What made/inspired you to first pick up a guitar/bass?

Jethro Rocker said:
I should probably add, my bro played drums already at the time so we kinda had a sort of band right off. Got me used to playjng with someone else too. Theory I just learned on my own as I went because I found it knteresting.
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You are so blessed.

I'm too much of a blockhead to understand theory. I took my first guitar lessons (6 in-person lessons) in 2003 (at 38) from a guy in Fresno named Johnny Lightfoot.

I was so absolutely confused by the onslaught of information that i received that I felt hugely intimidated. I took one more lesson in 2005 - from a different instructor - and again just felt like I had hit a brick wall.

I never took lessons again.

Funny in a way, I was driving from these lessons to paid performances, and didn't even understand anything. I couldn't even name half the chords that I played...and I still can't name all the chords and notes that I play.

I think I will just remain in blissful stupidity...

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I couldn’t even recall the names of the strings until I was 19 years old ha ha but my buddy Cesar had taken a bit of time to show me how to tune it and a number of songs.
Once that was under my belt I thought that I could play just about anything ha ha what a shock I was in for lol, but on an off for the next 30 + years I gave it a shot, I don’t get to play as much as I would like but I am still at it.
Cheers
 
In thinking about it I think a big factor was the fact that in the neighborhood I grew up in I was one of the youngest kids on the street in the Mid-'70's and spent a lot of my time hanging out with people that were 4-5 years older than me, so I heard the albums they were listening to and since several of these guys had guitars I was able to pick them up and learn some really rudimentary things on them, which gave me the initial interest in getting my own guitar. What pushed me over the edge completely and gave me a really strong desire to learn to make the noises I was hearing on the records was in 1976 when Rush's "All The World's A Stage" was released. There is something so direct and primal about a 3-piece band playing live, and then you couple that with the fact that it was those three guys, all virtuosos, and it really lit a fire in me. Even the image of their backline on the album cover is so damn evocative, I'd just sit and stare at it while I listened to the album over and over again.
 
When I was around 9 or 10 years old, my mom gave me an acoustic guitar. One of my best freinds had a drum set and he taught me to play Sunshine of Your Love, Inagodadavida and Down on the Corner. That was all it took to get me started.
 
I would also add another influence toward bass was a friend of mines dad guy was a MAJOR hippie -- jewelry maker sculptor artist type -- he had a bass rig in the basement that I would just drool over (no it wasnt a NICE rig it was old beat tore tolex...I think it was a SUNN amp maybe? ----and a beat to poo Fender Jazz bass (thus started my love affair with those) .....man those were the days....dude wore sandals all the time -- long hair beard -- smoked dope -- read Tolkien and other Fantasy books-- had a huge collection-- heck of a sculptor/welder-- made jewelry and sold it at art shows adn stuff (was an industrial welder by trade) ....cool dude back in the day
 
With me it was a Christmas gift.
Had to be around the third grade, 1968 or so.
A guitar, amp & learn to play with the Ventures album.
Not sure what kind of guitar it even was, but I learned to butcher my way.
Not from the record though.
I eventually got a better guitar and sold that one off through the neighborhood music store where I took lessons.
Fast forward 52 years and probably just as many guitars and I'm still not any good as a player.
Actually worse now due to injury.
But it's been a great hobby over the years and I enjoyed every bit of it.
 
Hackmaster said:
With me it was a Christmas gift.
Had to be around the third grade, 1968 or so.
A guitar, amp & learn to play with the Ventures album.
Not sure what kind of guitar it even was, but I learned to butcher my way.
Not from the record though.
I eventually got a better guitar and sold that one off through the neighborhood music store where I took lessons.
Fast forward 52 years and probably just as many guitars and I'm still not any good as a player.
Actually worse now due to injury.
But it's been a great hobby over the years and I enjoyed every bit of it.
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I also had that Venturers album, but I had no idea what an A string was to tune up to them, and I didn’t know anybody to ask.
Cheers
 
Robert Herndon said:
You are so blessed.

I'm too much of a blockhead to understand theory. I took my first guitar lessons (6 in-person lessons) in 2003 (at 38) from a guy in Fresno named Johnny Lightfoot.

I was so absolutely confused by the onslaught of information that i received that I felt hugely intimidated. I took one more lesson in 2005 - from a different instructor - and again just felt like I had hit a brick wall.

I never took lessons again.

Funny in a way, I was driving from these lessons to paid performances, and didn't even understand anything. I couldn't even name half the chords that I played...and I still can't name all the chords and notes that I play.

I think I will just remain in blissful stupidity...

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Hey bro,

The way it was explained to me was.... You don't need theory or reading skills to play or create music, it's just a way to tell others what you've just played?

Your playing is top shelf, don't get on yourself 'cause of all that, it's the music we love, not the little black dots on the paper!
 
steveb63 said:
Hey bro,

The way it was explained to me was.... You don't need theory or reading skills to play or create music, it's just a way to tell others what you've just played?

Your playing is top shelf, don't get on yourself 'cause of all that, it's the music we love, not the little black dots on the paper!
Click to expand...

Well, music theory is just that, a THEORY. in reality there is no hard rules to music, theory may make it a little bit easier to compose and write songs but that's it. I don't know any music theory at all, i only know the basic open chords and thats it. I just have this stubborn personality of "Just give me the damn instrument and I'll figure it out!"
 
Metal89 said:
Well, music theory is just that, a THEORY. in reality there is no hard rules to music, theory may make it a little bit easier to compose and write songs but that's it. I don't know any music theory at all, i only know the basic open chords and thats it. I just have this stubborn personality of "Just give me the damn instrument and I'll figure it out!"
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Amen brother, I like the way you think!!
Cheers
 
gball said:
In thinking about it I think a big factor was the fact that in the neighborhood I grew up in I was one of the youngest kids on the street in the Mid-'70's and spent a lot of my time hanging out with people that were 4-5 years older than me, so I heard the albums they were listening to and since several of these guys had guitars I was able to pick them up and learn some really rudimentary things on them, which gave me the initial interest in getting my own guitar. What pushed me over the edge completely and gave me a really strong desire to learn to make the noises I was hearing on the records was in 1976 when Rush's "All The World's A Stage" was released. There is something so direct and primal about a 3-piece band playing live, and then you couple that with the fact that it was those three guys, all virtuosos, and it really lit a fire in me. Even the image of their backline on the album cover is so damn evocative, I'd just sit and stare at it while I listened to the album over and over again.
Click to expand...



gball said:
In thinking about it I think a big factor was the fact that in the neighborhood I grew up in I was one of the youngest kids on the street in the Mid-'70's and spent a lot of my time hanging out with people that were 4-5 years older than me, so I heard the albums they were listening to and since several of these guys had guitars I was able to pick them up and learn some really rudimentary things on them, which gave me the initial interest in getting my own guitar. What pushed me over the edge completely and gave me a really strong desire to learn to make the noises I was hearing on the records was in 1976 when Rush's "All The World's A Stage" was released. There is something so direct and primal about a 3-piece band playing live, and then you couple that with the fact that it was those three guys, all virtuosos, and it really lit a fire in me. Even the image of their backline on the album cover is so damn evocative, I'd just sit and stare at it while I listened to the album over and over again.
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So gball those Canadian guys were the ones to blame eh...:D
 
What made/inspired you to first pick up a guitar/bass?

Some type of mental disorder probably...
In 1968, I was 11. I listened to bands like Hendrix, Bubble Puppy, Iron Butterfly, Free, Bloodrock, Blue Cheer, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath.
My mother wanted me to play piano.
My school wanted me to play the trumpet.
Maybe it was just rebellion against what everybody else thought I should play.

But what I do remember is that I thought distortion was really cool, even when I was 11.
It might have been the distortion that attracted me.
 
steveb63 said:
Hey bro,

The way it was explained to me was.... You don't need theory or reading skills to play or create music, it's just a way to tell others what you've just played?

Your playing is top shelf, don't get on yourself 'cause of all that, it's the music we love, not the little black dots on the paper!
Click to expand...
Yep, absolutely! By theory I mean how to make a major chord a minor and apply it to any chord. (Flat 3rd) that sort of thing. Not music on paper! It helps when doing scales etc to play a major scale bs minor run amd what notes would "fit" best so to speak. All the notes on the feetboard, chord theory to a point.
When playing, one uses essentially none of that other than fretboard notes, for me.
 
Robert Herndon said:
You are so blessed.

I'm too much of a blockhead to understand theory. I took my first guitar lessons (6 in-person lessons) in 2003 (at 38) from a guy in Fresno named Johnny Lightfoot.

I was so absolutely confused by the onslaught of information that i received that I felt hugely intimidated. I took one more lesson in 2005 - from a different instructor - and again just felt like I had hit a brick wall.

I never took lessons again.

Funny in a way, I was driving from these lessons to paid performances, and didn't even understand anything. I couldn't even name half the chords that I played...and I still can't name all the chords and notes that I play.

I think I will just remain in blissful stupidity...

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Yeah, I never took lessons either. Just plodded away on the songs I wamted to play! As with you there has to be a passion for it.
 
Once I began playing i had 4 key points that helped me along early on and Im grateful for all:

My older brother had gotten a guitar before any of us ( a cheap Harmony Acoustic from Big Lots of all places) and was fairly good at it. He showed me my first chords. Eventually though he got into drums and we formed a band once he got good on those

My uncle was a pretty far out dude and a virtuoso as far as im concerned ( had hair like a member of Whitesnake lol), he showed me a few riffs like Dont Fear The Reaper, Crazy Train and Seasons of Wither plus my first solo riff, Highway to Hell. He was the closest thing i knew of a Rockstar in those days from being in some really great bands and he had a full on recording studio ( that he never let me hang around much unfortunately lol)

Then the last two were instructional VHS tapes: Ted Nugent's Spirit of the Wild and a Curt Mitchell in the Style of Led Zeppelin videos that taught me timing, rhythm and palm muting.
 
Session 5 said:
Do you still play the Organ or keyboards?
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No. Just guitar. But time to time I do it. When I'm 7, 8 or 9 years old I listened Europe, Bee Gees, The Shadows, Roy Orbison, Beetles, a lot of Mozart stuff, a lot of Classical music but then appears Ride the lighting, Wasp, Maiden, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Slayer, Napalm death... Metallica was my inspiration to learn guitar. Well I knew some chords, I knew some songs type boy scouts. The sound of Ride the Lighting shoked me. I remember say to my father "hey man! These guys play guitar really good" lol. The firsts 5 albums are the best of Metallica. It's hard to say my favorite. I think it's Kill 'em all.
 
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Long story but I could explain it by telling you that I was born to a couple of baby boomers who praised classical music and jazz as the only valid forms of music, but happened to have most of the Beatles' albums stashed among their hundreds of vinyl records. Guess which LPs changed my way of listening to music...

I was about 6 or 7 years old when I discovered Revolver, which to this day still is my all time favorite Beatles album because of the straight forward "guitar-bass-drums-vocals-no bull:poo:" structure of many of the songs in it. Bang!

No more Beethoven or Bach for me, thank you very much. From the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, Zep and the Grateful Dead, and I was in Heaven. At this point I knew I wouldn't be complete if I never picked up a guitar and gigged at least once in my life.

Getting to own a guitar and playing rock n roll was not easy but that's another story.
 
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Robert Herndon said:
You are so blessed.

I'm too much of a blockhead to understand theory. I took my first guitar lessons (6 in-person lessons) in 2003 (at 38) from a guy in Fresno named Johnny Lightfoot.

I was so absolutely confused by the onslaught of information that i received that I felt hugely intimidated. I took one more lesson in 2005 - from a different instructor - and again just felt like I had hit a brick wall.

I never took lessons again.

Funny in a way, I was driving from these lessons to paid performances, and didn't even understand anything. I couldn't even name half the chords that I played...and I still can't name all the chords and notes that I play.

I think I will just remain in blissful stupidity...

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Click to expand...


If someone asked Johnny Ramone what chords he was playing or what was the mode he was playing I don't think he'd know or care either... His reply would be a casual shrug or a punch in the face.
 
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