sloop_john_b wrote:
Quit it you guys, you're gonna put me out of business!
Yeah, John-----I'd imagine that you are the exception to the rule.
Many years ago, after teaching myself guitar for about 5 years, someone bought me a few lessons as a gift. The teacher turned out to be some crazy metalhead guy with a Warrant poster on his wall (I kid you not...). He had never heard of Freddie King.........and I never went back.
But....I've had friends that took lessons, and getting a good teacher that is willing to teach you (and often learn themselves!) whatever song the student wants to play, is key. That keeps them motivated/interested and progressing.
Plus, every friend I knew that took lessons rivaled my playing in half the time it took me to teach myself. "Self-taught" ain't what it's cracked up to be.
After failing at piano my parents took the old acoustic out of the attic. I took a few lessons and liked it, then my sister actually saw Pete Townsend on T.V. and smashed the acoustic! Fast forward to sophmore year of high school when my Aunt Pat gave me her old classical guitar with the bottom three strings. I taught myself how to play D, and then a bunch of chords without the low three strings. A while later I actually sprung to have all six strings put on it, learned the full fingering for the mainstay chords, and have been goofing around ever since.
1980--John Lennon murdered (I was 12)
1981--I spent every last penny I had on Beatles records (age 13)
1982--I noticed my dad's Yamaha acoustic sitting around (since he hardly ever played), a friend gave me The Compleat Beatles songbook, and I started struggling through some chords (age 14)
1987--discovered R.E.M. (at 19, several years after some of my more hip friends)
1992-1996--bought a Japanese Strat and started "jamming" with some guys casually while in grad school (I was, um, in my 20s)
2002--started playing in my first real band at the ripe age of 30-something
2004--at 36, bought my first Rick, a 330 MG, which became a huge part of my band's sound
2008--turned 40, had a midlife crisis, bought and traded a boatload of Ricks, almost made my wife divorce me . . .
I bought my first guitar and took my first lessons at a local (Cleveland, Ohio) store called Goose Acres Folk Music Shop. They sold a variety of acoustics, as well as banjos and mandolins. My first guitar was a used red sunburst Gibson J-35 dreadnought, which my mom got me for $600. The guys at Goose Acres were purists and they taught me lots of traditional folk songs. Once I had learned the standard open chord voicings, I began to take cassettes of early R.E.M. tunes to my lessons and my teacher would show me the chords. I was particularly drawn to Peter Buck's playing because his arpeggios sounded difficult but were actually pretty easy to learn. I must have learned fifteen or twenty songs from "Chronic Town," "Murmur," "Reckoning," and "Fables of the Reconstruction."
The year before I left for college I bought a Japanese Fender Telecaster and an inexpensive solid state Fender M-80 amp. My second term freshman year I took some blues lessons with a player who had toured as a rhythm guitarist with Albert Collins. He showed me 12-bar progressions and the minor pentatonic scale. At this phase in my playing, I had my guitar strung with skinny strings and very low action, and I had no ear for tone whatsoever.
Then, about fifteen years ago, I purchased my first Stratocaster and the whole world of guitar tone opened up for me. The Strat sounded so different and was so much more versatile than my Tele. I found a great solid state amp and within a year had added a Guild X-170 archtop and a Rickenbacker 330/12 to my collection. Other guitars have come and gone, but the Strat, the Guild, and the Rick are my three main electrics to this day.
Looking back, I think my passion for folk-rock was what sustained me in the beginning when I was struggling. The longer I play, the more finicky I get about guitar tone. One thing about playing any instrument is you never stop learning.
I got a plastic guitar for my 6th birthday. I used to bang on the strings and sing (loudly) any words that came to me while jumping on my parent's bed. One day I asked my Mother if she liked my song, "Oh, that was you?" She said, "I thought it was one of your Dad's records." That little white lie of encouragement was all it took. And yes, I play a little better now.
At age 10, I wanted to be Ricky Nelson, took lessons (did NOT learn Ricky Nelson songs!), got discouraged, and quit.
At age 14, saw The Beatles in Philly, a night that changed my life. Started up lessons again, and stuck with it.
I just turned 60, and after playing literally thousands of gigs (first with wedding/club bands, now solo), I'm still working about 50 gigs a year, still buying guitars, and feeling at least 20 years younger than I am.
Music is my key for survival in this crazy world - it's good for the mind, body, and soul. I can't imagine my life without it.
I don't remember ever not wanting to play guitar. When I was about seven (1957), I asked my parents if I could have guitar lessons, and they said, "We don't have a guitar--how about piano?" So, I started taking lessons on my mom's piano, and got nowhere--I had polio when I was very small, and my right tricep doesn't work--I can't raise my right arm more than waist-high, or extend it out very far, and it didn't occur to either me or my teacher that I couldn't get my right hand in the correct position because of that. After getting whacked across the knuckles a few times for resting my right wrist on the keyboard (the only way I could get it to stay up), I gave up on the piano, but I still wanted to play guitar. Fast-forward a few years--1962, folk music, surf music, rock 'n' roll--and my cousin, who's a year younger than me, got a guitar and started taking lessons, and right around my 12th birthday in the fall of '62, I did too, from the same teacher. She taught folk songs--no theory, no single-note playing, just chords, strums, and rudimentary fingerpicking. At my first lesson, I tried holding my Mexican classical guitar left-handed, and she did me a huge favor by refusing to teach me that way, so I flipped it over, held it right-handed--it felt just as awkward either way--and I found out that I could actually play it like that. Thanks, Grace Rosenthal, wherever you are--if I'd have tried to continue playing left-handed, I'd have run into the same right-arm problem that I had with the piano, and I'd never have been able to play. As it is, I rest my right arm on the rim of the guitar, just like you're supposed to, and the wrist works fine. I just can't do Pete Townshend windmills. Long story short--I kept playing, got an electric a couple years later, and I've been a professional musician since the late '60's. Never made it big, although I came close once or twice, but I'm still alive and picking. (Or is that kicking?)
I remember running around the house as a fifth grader, miming the guitar parts to the Clash and Devo with my mom's old acoustic guitar.*
Later, in high school, I tried to learn to Cure records (but was unaware of delay or distortion, so would play repeatedly or hit it really hard).
Rode skateboard tons, promising myself to actually learn to play when my body starting breaking down.
Formed a (bad) punk band with housemates in college (playing some beat up peavey bass; my body in equally beat up shape), then bought a 4001 MG from the classifieds. (The local guitar tech in Santa Cruz, where I was at school, used to be in the Avengers, which made me quite starstruck).
Played in some half-serious bands after moving back to Seattle (wanted a ric, but 'settled' for an old guild starfire III). Roadied for my girlfriend's band. Moved to Germany with her (bought a 230 in Osnabrück). We moved back home and I joined her old band. (Girlfriend playing my 4001. Fast forward and she, now my wife, is still playing it).
Discovered effect pedals somewhere along the way and went through countless guitars till I finally got a 360 six months back.
* Mom was a pseudo folkie from Minnesota (had met Bob Zimmerman at some point, wrote him off as "weird"). Her guitar, bought from a family friend, was a 1935 Martin (O size). Glad I didn't put any dents in it. Or at least not any significant ones.
I first tried to play when I was about 7-8 years old but had a terrible Sears guitar and didn't get anywhere with it.
As a young adult in my 20's, most of my friends tended to be musicians. One of my best friends found me a playable Strat clone (Hondo) around 1987. I played that guitar for many years and my friend got me started with basic chords.
Around 1993 my wife-at-the-time got me a 12 string Fender acoustic for my birthday that I still have.
I ditched the strat-clone about 5 years ago. But about 3 years ago I decided I wanted to try to get better. My wife bought me a Mexican Strat. I started playing a lot. A few months later I found out about Rickenbackers. I bought a used 330 Fireglo and I was gone, gone, gone. Now I have 7 guitars and play every day...it's become such a big part of my life.
I've improved as a player quite a bit the last few years...but compared to all the great players I see here and on Youtube there is much to learn, young Jedi haha...But I do it because I love it. Even if I was the worst player in the world I would still love it.
Something magical happens when I take one of those Rics out of their cases...It's still a great rush that never seems to wear off. I guess that's why I wound up here on this website and enjoy it so very much. I've learned a lot from you guys.
You were the moon and sun. You're just a loaded gun now....Tom Petty 2000 620 FG VP-2002 360/12 MG VP-2004 330 FG
Troy
Saw a kid playing an acoustic on a camping trip, thought it was the coolest thing ever. Got a cheap acoustic. Played a little, then quit, then heard AYE?, life changer.
I think I was about 4 when I started. My Dad plays, as do/did a number of other relatives. Some of them were semi-pro, although none were big-time. Dad taught me all he knew, then I pretty much taught myself from there on. I never took actual lessons, because I didn't have the necessary attention span. I got my start on Buck Owens' music, mainly, but some other '50s/'60s country music, as well. I suppose Don Rich was my first actual "influence," if I may presume that my abilities merit such a statement. Don was just amazing, with that unmistakable sound, and the way he pulled everything off like he didn't even have to think about it.
Then when I was 7, I discovered The Beatles' Second Album...and that's how I ended up here!
I have my Dad to thank for playing the guitar. He had always wanted to play so he bought an Alvarez classical to try to learn but never had the time. I picked it up in 5th grade when my art/music teacher offered group lessons after school. Twelve of us learned to play John Denver's "Country Roads" together for a school program. I still have that Alvarez - 37 years later - and it still sounds and plays great!
I tried piano and took some guitar lessons but mostly taught myself to play, which is probably the main reason why I still stink at it. In High School I did play electric guitar in the school jazz stage band for two years.
My first electric guitar was a 1978 Peavey T-60, built like a tank and weighed as much as a Les Paul, paying it off on layaway with the music store during the summer break by cutting lots and lots of grass. I remember using the coil tap (or was it a phase) switch trying to get that Rick bridge pickup sound...dreaming of the day of owning a Rickenbacker "real guitar", which where not thick on the ground in Topeka, Kansas, when I was a youngster.
Out of High School the T-60 got traded away for a Yamaha FG-260 12 string (that I still have) because I could never afford an amp to play the Peavey through, always using the schools amps to play and practicing unplugged. At least the Yamaha 12 string had more jangle to it then the classical had. Over the years after High School I played off and on.
A few years ago after plinking on the Alvarez my grade school age daughter asked me to teach her a song. Of course there could be no other choice but to teach her "Country Roads" on the good old Alvarez. After that she decided she wanted to learn how to play. While looking around for her first guitar I ran across the first store that I had ever been in that had Rickenbacker guitars. Up to that point I had never seen one in the flesh. One play on a 360/6 and the spell was cast.
8th grade, after hounding the folks for half a year, I got an acoutic guitar(Gemco special), and was told if I stuck with that for a year, I could get an electric. What a horrible year that was-haha.
Everyone around me seemed to want to be Eddie Van Halen or Jimmy Page, and I couldn't be bothered to lock myself in a room for a month so I could produce a poor imitation of "Eruption" to impress my friends. Besides, it wasn't my scene at all. I was heavily in to the Sex Pistols, Ramones, and Buzzcocks, and these guys would look at me like I was from another planet, and the music was too "simple" for them to play. Oddly enough, none of them could play any of it at all, and would dismiss it as "stupid punk" because they couldn't play rhythm to save their lives.
Shortly after I got my first electric, I discovered bands like the Purple Hearts, Chords,The Undertones, and of course, The Jam. Already being a big fan of The Who and The Move, my fate was sealed, I had to write songs and play music. Also, I knew I had to have a Rickenbacker, there was no choice. So, I traded my guitar for an early 60s 420(in my avatar), formed a band, and never looked back. Some lessons would have been great, but all I would run in to were teachers that either wanted to do the Mel Bay book style of teaching, or try to impress you with their metal skills and how cool they were.
I wish I had met a teacher back then who wasn't like that.
