When you first started playing guitar...what was your dream?

I didn't realise it at the time but i believe now that it was a way of "self medicating" or therapy.
I also have a propensity to "ham it up" a bit, and that must have appealed to me as well i guess.

My own enjoyment. I started just 3 years ago at the ripe middle age of 38. I don't even use it for stress relief. That's what the throttle on my Harley is for. I just wanted to play some tunes, so I picked up some chords and strumming and off I went. Now I need to learn some good leads.

The Beatles. Period.

I wanted to play their stuff, I wanted to be able to experience the emotions they expressed by playing it myself.

Interesting points that have been raised about wanting to play like your 'idols'.

When I was young, it never really occurred to me that I could emulate people like Roy Orbison, or Bob Dylan, or whoever. Musical talent seemed to belong to a completely different universe from the one I inhabited.

But now I'm finally on the road, I have different role models whose footsteps that I'd like to try and follow, even though I don't expect to match all of them.

Many of them have already posted on this thread. :wink:

I have always loved music. When I was a kid of about 6, I would go to my uncle's house and he had a piano. I would sit there and tap out songs by ear. I never took lessons because I was extremely shy and the though of playing in front of someone, even a teacher, just mortified me. When I was 13 my parents bought me a cheap beginners guitar but again I was afraid to take lessons and there was no such thing as the internet and TAB that I knew of. So I didn't learn to play, but I would sit in my room for hours just listening to the radio, singing along in my own little world.
In high school some friends talked me into being in an air band contest. We did Def Leppard's song Photograph and I was Joe Elliot complete with union jack shirt and big hair, hehe. Surprisingly, we did well and came in second and I found that once I was out there I wasn't afraid. After that I joined the choir at school.

Fast forward 21 more years and several trials and tribulations later and I am finally starting to get over myself and am not near as shy and afraid as I used to be. I had a friend who is a guitarist and he encouraged me to try it again, so here I am. I have no ambitions of being famous or playing to big crowds, however. I just want to play for myself. I want to enjoy music as I make it, not just as it comes out of my stereo. I want to be able to play with other musicians and maybe even write a few songs. I have only been at this for about a year now but I have the beginnings of 2 songs. I started late but hey, that gives me something to look forward to.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VkTPyKyJcD0

I started out first wanting to be exactly like Jimmy Page. Since then I've drifted more towards acoustic, and now my DREAM is to be Tommy Emmanuel.

To be realistic though, I want to be able to play a gig or something live one of these days. Having an audience that is truly entertained and impressed by my playing would be the best thing to happen to me as a guitarist.

I just wanted to rock, plain and simple! :mrgreen:

When I started, 2 years ago at age 36, I said, "If I'm ever able to play Zeppelin's 'Over the Hills and Far Away', I'd be satisfied." Well, now that I can play that (at least to a recognizable degree, certainly no match for Page or anyone else with talent), I may have to revise that goal! I think I mostly play for fun and personal enjoyment. With any luck, I'll pass the desire to play on to my kids, who'll become much more accomplished than I.

My dream for the somewhat near future would be to play this:
http://mp.aol.com/video.index.adp?pmmsid=1714221&referer=http%3A//music.aol.com/artist/little-big-town/529622/main&mode=1

UrbanCowgirl~ i just caught the Lindsey Buckingham/Little Big Town episode of "Crossroads" on CMT last week.
http://www.cmt.com/shows/dyn/cmt_crossroads/112636/episode.jhtml
check it out if you haven't seen it already

Thanks TL :D
I really must get better cable so I can get CMT.

HHHHHHmmmmmm, the Beatles, sorry guys never a big fan, personal enjoyment yeah somewhat, but I was 13 or 14 when I started playing and as shallow as it sounds now, 30 odd years later I picked up a guitar for one reason and one reason only-To get the really hot chicks :twisted:

So, how'd that work out?

Playing guitar's mainly gotten me introduced to a whole lot of other guys who play guitar.

Met all 3 of my wives while playing in bands and dated some cuties in high school and college that I met while playing