Skip to content
What was your first...
 
Notifications
Clear all

What was your first guitar?

55 Posts
33 Users
0 Likes
8,386 Views
(@beaner)
Estimable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 122
 

Like a lot of people, I started with a no-name nylon string acoustic bought for me by my mother. Always struck me as strange that all my friends who had guitars had something similar - why is it parents always buy a classical guitar for their kids, when 99% of those kids want a guitar they can play ROCK music with?

:D :D :D

Vic

I hear it all the time "I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a guitar if he wasn't going to stick at it". I spend quite some time trying to re-educate them, and explain that when you give a young person an acoustic guitar, you're thinking John Denver, and the young person is thinking Nickelback.

I keep doing the same thing myself. My oldest wants to learn drums, and I know that if I buy an electric set like the Roland V-Drums, they do lots of cool stuff and he can practice as much as he likes without us telling him to "keep it down", but it seems like such an expense if he doesn't stick at it. Anyway, I've dragged this topic off on a tangent far enough.

Now we return you to our regular program.

Regards,
Paul


   
ReplyQuote
(@davidhodge)
Member
Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 4472
 

It's not totally off topic. Way back, a million years ago :wink: , even the cheapest electric gutiars were a lot more expensive, relatively speaking, then they are today. It hasn't been until relatively recently that you can by a reasonable electric guitar for the price of a lower end (and still reasonable) acoustic, thereby giving people more of a choice. And I can't vouch for others my age, but most kids I knew bought their first guitar, so it tended to be a matter of what one could afford. The guitars that were given as gifts tended to be very low end, which at that time meant very cheap and practically unplayable.

There's been a huge change in both the relative cost in things as well as the amount of money one has to toss around on hobbies, not to mention the whole attitude about why music should be part of one's life, just in the past fifty years. This accounts for some of what people get for a first guitar. Not always, though...

Peace


   
ReplyQuote
 Nuno
(@nuno)
Famed Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 3995
 

Ramírez, nylon string Spanish guitar. Still have it.

My father bought it. Fortunately the old Ramírez store was very near to where my father worked. I don't remember if it was a gift or if I wanted a guitar.


   
ReplyQuote
(@maddmodder)
Estimable Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 81
 

Well my very first guitar was way back when I was in 2nd grade. It was an old steel string acoustic that my aunt had used (don't remember the brand). After about 3 lessons I got bored with it and quit. Then on my 15th birthday I used some of my birthday money to buy an Ibanez acoustic. It was one of those starter packs. Great guitar IMO. My first electric was the sunburst '51 and I recently just bought an Ibanez RG120. I can honestly say I haven't had a single problem with any of these guitars. Now that I said that watch the next guitar I play spontaneously combust! :lol:


   
ReplyQuote
(@katreich)
Prominent Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 686
 

I too, got another no name brand from a catalogue outlet store. If I recall, it cost about 15.00 in 1970, or therabouts. I nagged and nagged until my parents finally brought it home one day. It came witha little songbook that showed one finger chords, and I was doing "On Top of Old Smokey" by days end. I thnk my mom may have crocheted me a strap as well.

Falling in love is like learning to play the guitar; first you learn to follow the rules, then you learn to play with your heart.

www.soundclick.com/kathyreichert


   
ReplyQuote
(@ricochet)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 7833
 

I think the relative cost thing has a lot to do with why the argument "Learn on an acoustic first" was REALLY thought up.

I do think it's pointless to make a kid work on stuff that he hates and can't see any relevance to.

Many years ago I quit piano, which I'd asked to start taking, because I got put in (not by my own choice) with "the very best piano teacher around," an elderly spinster conservatory trained classical pianist, when we moved. I had no interest whatsoever in becoming a classical pianist, and this lady wasn't going to teach me how to play barrelhouse, blues, rock and gospel stuff. When she started rapping on my hand with that little conductor's baton, it was time to quit. Of course I wish I'd kept playing piano all those years, but not that stuff. And I wish I'd learned guitar along with friends who were taking guitar lessons back then. But, what's been has been.

My point is, if a kid wants to learn electric rock, get him an electric guitar starter set and let him learn that way. Don't make him start off playing classical guitar and tell him "We'll get to that other stuff later, after you've learned this." Maybe he'll develop an interest in the classical guitar stuff later and want to pursue it. You can't force it.

"A cheerful heart is good medicine."


   
ReplyQuote
(@boxboy)
Noble Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 1221
 

Great stories, folks! I think it's fantastic how many people took a stab at something music wise, quit and then came back to it. 8) The siren's song...
:)

Don


   
ReplyQuote
(@nicktorres)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 5381
 

Kathy, she crocheted you a strap? Did you also manage to get a crocheted beer can hat? I miss mine.

My first guitar was a '69 Gibson SG-250 that I bought from my neighbor for $100. I still have it.


   
ReplyQuote
(@chris-c)
Famed Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 3454
 

My first guitar was Japanese made Terada dreadnought style acoustic.

I was about to start hunting for a picture. But then I remembered that it's the one in my avatar on the left... :roll:

I bought it in the early 70s in a fit of hippyish enthusiasm which lasted all the way to the shop exit door. :oops:

I didn't actually start learning to play it until over 30 years later, having spent the intervening time only adding "external character" in the form of bangs and bumps. The final insult was to leave it in the roof space under a hot tin roof, through a decade or more of blistering Australian summers. When I finally opened the case three years ago it should have been a sad pile of negelected splinters and dust. But in fact I tuned it up and it sounded great. Lucky..... So I still have it. 8)

Cheers,

Chris


   
ReplyQuote
(@beaner)
Estimable Member
Joined: 17 years ago
Posts: 122
 

Many years ago I quit piano, which I'd asked to start taking, because I got put in (not by my own choice) with "the very best piano teacher around," an elderly spinster conservatory trained classical pianist, when we moved. I had no interest whatsoever in becoming a classical pianist, and this lady wasn't going to teach me how to play barrelhouse, blues, rock and gospel stuff. When she started rapping on my hand with that little conductor's baton, it was time to quit. Of course I wish I'd kept playing piano all those years, but not that stuff. And I wish I'd learned guitar along with friends who were taking guitar lessons back then. But, what's been has been.

I'd never thought of learning a keyboard instrument, but now I find myself tinkering with anything that makes a noise like a Fender Rhodes. I love that sound, and I think I could try to learn the piano, just to be inspired by that sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM1OIy6nmMo

Regards,
Paul


   
ReplyQuote
(@chris-c)
Famed Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 3454
 

Many years ago I quit piano, which I'd asked to start taking, because I got put in (not by my own choice) with "the very best piano teacher around," an elderly spinster conservatory trained classical pianist, when we moved. I had no interest whatsoever in becoming a classical pianist, and this lady wasn't going to teach me how to play barrelhouse, blues, rock and gospel stuff. When she started rapping on my hand with that little conductor's baton, it was time to quit.

+1 to that feeling.

I had piano lessons administered to me at my first school too. We were shut in a small room with an old upright and drilled in the more tedious aspects of music. Family legend has it that I was shut in there one day to grind through some scales. The teacher, hearing only silence, marched in to demand what I was doing, only to be told nervously "Practising the pauses Sir".... Probably just a popular myth, but the teaching was certainly dull enough for it to be true.

Barrelhouse (what a wonderfully evocative word that is....) it wasn't and I quit for another 40 years too. That 'rapping over the knuckles' feeling never left me though. On the occasions that I play guitar with my thumb alongside the neck, rock style, I still have an invisible raised finger in the direction of the teacher who kept trying to push it round the back of the neck all the time, because that's the correct classical way. :twisted:

You should be encouraged to go with your heart - both for the instrument and the playing style. You can drag the head along later but if you kill the heart that's usually fatal. :cry:

Cheers,

Chris


   
ReplyQuote
(@vanzant38)
Reputable Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 308
 

Barrelhouse. Thats a good name for a bar.

My first guitar was a 1990 red Ibanez EX. I sat in the guitar store for 3 hours fiddling with it and trying to get the owner to lower his price. Well he came down to $150 from $259. Finally I had a guitar. It was pretty quiet without an amp. About a month later a friend sold me a Crate amp for $100. Six months after I bought the guitar, some guy offered me $250 for it. And it was gone. My first guitar, GONE. :(

Soon after that I bought a Mach 5 LP copy, a Peavey Mystic, and a 1993 Fender Strat MIM.

My dad would always talk about retirement, and allude to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And I say all you've got at the end of the rainbow is death. You're riding the rainbow right now. - Mark Borchardt


   
ReplyQuote
(@katreich)
Prominent Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 686
 

Kathy, she crocheted you a strap? Did you also manage to get a crocheted beer can hat? I miss mine.

My mom would never have made something as gauche as a beer can hat. She was too busy making us those hiddeous orange and yellow Marcia Brady panchos with the fringe that were all the rage back then!

Falling in love is like learning to play the guitar; first you learn to follow the rules, then you learn to play with your heart.

www.soundclick.com/kathyreichert


   
ReplyQuote
(@gnease)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 5038
 

Kathy, she crocheted you a strap? Did you also manage to get a crocheted beer can hat? I miss mine.
My mom would never have made something as gauche as a beer can hat. She was too busy making us those hiddeous orange and yellow Marcia Brady panchos with the fringe that were all the rage back then!

heh! Like to see that as your October stagewear.

-=tension & release=-


   
ReplyQuote
(@nicktorres)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 16 years ago
Posts: 5381
 

Hideous? But they matched the shag rug in my van. What are you trying to say?


   
ReplyQuote
Page 2 / 4