
But like cnev says - would a football video game keep a kid from playing real football if they wanted?
It just might incite them to get out there!

Ken

Great thread- really enjoyed all the stories, specially those of you with a lot of history.

I feel a little sheepish with my one short bit:

18 months this time. (Played a couple of years when I was 14, in the late 80s.)

Got a stratocopy and a generic acoustic, but my go-to guitar is a Marvel, which is a really weird neck through solid body thing with a strat-ish shape, a 24 frets, and a floyd rose.

Don't play anything really well, but got up the nerve to play (and SING! Yikes!) som dylan at a christmas party last month.

Try to play grand funk railroad, the stones, SRV, and guns and roses. AC/DC.

ANd any other hard/classic rock.

(Most of it, I play at kind of two thirds speed)

best,
Ande

I agree with cnev.

It is a fun 'music themed' game.
Not anything like playing for real.... but it does sort of promote playing together in a band way.
+1

And I am (even) worse Guitar Hero player than guitar player! I played with the game this holidays and I thought it was easier to play some songs in a real guitar. But it is an interesting game.
The only time I played one, I was the bass player to start out with....
Now, I've always had a hard time picking out the lower bass parts of a song.
And so, I've really missed out on the bass this whole time....
I'll tell ya, I had a blast with the bass!
Be careful Ken or you will finish with a real bass in your hands like me! :lol:

i've played guitar hero a few times, and i'm actually pretty decent at it, but it sucks compared to the real thing. couldn't make me play it again.

oh yeah, i've been playing for about 15 years. my first guitar was one my brother accidentally broke on the ceiling fan swinging it around like he was jimi hendrix or something. he glued the neck back on the body, but it was worthless. inch high action around the 12th fret. i think he sold it to me for 40 bucks or something. i bought a cheap epiphone acoustic a few years later.

one thing cool about GH is watching players that are really good at it. they have some great moves, better than some real players on a real stage. at a gig once I tried to shopw feeling in a lick. I closed my eyes and guess what....the next note in an easy lick was totally wrong. I had to quicly bend it up to the correct pitch. my yes popped open and I felt a burning heat coming off of me. red faced? ya, probably. :oops:

I suck at GuitarHero. doesn't feel right. I can't get that head bobbing thing, man.

The reason that most "real" musicians suck at GH is the fact that the songs are "under-charted". The rhythm of the timing/notes/tempo aren't realistic, unless you play on hard or expert. Then, on those settings, there are so many buttons to be pushed down at once, unless you are a true gamer you will miss a lot of them!

I am fair at it. I do better with the bass lines, I let my son do the guitar lines for the most part.

I think GH is great. not for me. before computers and GH things all we had was air guitar. I was really really good at that.
I wouldn't even need to use a broom or stick. just me and my hands and my invisible guitar. I even had invisible long hair that I could fling around too. LOL.
I think after having my parents and brothers walk in on me so o0ften with me air guitaring one day they asked 'do you want to play are real guitar?'
so off to the store and thus began my journey.

Hey, Dogbite...just tryin' to imagine you "air guitaring" Wipeout...or 96 Tears...or In The Midnight Hour! Did they even HAVE air wayyyyyy back then???

Cat

how long, what music and what kind of guitar?

Well, I started on a cheap acoustic that my brother gave me when he bought an electric, later I got a better acoustic for christmas. This was ... about 10 years ago (funny, in some ways it doesn't seem that long ago).

One of the songs that is really stamped in my memory from when I started playing was "californication" by the red hot chili peppers. That song isn't too difficult, so it wasn't too hard to learn after a little while. At that time I remember really getting into the red hot chili peppers, they just released the new album and they became my new favorite band. I think a little while later I started getting into metallica along with RHCP, then after a few years I took guitar lessons and my teacher introduced me to Led Zeppelin, Rush, SRV, The Dave Matthews Band, I even learned a bit of classical guitar.

In those days I was mostly playing rhythm guitar, whereas right now I'm trying to work more on lead.

Isn't it funny how playing music opens your eyes to so much more than your favorites? Don't get me wrong, the Stones will always be the bomb and those that don't think so can take it up with Vic, but I've gained appreciation for so much else.

Isn't it funny how playing music opens your eyes to so much more than your favorites? Don't get me wrong, the Stones will always be the bomb and those that don't think so can take it up with Vic, but I've gained appreciation for so much else.

Oh yes - good point, Roy! Well, aside of all the great music the Stones have put out over the years, they also turned me on to a lot of different music - mainly the blues and Chuck (I was too young to appreciate his early rock'n'roll music) Berry, but other genres as well. The Stones piqued my interest in the blues - Guitarnoise has nurtured it over the last few years.

And it was a huge Stones fan - teleplayer324 - who persuaded me that the Telecaster is THE guitar to use.....hard for me to imagine life without a Telecaster (or two) now, but four years ago I'd never even tried one.....

:D :D :D

Vic

Hey, Dogbite...just tryin' to imagine you "air guitaring" Wipeout...or 96 Tears...or In The Midnight Hour! Did they even HAVE air wayyyyyy back then???

Cat

it's true. I air guitared Wipe Out, most of the BeachBoys first two albums, the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals, and back to the Americans again I'm sure I was airing Byrds, Association, Everley Bros.
yeah. we had air back then. probably less carbon and other pollutants in it.

I didn't take air guitar to the next level; competition. I was putting wax paper under my strings for the sitar sound.
you know, Donovan and Harrison and Ravi were on the scene.

320

Back to the original post...

o how long - hard to say. "Intermittently over many years."
o what music - listen to and study many types. Mainly interested in composing/playing instrumental surf.
o what kind of guitar - got a closet full of 'em, mostly Fender. Main axe is an epiphone dot which I put Gibson pups in.

Other stuff you didn't ask about

o also own a drum kit, a couple basses and a synth (and I actually play all of them at a beginner level)
o more interested in composition than performance
o currently practicing 5-10 hours per week due to insane work schedule
o usually don't plug in when practicing

Great thread Dogbite, I've enjoyed reading everyone elses stories.

Im 41 years old and I've been playing for 2 and a half years. My son had been learning at school and we never really saw him play anything. Then one day when hes about nine he sang and played the intro to by the way by RHCP. We found out he had a new guitar teacher at school who got him motivated. School lessons only lasted about 15 minutes so we arranged for my son to have weekly 1 hour lessons with the teacher privately. The teacher took us along to a guitar shop and I parted with what I thought at the time to be a small fortune for a Squire strat and a practice amp. Every week I would take my son for his lesson and while he was learning I'd drop into a pub and have a beer. It was great whenever anyone came to the house he would get the guitar out and sing and I thought he had found his vocation in life. I hadnt considered playing myself and just enjoyed hearing him play. It didn't happen over night but gradually he stopped playing apart from lessons, we kept the lessons up for a while because he was improving still but one day he said he wanted to finish. He hasn't touched a guitar since then. Around the time he stopped lessons I had watched the Dylan documentry No direction home and this coupled with sitting in the last ten minutes of my sons lessons for 2 years made me think about teaching myself how to strum a few songs, just learn a few chords and that would be it. I'd seen how easily my son had learnt and thought I'd be profficent in a few months. 2 and half years on and I'm still learning, 3 chords wasn't enough. Playing the guitar came naturally to my son but not to me, I have to work hard to progress but I can look back and see improvements. My son is now excellent at Rock band and Guitar hero, I suck at both.

I like so much different music and playing is the same, currently brushing up on The Las There she goes and Bowie Space Oddity and trying to learn most of the various guitar parts for Bostons More than a feeling and Guns and Roses Sweet child of mine, should keep me going for a while.

Gear wise I have a Tanglewood heritage tw55 jumbo acoustic, its my third acoustic and finally found a guitar that I like and I have no plans to change it. I bought a Les paul copy that felt fine untill I started playing standing up so Im now using my sons Squier Strat that I once hated. I think I will probally be a Strat man from now on. I will upgrade at some time in the future but Ive really only been playing reguarly on electric for about the last 2 to 3 months. I treated myself to a Boss GT10 a couple of weeks ago(nothing like jumping in the deep end) and seem to have everything I need for now.

Great thread.

I'm 41, have been playing for a little over a year, and I am a guitar hero convert. My 12 year old nephew introduced me to the game so I had to go out and buy it myself. After many a late night I decided the time had come for me to put the game down and do something I always wanted to do, learn to play a real guitar. So, I ran out one day and bought a nice acoustic (Takamine GS330S, which I still have) and a Hal Leonard Method book.

I played constantly and after a few months (and a whole lot of lurking in the local Guitar Center) I decided the time had come to buy an electric so I purchased one of the newly released Fender American Standard Strats (3 tone sunburst with a maple fretboard) and a Fender Blues Jr.

I'm really into classic rock, however, most of my favorite guitarists (Hendrix, Clapton, Gilmour, Page) all seem to credit the blues as heavy influences on their playing so I figured that's were I would start so, up until recently, I've focused on learning how to play basic blues with a lot of help from BYCU and a newly expanded collection of classic blues on the old iPod (I just love the way Albert King plays).

I've stuck with the blues for the most part, but have started mixing in some blues influenced classic rock (playing alot of Pink Floyd lately) and hard rock (AC/DC stuff is just plain fun to play) to expand my technique.