If I had to track down the first moments I said to my self I wanted to be a guitartist, I would probably be when I really got into music when I turned 13 and I heard all this amazing music, like nirvana and the Foo Fighters, espcially the Foo Fighters, and I said to myself " A humble guitar can make all these wonderful tones?" It wasn't until I was 16 that I actually bought my first guitar, but the feeling was always there. When I heard all the great acoustic music on the Foo Fighters In Your Honor album, was stunned, and I knew being a guitarist was for me.
"The Beauty of Music is my Sanity. Without it, I would simply lose my gravity, and blow away with the breeze." - Ness K(Aka Matt Harris)
My kid had started taking lessons. I liked the young man who was teaching him. I'd messed around with a number of instruments I'd taught myself to play on a rudimentary level and thought "Why not guitar?" I was recovering from tearing my right arm up very badly almost a year earlier, and had gotten to a point where it seemed plausible. Having survived that wreck, I thought "Why not now?" If you're going to do something, you'd better go on and do it.
I've never had any dreams or delusions of becoming some sort of guitar star. I have fun "playing."
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
The Beatles, when I was six years old. Seeing them on TV, hearing them on the radio. I knew then I wanted to play guitar. It's only took me forty-five years to get to pretty average, but hey - who knows where I'll be in another forty-five!
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
I was "born" into a musical family. Everyone played music for as long as I can remember, so when I was old enough, I was "recruited". This is not really the best way to go about it, in my opinion, because it is sort of like "forcing" you into something that you don't want to do, as was the situation in my case.
For that reason, I will not force my son into playing, but I will strongly encourage him. :mrgreen: Having said that, since I am a Steel guitarist first & a elec. guitarist second, I would have to say I really got serious about the steel guitar when I heard some of the amazing older players.
John Hughey (Conway Twitty, Vince Gill) was just about my favorite. I patterned much of my style after him. A few other greats for me were Terry Bethel, Lloyd Green, Buddy Emmons, Paul Franklin, Weldon Myrick, Pete Drake. I guess I would say after hearing a few of these guys was when it started to click for me, when I realized the awesome potential of this wonderful instrument.
It was Buddy Guy, BB King, Robert Johnson, just the blues legends. Though what really started me to playing was Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton.
I play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the guitar, which was a bad decision... because I didn't know how to play it, so I was a sh***y teacher. I would never have went to me. -Mitch Hedberg
what got me started was growing up around the musical tastes of my parents. my brothers and i would have laugh fits playing our mom's Harry Belafonte records on fast speed. my dad liked the cowboy stuff. the Merle Travis records at fast speed also cracked us up. we each eventually began buying our own records.
I had been secretly air guitaring Link Ray songs in my bedroom for a year when the British Invasion hit. I got my first real electric, a Fender Mustang in light blue, in 65. the Yardbirds and Stones were it for me. I had the crappiest amp. I would kneel in front of it playing full blast trying to get it to overdrive. nothing ever happened, 'cept my ears rang.
I have a great amp now. I still play Yardbird songs.
I secretly air guitar sometimes too.
music of all genres have become comfortable in my life.
I hope I have enough time to play all the instruments i'd like to try.
music of all genres have become comfortable in my life.
I hope I have enough time to play all the instruments i'd like to try.
+1 Me too, on both counts. :mrgreen:
...guitartist....
Great typo. :)
I'm definitely not a guit-artist - I'm very much a guit-amateur. Like Ric says, it's all about having some fun playing for me. I'd always liked listening to music, but what finally got me started on trying to produce it was mostly about finally getting some free time to give it a shot.
I first flirted with the idea of playing guitar in my mid twenties - well over thirty years ago. I even bought a guitar, but I never got around to buying an instruction book to go with it, or taking any lessons. So, after a couple of painfully unproductive exploratory strums, it was put aside while I followed up other interests.
I also came from a family with no apparent history of playing any instruments. So music in general seemed like the magical preserve of a select band of wizards who were able to decode mysterious musical runes and then master the amazing physical gymnastics required to perform such enviable wonders.
I was getting close to 60 before I decided to give it another shot. It didn't look promising. My left hand was already getting very stiff, and the pinky was showing signs of arthritis. I literally had to use my right hand to help put the fingers in place for the chord shapes. Slowly but surely it all freed up though, and watching them fly round the fretboard now it's hard to remember how bad they once were.
As it turns out, my main interest seems to be shaping up as songwriting and generally fiddling around with all aspects of music. Guitar playing is the one I've probably made the most progress with, but I'm trying to drag piano, recording, arranging, composing, etc into the picture too. All at an amateur/hobby level.
The real opportunity to put some time in came nearly 3 years ago, when my son was finally able to go to High School. Matt is serious disabled so providing full time care and home schooling had already swallowed up more than a decade, during which I had little in the way of any sort of ‘spare time'. (Sorry to drag that in, but it's the major reason why I've finally got a few hours a week to devote to music, and it's also provided a strong motivation to have a 'recharging' outside interest.). Music has also proved to be a hugely rewarding hobby in every way - it's good for the soul, it provides an endless list of new things to explore and fresh puzzles to solve, and it puts you in touch with some great people. What more could you want?
Thanks for the chance to think it through and waffle on about it.
Cheers,
Chris
cheers and props to you Chris. good story.
re: guitartist...LOL in my case sometimes I am a guitardist.
re: guitartist...LOL in my case sometimes I am a guitardist.
:)
Hey, c'mon... I've heard you sing and play. I'll trade your bad days with my good ones any time... :wink:
Ive always been into music and originally played a cornet. then i wanted to play drums cos i liked hitting stuff. but when i heard songs like locamotive by guns and roses when i was about 13 i new i had to play guitar and got an acoustic for my birthday that year and then an electric the next. shamefully i still cant play locamotive despite it being one of the most inspiring songs for me.
Let's see.....I was standing in the rain, with my head hung low
I couldnt get a ticket, it was a sold out show
I heard the roar of the crowd, I could picture the scene
I put my ear to the wall, then like a distant scream
I heard one guitar, just blew me away
I saw stars in my eyes, and the very next day
Bought a beat up six string in a secondhand store
Didnt know how to play it, but I knew for sure
That one guitar, felt good in my hands
Didnt take long, to understand
Just one guitar, slung way down low
Was one way ticket, only one way to go
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
(modified lyrics to a very old Foreigner song called Juke Box Hero- for those of you who don't know)
Teamwork- A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.
I really don't remember what prompted me to take an interest. I was about 12 or 13 when I borrowed my cousin's "student" acoustic guitar (I suspect now it was a 3/4). I bought a chord book (still have it) and thought that was all I needed to learn. I bought some sheet music (when you could get individual sheets in music stores) and thought I could learn. But I had no direction and absolutely no idea what to do except to learn to play single note melodies. So I gave the guitar back to my cousin and pretty much forgot about it for about 20 years.
Then in my early 30s I bought a second-hand acoustic for $50 from a former friend. The guitar sat in a corner unused, until one day I decided to sign up for lessons. I took lessons for about 6-9 months but then got tired of the lessons. I put the guitar away again for the next 18 years until this past January (2008) when I signed up for lessons again with the same old acoustic guitar. I got an electric, but I got tired of the lessons and the direction they were going in, so I withdrew. I bought a new acoustic guitar and have been going it alone since August. I alternate between the electric and acoustics (6 and 12 strings) based on how I think the song sounds on one or the other. I think I am making more progress on my own than I did in lessons. How weird is that? :?
It is difficult to answer when one does not understand the question.
I was in late highschool and until then really into computers. Then I woke up one day and I was just immensely bored by it all. So I spend some days doing absolutely nothing at all after which I picked up a guitar laying around. Kinda a last resort really. Turns out to be a whole lot more fun then I thought, never looked back. Until that time I didnt even particularly care about music or art in general. That maddening boredom probably did more for me then anything else in my life. :lol:
re: guitartist...LOL in my case sometimes I am a guitardist.
:)
Hey, c'mon... I've heard you sing and play. I'll trade your bad days with my good ones any time... :wink:
aw shucks :oops: you are very kind to say so.
Watching Slash play with Velvet Revolver at the Brighton Center. Mindblowing, i bought my first guitar the very next day. And couldn't afford to eat lunch for 2 weeks, impulsivness has its drawbacks.
Jack
