What Got You Playing and What Keeps You Playing Guitar?

My first experiences with making music started in the seventh grade. I got the opportunity at my very small school to be in the school band that was just starting up that year. I wanted desparately to play Trombone or baritone, but my director finally convinced me that I would be much better at tuba.

I played wind instruments all the way through college. Primarily I played tuba, but I became quite skilled at trombone and baritone (I knew I could :D) eventually. I could even squeek out some third trumpet parts if the ensemble was deparate for it!

Through those years, I always wanted to expand into guitars. Around ninth grade, I took a few lessons on piano, but nothing ever really became of that. Finally, just after college, I borrowed a friends old Peavy and learned a few things, but I just didn't have the inspiration or time, with job, wife, kids, etc.

I'm 30 now, and just this past January I was talking with my new wife about how I missed having music as an outlet. She said, "What about guitar?" I went that night and picked up a Washburn acoustic from Target. It wasn't really a horrible guitar exactly.

A month or so later, we left the kids at home with the older neighbor's kid and made a quick trip to the post office. When I got back, I noticed the strings on the guitar looked really loose. I picked it up and the head fell completely off. I was LIVID. No one owned up to what happened, but I sure made them all feel horrible!

The weekend I went to the local GC and played some cheaper acoustics. I settled on an Ibanez PF6 and haven't looked back. Around my birthday I had GAS bad for an electric, so my wife turns up with a Mahogany SX GG1 (Les Paul copy).

I now at least pick one up and strum everyday, even if I don't have the time for a full practice. So it's about officially 8 months in and I know that I will definitly be doing this for all my life.

Hey Chris_C -

Your post made me think of something. I have a great friend who is a talented musician but primarily a drummer. Due to circumstances beyond his control he became a house-husband as well while his corporate wife earns big bucks working long hours. They have three kids and he continued to drum and move around the country with his wife's career. Well, they hit Boulder, CO and it all clicked. Henry (my friend) ended up meeting the right people at the right time and they formed a band called One Mile Down. (Christian Rock - not really my thing but talented musicians the lot). They actually recorded their first CD in March - all self-financed - at Coupe Studios here in Boulder. The CD is awesome and now they are playing gigs in the area. Actually made it to the semi-finals of some contest with one of his songs. website is http://www.1miledown.com

Anyway - he had to wait nearly 20 years for it to happen, but he was persistant. He is the one who actually pushed me to get this first guitar because he was tired of hearing me talk about it.

Anyway - another story, another perspective.

Hey Chris_C -

Your post made me think of something.

It seem that my posts often make people think of something. But usually it involves baseball bats, dark nights, sacks, and deep rivers.... :twisted:

Seriously though, thanks for the story. Great to hear that his patience paid off and things are rocking for him. It's never too late for things to happen, just as long as you stay in the game. 8)

I feel so shallow.

I did it because a good career, a great wife, a great son, 38+ baseball (35 games a year), cooking, photography, golf and my Harley just wasn't enough.

Oh, and the long 3 month winters of North Carolina drive me nuts and I needed something to do.

I have always loved music. Started a couple of years back, took some breaks due to various reasons including frustration, illnesses and a couple of those really busy times in life that hits you.

The Babes? Back in my day it was motorcycles, not guitars that did it. Trust me on this one. :)

Mid Life Crisis? Sure, why not. Let's see. I get to ride my Harley, play real baseball and play guitar. Whatever it's called, I hope it lasts for decades. I'm just glad it started when I was young enough to enjoy it so that I have no regrets later on.

Oh, and you've never lived until you and your 12 year old son (on his drums) causes your wife to go visit neighbors. Good times.

I was living in Saudi Arabia. it was fifth grade and I had to make the choice between art, choir, and band. i can't draw and i can't really sing, so i joined band without really knowing what it was. I kept playing trombone all the way through high school. (at one point i was ranked number one out of the DoDDS pacific schools)

in my senior year, i told my band director that i would not be playing in the band in college and he told me that it was a mistake and that if i quit i would miss music

and i did.

I found myself disecting and arranging songs so that they would make good pep band songs or whatever.

I took up guitar a year after that. I had wanted to learn for a few years and i figured it would have better sex appeal than my trombone.

rparker -

Motorcycles still do it for chicks...when I had mine i was like a magnet....loved it really. And there's something about rock n roll and motorcycles that justs works well together, so there you go....enjoy them both.

.......................a great wife...................the long 3 month winters of North Carolina.............................I needed something to do.

:shock:

Mitigating circumstances:

"12 year old son"

But still.................. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

greybeard, after several attempts at a clever reply, I give up. Young eyes watching. Wouldn't want these 15 year olds to lose their immense respect for our generation. :lol:

I Started At A Very Young Age, Not Sure Exactly When. My Hippie Uncle Tom And My Brother Used To Play When I Was A Kid, And It Had An Influence On Me. Tom Would Play Piano And My Bro Would Play The Guitar To Some Great Oldies. My Bro Showed Me Three Chords On A Guitar - Dmaj, Cmaj, And Em. I Played Around And Found A Couple Of Riff's That I Could Feel. I Think I Was 4 Or 5..

At 12, I Got My First Guitar - A Beat Up Harmony With The Action Of A Nailgun Trigger. I Know Now That Someone Put EXTRA Heavy Strings On It And It Warped The Thing. No Matter To Me, I Would Carry That Guitwa With Me For The Next 3 Years. My Friends Who Played All Hated The thing, They Couldn't Get It To Sound Good No Matter What. But, Proud Of My Belonging, I Could Get It To Jam A Little.

Around This Time I Started Keeping A Notebook, Hand written. I Put Every Song That I Could Think Of In It, And It Ended Up Having Close To 3000 Songs In It. One Day I Realized That I Could Play Them All, Without The Book.

Been Playing Ever Since

greybeard, after several attempts at a clever reply, I give up. Young eyes watching. Wouldn't want these 15 year olds to lose their immense respect for our generation. :lol:

Respect? :shock: :? 8) :oops:
Young eyes watching

Wasn't that the mitigating circumstances? :lol: :lol: :lol:

greybeard, you gotta admit. We knew everything when we were that age, and we know everything now. What's not to respect and outright admire? :wink:

Bump for more stories!

well i'd like to start out by saying this is my first post and i just think i should introduce myself.

Anyways, i became interested in playing guitar when i was about 10 or 11(i'm 15 now almost 16) and my neighbors were having a garage sale and they had some old acoustic guitar for sale for $20, so i asked my mom if she would buy it and so she did, then i got her to get me some guitar lessons. So i took lessons for about a year and a half and then i just sorta stopped going to them.

Then after that i kinda got into rap which i am very sad to say because now i hate rap and can't stand to listen to it.

So i listened to rap and kinda stopped playin my guitar, by then i had an electric guitar, a Cort G-series. I only played every so often for about 9 or 10 months, then my friends got me listening to some AC/DC and i loved it, (this was happening when i was about 13) so i started to really like classic rock. and i picked up my guitar and started trying to learn songs from tabs that i got from online(i can't remember anything but a couple of chords from my guitar lessons) i soon found out that a lot of those were wrong. so i asked my mom if she would buy me an AC/DC guitar book. she did and i learned to play about 15 or 16 songs from that book, which has like 40 songs in it.

So i played that for like a year straight, practicing every night. Then my parents told me they were sick of listening to AC/DC adn i needed to learn some new music, so i started to learn some Led Zeppelin, only a few songs, and now i'm trying to learn some Guns 'N Roses. and i have an Epiphone SG G-400 and am doin great, and have now only realized that a lot of girls seem to think it's the coolest thing when you tell them you play the guitar.

That's my story

The very first time I saw the Beatles - must have been '63, I was aged 6 - I knew I wanted to play guitar. First time I ever bought one was '74... money I'd been given for my 17th birthday, a real POS nylon strung cheapo acoustic, strings must've been 1/2 an inch off the neck... about a year later, bought an SG copy (real cheap job, but a lot easier to play....used to play it through my stereo via the 5-pin DIN connection and wear headphones....)

around that time, my grandfather was dying....he used to tell me stories of the Brass Band he played in when he was young (and even before that, a bugler in the British army in the first world war....he was at the Somme, but would never talk about it...) and his brother, my Uncle Vinnie, also played bugle in the army and trumpet....my dad's cousin, Auntie Chris, played organ in the cinema in the old silent film days....

They're all long gone now, but the pleasure they got from music was obvious....

I'd sit and talk to my grandad, he'd say "learned anything new?" and I'd show him....and mess it up.....till one day I achieved the unachievable...
Auntie Chrissie was round, I'd been trying "House of the Rising Sun" from a music book....I'd just been following the chords, she worked out ...when I told her the guitar was tuned E A D G B E....where the bass notes were, told me to strum the rest of the chord close to the neck....musically, she was pretty clued up....she could sight read, was well up on theory, hell if I'd given her the guitar she'd have played Classical Gas after an hour's practise.....

Anyway I had a go at House of the Rising Sun....I suppose it was the first song I ever learned properly....and they both smiled at each other, and Grandad said "looks like there is a musician in the family after all....."

I took lessons at the local Techical College as soon as I was eighteen.... the first 3 lessons were all about reading music.....is there such a thing as "Notation Dyslexia?".....if there is I've sure as hell got it! - anyway I quit after those 3 lessons, although with hindsight I wish I'd persevered... but there were other distractions, like beer and girls....

I carried on playing, still had a complete beatles songbook....used to play along to 62-66 and 67-70 just using the G B & E strings!....I bought a slide after watching Nazareth, bought a book on open tunings after being told "you have to tune the guitar differently for slide..."

I learned the solos and chords to two songs...."Stand by Me" by Lennon and "Child in the Sun" by Nazareth....both in open G - always remember my mum passing by the bedroom and listening to me playing along with CIST and saying "that's nice" - I think that was the one and only time she ever complimented me.....

Then I met my first wife....the acoustic got slung, the SG copy got sold...

Music went on hold for a few years.....

Got divorced, got a flat, got a guitar....this was during the Thatcher years, jobs were hard to come by, guitar soon went back to the pawnshop...

Met wife#2, had another kid, no time for guitar....

another divorce, this time I got custody....about '96 the daughter decided she wanted a guitar 'cos her mate had one...I knew her mate's mum, went round to see her, see how well daughter's mate was doing....

Picked the guitar up, it all came flooding back...so I bought the daughter a guitar, practised myself while she was at school....but again, it all petered out....it was only a cheapo nylon-strung acoustic, like the first one I'd had, but a far better one than my first.....

Anyway, a few years later, moved into my mother's house to look after her, she'd started with Alzheimer's.....she suggested I buy myself a guitar, told her I couldn't afford one, she gave me the money for a decent steel strung acoustic....

Then when I really couldn't look after her any more and she went into a home, I moved in with Marilyn...1998....we're still together....Marilyn actually encouraged me to play, possibly because Parental Warning... keep impressionable kids away from this bit the first time we spent the night together, I sneaked home while she was asleep, got the guitar, made her a cup of tea, took it upstairs to her and sat on the bed and played (er...naked...) 3 steps to Heaven....her favourite song....

Since then, Marilyn has encouraged me no end....bought me a couple of new guitars (the Encore and the Squier Strat)....when I came into money earlier this year, she didn't mind one bit that I bought (deep breath here....) a Squier Tele, an Avalanche 12-string, a Freshman bass, a Yamaha acoustic with cutaway, the Mystery guitar I bought from Nick, and an Epi LP....not to mention a roland cube 15W amp and a 30W Roland Cube Bass amp....and 3 harmonicas....and capos....and slides....and a bucketload of strings....

These days, I pretty much devote my time to becoming a guitarist....I'm getting better by the week, the upsurge in my musical development coincided with my joining Guitarnoise.....

I've recently been promoted from mediocre to average.....trying for average+ by Xmas.....

Joining a jam night has helped, every tuesday I go to a local pub with an acoustic, there's a bunch of us.... I'm 48, there's only one of the 8-10 regulars younger than me...I've found I can judge chord changes from watching other people's fingers, I can pick up new songs easily, I can play along with different chord voicings, I'm a far better guitarist than I was a year ago....and I HOPE TO IMPROVE EVEN MORE!!!!

Well, that's my story....sorry if it's a little long winded, but ..... it's been a "Long and winding road", "The End" is not in sight yet, but I'm hoping to have a lot more fun "On the Road"...................

:D :D :D :D :D

Vic

great story vic