How did you get into the guitar?

Catmandue

Catmandue

Well-Known Member
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I'll go first! When I was around three or four years of age I was watching black and white tv back in the 50s, when on some Cuban tv show with musicians, a guy was playing a stringed instrument which had the most captivating tone I had heard ever. I asked my uncle what it was and he said it was an electric guitar. From that moment on I was in love with guitars, even more than before. The guitar was shaped like the ES type Gibson electric. It could have been an Epiphone perhaps. The guitar was always the instrument which I wanted to play since. I having gone through all the exile in the slums and what not, did not get to have a guitar and cheesy little amp until I was around 17 years of age. I was late to the party. The music scene was raging on back then. This was when "Smoke on the Water" was still being played on the radio. Pink Floyd also had come out with Dark side of the Moon. I have been trying to learn to use one ever since the early 70s. I had my driver's license before I had my first guitar, which was a Decca ES type body. It was a smaller body like the Gibson Mid Town model. It was also made in Japan. The amp was a solid state junk amp I sold for about $5. I wish now I would have kept it. Your turn!
 
I heard this when it was first released in 1976:

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And was immediately obsessed with being able to make the sounds I heard on it.

I got my first guitar for Christmas that year and the rest of my life has somehow, in one way or another, directly or indirectly, revolved around that moment.
 
I stumbled into it. As a young boy, I actually wanted to learn violin. But, I never mentioned it to my mom because I assumed lessons would cost too much.

Around my junior year of high school, I started learning flute. I actually got pretty decent. It’s at that time I started learning to read music. Now, however, my embouchure is so flabby, I sound pretty bad on the flute!

Somewhere along the line in that same period of a few years, I was with my brother-in-law and his little brother while they were goofing around with a Sears and Roebuck electric guitar and I gave it a try. Sometime after that I got a cheap acoustic guitar from our landlord. It had been left by a tenant who had moved out and never retrieved it. Actually, she was going to throw it out and my mother rescued it.

I started to learn chords on that guitar and eventually taught myself a good deal of music theory. I also took some music classes in college.

My first electric guitar was a Univox copy of an ES-335. A couple of years later my 1974 Gibson SG was given to me. I often refer to that as my first “real” electric guitar.

It kind of snowballed from there.
 
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It was early Dylan that first inspired me. From there it was a pretty rapid progression into Blues - I went to see several of the American blues players who came over to England at that time. Then the English lads started creating their own version of the music and I got into that. It was quite gratifying to see that re-exported back to the US.
 
I got my first electric guitar back in late 1987 which was a black Profile Stratocaster copy guitar (made in Korea) all because of Jimi Hendrix. A friend of mine back then bought a guitar on sale when he got his cheque. It was a nice one for an entry level guitar and a week later I picked up my Strat for $200 at the same music store. I'm basically self-taught with the help of some instructional books. I had one that transcribed Jimi's music in tablature and I learned all the blues scales in all 5 patterns. I was really obsessed with playing guitar and then in high school I took classical guitar classes for 2 years which I found very helpful...especially in reading music and ear training. By late 1989 I purchased my first high end guitar which is my black Yamaha RGX Custom that costed over $2,000 at the time. I was working as a janitor making just over $3/hour and I saved up quite a bit of money for the guitar. By that time I was well versed in guitar and that Yamaha was an outstanding piece of equipment. Since then I've been collecting and playing guitars because I just loved playing them. My dream of owning a real Strat came true in 2005 when I purchased my '98 Fender American Standard Strat for $1,100 including a Fender hard-shell case.


;>)/
 
It was Christmas of 1968 or so, I was in third grade.
I got a guitar, little amp, and a play guitar with the Ventures album.

I had no real inspiration until I discovered Deep Purple and then Black Sabbath in the early 70's.
50 years later I'm still at it... It's been a long strange trip.

And I still suck at it!
 
I was a band nerd. 6th grade thru HS. Trombone. So I learned to read bass clef. Still can. Have to work a bit on treble clef. Not so much following the notes but nameing them on the fly. When I sing. I sing bass and in a good day a bit of baritone. So my sweet spot is bottom end. Because of that always after I started getting interested in stringed instruments it was obviously going to be a bass. I just think in bass. Struggle with melody.

So after HS when it was time for a stringed instrument. Of course I bought a 12 string Yamaha. The year was 1973. I mean after all, it’s the guitar player that gets the girls...... right? Well it worked. Following summer while playing said 12 string the future Mrs. IbLive struck up a conversation. Primarily about guitars and music and as they say. The rest is history. Still have that 12 string and Mrs. IbLive has been putting up with my schenanigans and bad jokes ever since.

I did pick up an Ovation acoustic/electric along with a 20w Traynor in 1974. That was my primary guitar till 2009 when I picked up a used G400. Over the next several years added a few more electrics.

As for music. I do like all kinds. Band helped with that. The classics. Big band. Sousa. But my love became rock. Loud drum thumping rock. Hearing Crosby Still Nash and Young is why I chose acoustic over an electric. In many ways still my favorite guitar.
 
Well I was 10yrs old at the time when I was listening to Beatles, Stones , Yardbyrds etc. I really liked Rock, I was quite fascinated watching George Harrison play his electric guitars, so a couple of years later my parents bought me a Harmony electric guitar in sunburst. I then took a class room lessons for 1yr, then unfortunately quit. But I have to say I have no regrets as I got back into it now just over 4 yrs ago. I am happy what I have achieved and am continuing to take lessons and learning more.
 
It's complicated.

I grew up in a house full of classical music. Vinyl records. Hundreds of them. Some 50s jazz thrown in. Stuck in the middle of that, the Beatles' albums. I knew my Beethoven (at least the piano and violin works) by heart at the age of 6 and loved him.

Funny, as a kid I've always looked at his portrait by Karl Joseph Stieler, the one he's pictured with a grayish wavy and stormy hair and a red coat, and thought "this guy must have been a badass musician"... the "Rockstar" attitude already had its charm over me. I wanted to be like that.

Well, the first time I listened to Revolver I realized that I had been born to love the sound of the overdriven electric guitar. Led Zep and then Guns and Roses followed.

My parents play music, but they can't stand rock n roll and electric music at all. Father plays classical guitar, mother plays the violin. They both listened to the Beatles on the radio back in the 60s and they enjoyed them because they were what was on the radio. Hence the records. BUt my father would have a hard time justifying himself if you asked him why he liked the Beatles even though they played... electric guitars.

I always wanted to be a rock guitarist, but they just wouldn't let me. I even studied and played classical guitar at a university just to stay as close as I could get to the 6-string, but that gave me little or no pleasure, although I can say I mastered that instrument quite well.

They thought that if they gave me an electric guitar, I'd instantly become a drug addicted punk or hippie, quit school, and all sorts of other stupid crap. Yes, they would insinuate that Rock and Roll was for homosexuals. Funny thing is: they didn't exactly forbid it, but they sure did know how to make me give up by showing their deepest disgust and even horror at the subtlest mention of me wanting to play electric (it is incredible how you can be more easily driven off your dreams by nice parents than by bad ones, and allow me to say, that SUCKS).

Due to the lack of satisfaction, and why not say the musical frustration I had been led to, I quit playing for more than a decade, and only then, after a tough divorce, fighting depression, I decided to seize my old dream and buy an electric after a friend tried to make me buy a videogame to play something called "guitar hero" or whatever and I felt rediculous with that guitar-shaped joystick. That made me crave for the real thing I was meant to do.

The results:

1) now I'm a guy in his early 40s who is always trying to make up for lost time with the guitar. I am almost sure that I will never be the player I could have become if I had had an electric when I was a teenager instead of a nylon strung acoustic.

Now I got several professional gigs in my curriculum vitae. After the first one of them, I told my singer "hey, I don't think I'm the same guy anymore" and he said "you're not. Now you're a professional musician, you've been paid to play guitar". That's who I've become. The real me.

2) I hate classical guitar, can't stand the sound of it.

I'm happy enough because I do play an electric, but I really won't EVER forgive the fact that I was kinda forced to waste so many years with music that just didn't suit me.

I still feel bad when I think about this. It was nice to share here.

P.S.

This same thread was posted back in the ETSG forum, and I replied something quite alike. A few of years ago, that was. And my reply included this:

"I never played in a real band because of that. Not sure if I ever will."

Now, please allow me to speak to that very same Sergio who typed that reply: You did it, man. You did it and you became who you wanted to be, most of all. Congrats, partner.
 
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I was a nerdy, bookworm of a kid who grew up an only child on a small ranch near Visalia, California. One day, my Mom was spinning LP's and I heard "The Lonely Bull" Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass (early 1970's) and wanted to learn to play the trumpet. I just couldn't get it due to dyslexia and coordination/motor problems. My band teacher, Jerry Kuhlmann, told me, "Robert, you are wasting my time and everyone else's. You will never play an instrument. You need to be considerate of others and stop this nonsense." I was crushed. I cried all the way home with my rented trumpet.

We always had guitars laying around, so I tried to strum a little and my Mom showed me a few chords. She gave me a Mel Bay Chord Book with pictures of all the chords being fretted and I still have it. I was able to learn a few chords, but it was a real struggle. I was about 10 years old at the time and I was going to physical therapy 2 days a week for coordination and balance issues. My special ed teacher encouraged me to keep trying at the guitar and i just kept going. I learned a few more chords and I was eventually able to play "Wabash Cannonball" for my Mom & Dad which really inspired me to keep trying to learn new songs. The second song I learned was "Act naturally" by Mom's friend, Buck Owens.

Next I discovered 'Mr. Moto' and "Little Brown Jug" by The Bel-Airs and my fascination with learning lead guitar began. I would put the beanbags from a game of twister on the turntable to slow the record down, then retune and try to play along with the songs. Eventually, I could play them at regular speed on my 1959 Sears Silvertone. Then one day, I heard "Rumble" by Link Wray and I asked my uncle how he made his guitar sound like it was mad at somebody. My uncle kinda laughed and said, "Listen to this," and he put on Mississippi Queen by Mountain. I was blown away. I had never heard anything like that and I wanted to learn to play just like that.

I've been chasing that sound ever since 1973...

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When I was around 8-10 years old, my mom gave me an acoustic guitar. I would put a FM wireless mic inside the body and tune the stereo to the frequency the mic was broadcasting on. Instant electric guitar... Well Amplified anyway. I started taking bass lessons in high school on a Hoffner violin bass that belonged to the teacher. I actually played at a party with my other classmates. Other classmates were 2 guitars and a drummer. Pretty cool music class for High School. Life happened and my interested were more into fast cars and motorcycles. I put the guitar down and raised a family.

40 years later my teenage grandson calls me on Christmas to tell me he got an electric guitar & amp. I already knew, but still I acted surprised. He brought it over to our home and I showed him how to play a couple of things.

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He kept his guitar here and after school everyday I would teach him something new. We were passing that guitar back and forth like a ping pong ball, so I decided to buy my own guitar. My choice was an Epiphone G-400 that had everything replaced with the exception of the body and neck wood. I hand made the walnut burl pick guard, truss rod cover, pickup rings and back cover. Replaced all the hardware with gold bling pieces. It'd had many different pick ups, currently a humbucker bridge (coil splitting) and P-90 neck.

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I've acquired a few more guitars since then. I've acquired more grandsons too..
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