Curious about the experience of RRF members.

[sloop_john_b]

Great stories all around.

Whatever became of the old Firebird, Joey?

[sowhat]

I can barely play!

Same here. Well, almost. Just replace "barely" with "not".

[johneek]

Great stories all around. ...

And we'd love to hear your's.....JB

[JakeK]

I started playing guitar at the age of 11. I didn't have much, but I made due. I was always so scared about playing my guitar or even practicing because every time I turned around, the guitar I had would break strings. I was VERY slow to practice. All I had was an Epiphone Les Paul and a Squier by Fender Practice amp.

Now, with 3 more guitars, and 2 sold, I'm playing almost every day, and it's one of my favorite things to do!

I don't know if this is on topic or not, but I also began playing harmonica in October 2007. I learned from one of my dad's friends who could play almost as well as Little Walter! He told me pretty much to listen to different styles, and create my own style, and I did. At this point, I know how to play several tunes!

So, I can play guitar and harmonica, and I'm happy doing it!

[sloop_john_b]

And we'd love to hear your's.....JB

Alrighty. Took piano lessons and played drums in a concert band as a kid. Picked up bass at 14, guitar not long after. I was hooked from there. Studied & took lessons for a few years, then went to college, as a music major. In my last semester now. I read music and know theory.

My focus is composition, specifically choral. Kinda wish I had focused more on performance, just so my sight reading would be better, but it's decent.

Non-professionally, I love folk/bluegrass and 60's pop and that's the type of music I write/play in my leisure. I play guitar/bass/double bass/piano, and the folk instruments - mandolin, banjo, lap/pedal steel, tiny bit of fiddle (i'm learning).

[wj350]

I noodled around a bit in HS back in the '70s, some buds and I picked up some cheap import electric guitars. I found immediately that I had no innate talent, and even less willingness to actually work at it and practice. Total experiment lasted maybe 6 months. Fast forward 10 years, and I'm on a remote assignment in the Aleutian Islands, and we have a Chaplain who used to be quite a rocker before he found his other calling and joined the AF. He got a couple of us to order some guitars from the BX catalog, and taught us a couple chords. Unfortunately, when I left the island, I let it go again.

Now fast forward many more years to about 2002, and I make a casual remark to my wife one night that I "might like to get a little guitar to fool around with again, I think maybe I might be able to find the discipline to try and actually learn something now". It was just a passing comment...but on our anniversary that year, she bought me a little Alvarez Acoustic, an RF-8, and maybe the most important gift of all, an electronic tuner!

Well, though the lack of innate talent is still pretty much a limiting factor, I do now really enjoy whatever it is I'm able to do on the guitar. It's really become sort of a center piece of my life, eclipsing the other interests I've had over the years. I'm trying to learn music theory, and while I can read notes on a scale, I'm not quite at a point where the translation to the fretboard is automatic. I play mostly chords, and enjoy it immensely. I find I learn so much better when I'm shown something--I learned a lot from playing with Johneek when we lived closer to each other.

I took some guitar lessons and was enjoying them until the instructor needed to change his schedule. I also took some drum lessons as well, I can't do much more than a basic rock beat, but they're also fun to play around with.

I'm really very lucky that my wife not only gave me this gift, but also really encourages me, even to the extent of telling me I sound good (I try not to notice her nose growing as she says this... ).

I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where I'm confidant enough to "play out", but I'd like to think the possibility is there.

Oh well, there it is, soul bared for all.

Bill

[ram]

Darn good question Robert! Back in olden times I could read sheet music. Did the trumpet and French horn early in elementary and Jr high school. Also about that time I had been learning guitar and piano (mostly self taught) although I had always want to play bass (tuning an acoustic down just didn’t seem to work). The piano taught me the bass end of the scales. I actually could correctly play music I had not heard before. That did start to fade as I found myself playing by ear more and more during my cover band period. The reading was revived for a brief period when I would help my daughter with piano lessons. That was probably the last time I have read music, about 10 years ago. The little bit of theory, I have, has developed over the ages. I understand what makes a major chord a 7th, minor, diminished, augmented… etc. … harmony all that stuff.

With what I do now musically there is a certain amount of feel that happens to it and a certain amount of actual tactical development in the tunes we create.

One note – when my oldest was learning to play guitar he had a great teacher who taught him to play be ear and then slipped in a little theory…. a very successful method!

[jimk]

I kind of gave a thumbnail sketch in my previous post. I'll fill in the details here if you don't mind.

I grew up in a family full of singers. So there was always music around. At about age 10, I guess, I began taking piano lessons, and so learned to read. I must have taken piano lessons for four or five years, got a little bored, and stopped. About this time, I began playing piano in a garage rock band. The folks didn't particularly care for the crowd I was hanging out with, and gently discouraged the rock'n'roll thing. I was going to buy one of those combo organs one day. That never worked out.

I remember the day I announced to my mom that what I'd really like for Christmas was a guitar. She had one word to say about that "Halleluia!" I got my first acoustic guitar on Christmas Day, when I was 16, and had Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind" down in the key of A by the time the pumpkin pie was served after dinner.

That summer, I worked for Dad on his cattle ranch doing odd jobs, clearing brush, helping put up fences, etc. And with my wages (2 bull calves which I sold at a handsome profit the following year) I bought a Yamaha 12 string guitar, after hearing George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord." I played that guitar all through the rest of highschool, and took it to college with me.

One summer, I bought a CG Conn 6 string acoustic guitar because I thought I needed another guitar, so by the time I graduated with a major in vocal music performance, I had two guitars. By the way, I played both guitars at my senior recital.

Being dissatisfied with them, I traded them both in plus a little cash on a truly professional level guitar, an S.L. Mossman Tennessee Flattop. That guitar was stolen, and I replaced it with the insurance money with another just like it. This second S.L. Mossman guitar is still in my possession, and I play it most.

Eventually, I inherited a 1930-something round neck Dobro which I hack around on it playing slide. My maternal grandfather had bought the guitar new, so it had been in the family for quite some time, thrashed upon and abused no doubt by several grandchildren. The neck is so bowed, that it is unplayable above the fifth fret. But it seems to be stable.

I got married, and really wanted to start playing out more, and got a job singing every Saturday night in a local bar in Wichita, KS. After a while, I thought that I needed something to give my show a little more pizzazz. I had been interested in old-time folk music for years and years, and had a back log of songs that I just couldn't quite put across to my satisfaction on guitar. And I thought a banjo was what I needed. Turns out I was right, and clawhammer was the style that intrigued me most.

Met a fiddler, and together we put together an old-timey string band with a guitarist he knew. And we got a few gigs around the Wichita area. Well, because we were playing such hard-core old-timey stuff, that meant I had to learn a bunch of fiddle tunes. And eventually I thought that I may as well learn to play these tunes on the instrument they were intended for. So I acquired the first of several fiddles, a real junker, but a fiddle nevertheless.

So by the early 1980s, I was a pretty hard-core old-time musician. I've played in old-time string bands and folk music groups ever since, adding mandolin in the mid-'90s. (There's a story there too, but this is getting long.)

My wife & I moved up to Lawrence in the mid-80s in part because the folk music scene was starting to go south in Wichita, and there was a spot for a banjo player in a string band up in Lawrence. Been here ever since. Quit the first string band in '87, and promptly joined the Euphoria String Band, with whom I'm still playing, now as fiddler and mandolinist.

I still keep my banjo playing up, getting it out when I do solo shows, and in '02 I began teaching clawhammer style banjo at the Americana Music Academy, Lawrence's answer to Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.

I've had several opportunities to play with some of the instructors at the Academy, and that has stretched my musical horizons some. In fact, it was the Exec. Director, who has become a friend of mine who once told me at a blues jam, "Krause, you need an electric guitar."

Hunting for the perfect electric guitar led me to Rickenbackers, and that led me to this forum. And something else that led me to Rickenbackers, especially the 360 12 string was that like Roger McGuinn, I'm a finger style guitar player (always have been) and a banjo player, too. So, when I saw a clip of RM's DVD, I thought "Yup, that's the electric guitar for me."

Rather a longish story, and these are just the highlights, too.

JimK

[sharkboy]

I tried guitar when I was about six. I tried to play classical guitar on a full-sized guitar and it didn't work out so well. I tried violin in 4th grade and people thought I was torturing animals. I tried piano and oboe.

I dabbled with guitar a few times. After I got out of high school I bought a 12-string Takamine acoustic to learn on. I blundered for a while on it and then bought an SD Curlee electric guitar and a little Peavey amp. I found that I could get great sounds, but couldn't play for poo. I wrote songs and half-learned tunes to cover. I played occasionally with others and with bands.

After writing tunes for a while, I decided that I couldn't really tolerate having other people sing them, so I started training my voice. It took me about five years to be able to use very well- probably the hardest I ever worked on music in my life. It then took me many years of work to do my album- a lot of it alone.

The past many years I've spent much of my musical time doing fun covers with a good friend. Sometimes with a band- most of the time as a duo. We are actually very good. He has about 1 billion songs committed to memory, so sometimes I have to hang on for dear life.

[rickenbrother]

Great stories all around.

Whatever became of the old Firebird, Joey?

I had it quite a long time. I gave it back to my brother before I moved to CA, partially in hopes that it would spark up an interest in playing again. It did for just a short time, unfortunately. I know he still thinks playing a instrument is cool, but I don't think he's touched it in several years!
I'd love to get him to a confluence.

[phlemmy]

I played drums from 84-2000 and stopped when my hands could not even hold the sticks to finish one song. I still feel the stings of depression from not being able to drum any longer.

But...I started playing bass in 2000 and like with the drums, I have learned by ear and by watching others. To date I haven't taken any lessons but I am thinking of taking some basic ones this year to help expand my playing a bit.

I'm a hobbyist musician these days. I play in bands for the fun of it and am happy getting local success. If anything bigger comes of it, then fine...it's about damned time!

[kog]

When I was 10, I took piano lessons. That lasted a few months then I got bored with it, but at least I learned the basics of whole notes, clefs, sharps, flats and so on. That was about 1962. Then I went back to being a kid until 1964, and the Beatles, and now I HAD to play guitar. I used to take pix of the Beatles and make cardboard cutouts of the shapes of the Country Gentleman and John's 325 and paste them to badminton rackets and pretend I was playing along. Finally, my Mom sent me to a guitar teacher. From him, I got my first guitar, an old old Stella acoustic which I think my Mom bought from him for $30.

I had even less patience with the guitar lessons. This gentleman -- whom I am sure had the best intentions and was a very nice man -- was trying his darndest to get me to LEARN HOW TO PLAY THE GUITAR, but all I wanted to do was be able to play "I Want To Hold Your Hand". So the lessons didn't last long. But that summer, some record lable (I think it was ATCO) issued an album of all Beatles music done by a cover band with no vocals. In the gatefold of the album, they printed the words and chords for the songs on the album -- "She Loves You", "All My Loving", "I Want To Hold Your Hand", "Can't Buy My Love", and so on. On the bottom were the chord diagrams -- and they were all the simple, basic chords: A, Am, D, E, G, C, etc. I think the hardest chord was a Bb. That album probably taught me more about the guitar than anything up to that point. By Christmas of 1964, I had received a Montgomery Wards Airline guitar, and a year later my wonderful parents got me a Gretsch 6120. (Rick fans despair not -- my best friend got a Rick 330, and we at least had a "George" and a "John".)

I did everything by ear, although I would quite often buy sheet music at the local record store and use it as a"lead sheet" -- just for the words and the chords. I thought of myself as a lead guitarist, and was in several garage bands in the last half of the 60s. Then college, "adulthood", and the Gretsch stayed in its case. Something bit me in 1980, and I managed to scrape the money together to buy something else I'd always wanted -- a Rick 360/12. Played it for awhile, but it mostly sat in the case alongside the Gretsch. Mid-1980, and old drummer buddy calls, wants to get a band together just for kicks, so for a couple years we have a 4-man old-time-rock-&-roll band, playing minor gigs here & there on the weekends. Still, I just have that rudimentary knowledge of music, and I look back at my lead playing of the era as "passable" at best.

That died off about 1988 or so, and the guitars again went into their cases (altho by then I also have an Ovation acoustic-electric and an old Les Paul Studio to go with the Rick and Gretsch). In 1997, I realized another dream, and got myself a Grestch Country Classic II, the then-current reissue of the Gent. Then around 2002, I had a bit of a stay in the hospital, and I came out telling myself that by gosh I was FINALLY going to be more serious about my playing.

So today, I've got 23 guitars (4 of them Ricks) and 3 basses (sadly, no Ricks), and my buddy and I (the same one who got the Rick 330 in the 60s) have had the most fun recording old Beatles, Stones and Eagles songs, as well as revisiting the old songs we wrote as 16-year-old Lennon-&-McCartney wannabes. BUT ....

I still wish I'd learned more about music theory, learned how to sight read, learned what the heck "lydian" and "phrygian" and all those other "-ians" are, learned the "circle of fifths" or "fourths" or whatever they're called. I'm currently subscribing to as many different guitar mags as I can find, reading them cover to cover, practicing the lessons, hoping that enough mud will stick to this old brain. I'll be 56 next month, so one word to all you younger folks -- if you have the chance to study music theory, take full advantage of it. Even if you're only a self-taught, play-by-ear, bedroom rock star like me, you won't regret learning the real thing.

[rickfan60]

For me it was oboe in 5th grade followed by french horn in 7th grade. I quit school band halfway through my freshman year. The following year my brother started playing guitar (a cheap Harmony acoustic) and encouraged me to play bass. I bought a sunburst Encore bass from my local music store for $75 and I was on my way. I applied what I learned from playing oboe and french horn and actually got off the ground. The first song I learned was "Michelle" as I was a huge Beatle fan back then. A bunch of other Beatles songs followed - none of which I remember anymore. A year later I bought a '68 Hofner in flawless condtion for $225 and a few months later 60 watt Traynor tube amp. Even though I quit HS band, I maintained friendships with several of the more advanced members from whom I learned a lot about being a musician and general theory. During my junior year I bought my first Rickenbacker - a nearly new FG 4001 with a broken truss rod. The seller was a band "friend" who knew the rod was broken but sold it to me anyway. What a jag he was in retrospect. In college I took a semester of music theory. SInce then, most of my learning has been self taught.

[tamborineman]

I have learned mostly by listening to recordings and by hanging with other guitarists. Playing by ear is really playing by memory or by brain. If I can `visualize' the music in my mind I can play it with my hands. Then practice for a smooth seamless delivery. Two observations; You can play for years then a door opens and you are in a new world. It can happen many times if you hang in there. Secondly, you can have great fun and entertain people with very little talent, so get out there and do it.

[beacon]

Started with the trombone in Jr. HS. Then played first chair in the HS band. I soon determined that carrying that trombone to school was not "cool", plus there wasn't an opportunity to play outside the HS band. I decided I needed to play a more "popular" instument and declared I was going play drums. My private instructor at the time (played for the St. Louis Sypmphony) told my parents I didn't have the "timing" to play drums so they wouldn't buy me a set ( I always suspected he just didn't want me quit trombone). At any rate, I decided to play bass...music written in bass clef, same as the trombone, plus I could afford a cheap (Kay) bass and small amp myself. Been playing bass ever since.

I do read, even though in the 70's and 80's I didn't have much need to...aferall, we just learned songs from the LP's (yes, LPs). Reading is like a bicycle though, you never forget, and today I use it more than ever. I have returned to lessons on several occasions to increase my theory knowledge and am so glad I have. Reading and understanding theory for me has proved useful even in learning songs from CD's (CDs now, not LPs). I can hear a song now and almost figure out what is going on because I understand what is "most likely" going to happen. I am also a believer in the bass player learning the melody and many times reading from the sheet music is a really fast way to do that.

I am the only one in my current band that can read, and it does help on occasion to get through a piece we are having a hard time with.........