# How did you start playing guitar?



## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

The year was 2014 I was 14 and really wanted a guitar for Christmas so my parents bought me one. Been playing ever since. Always learning new things.


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## zztomato (Nov 19, 2010)

The year was 1977, I was 13. My friends across the street had guitars and so I got one too and we forced my brother to buy a bass- someone had to play bass. Good times. Still learning how to play. 😆


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

It was 1975. I was 14. My dad taught me three chords. He continues to entertain people even now at 85, and I continue to learn from him.


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## MarkM (May 23, 2019)

In 1978 I took Beginner Guitar with Mr. Strong in grade 8 at Woodlands Junior High in Nanaimo, BC. Been struggling to get better since.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

The year was 1972, I was 14 and I wanted a drum kit and wanted it bad. I wanted to hit things and I loved British invasion and later drummers. I guess my old man saw me coming a mile away because when I broached the subject I got a flat no, drums are too big, too loud, and too expensive. For something I would pay for myself, keep in my room, and promise not to play when he's around I couldn't fathom the logic but one didn't argue with the old boy in his hypertension period. (I discovered years later that he could actually play drums a bit himself...wtf that was about I never knew.) Then I wasn't too impressed with his almost mocking, "You know your sister has a guitar she's not playing..." Whatever.

Anyway, I took that guitar to the summer cottage (that sounds more highbrow than it was, I slept in a canvas tent for two months and we didn't have running water) and taught myself Greensleeves and House Of The Rising Sun by ear. Greensleeves in G minor because I picked a random note to start on, and HOTRS in A minor because someone showed me the chords once and the melody was easy. Thanks to the parents for providing me with decent piano/theory/choral lessons for my entire upbringing which got me my ear, but no thanks for anything guitar related at that point. I suppose the thing kept me out of sight and out of mind and reasonably quiet...though I did get an electric guitar a year later. 

I still wanted a drum kit but I was 55 before I got one.


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## marcos (Jan 13, 2009)

Milkman said:


> It was 1975. I was 14. My dad taught me three chords. He continues to entertain people even now at 85, and I continue to learn from him.
> 
> View attachment 450171
> 
> ...





Milkman said:


> It was 1975. I was 14. My dad taught me three chords. He continues to entertain people even now at 85, and I continue to learn from him.
> 
> View attachment 450171
> 
> ...


Great pic Mike. He looks like the real deal. I hope to be gigging when i'm at his age.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

marcos said:


> Great pic Mike. He looks like the real deal. I hope to be gigging when i'm at his age.


Thanks Marc

Frankly, he's as crazy as a sack of ducks (in a good way).


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## marcos (Jan 13, 2009)

It was 1964 when i saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Asked my dad to get me one of them fancy 'geetars' and he came home with a hukelele !!! A few months after that i got my first six string. The rest is history LOL. I will always be greatful for this.


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## Paul Running (Apr 12, 2020)

The year was 1968, I was 13 and the next door neighbor's son, Glen played guitar; I tried his guitar and I was hooked.


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## bw66 (Dec 17, 2009)

In 1977 my next door neighbour gave me a guitar and amp that her adult son left behind when he moved out so my parents signed me up for lessons. To that point, I had no interest in guitar or music, but I practiced what I was taught and made good progress. A few years later a friend showed me how to play power chords and progress slowed dramatically, but I had a lot of fun.


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## Grab n Go (May 1, 2013)

I played classical piano (RCM) as a kid. By the time I was 13, I was tired of the whole process. I went over to a friend's house and he showed me his brother's Epiphone LP. It seemed like a miracle at the time.

I eventually asked my parents for a guitar (this was around 1993). I promised I would only play acoustic. (That lasted about a year or two until I saved up enough money to buy a cheap guitar and amp.)

I first took community school lessons to learn the basics. Transitioning from piano, the guitar was really difficult at first, but I stuck with it. That's pretty much my story with the instrument: I stuck with it.


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## GuitarT (Nov 23, 2010)

It was 1978, I was 15 and my older brother brought home an album by a then unknown band named Van Halen. I was blown away but my brother didn't like them at all. "Too many guitar solos" he said, LOL! I come from a musical family. My father was a jazz pianist and my sister had just moved back home from college with her Yamaha acoustic. I absconded her guitar and her chord book and commenced teaching myself open chords. A few months later my dad took me shopping for my first electric guitar and amp (still have both) and the rest is history.


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## Chito (Feb 17, 2006)

1969 for me. I had piano lessons from 61-68. I got bored with the piano. So I told my parents I'm not doing that anymore and want to switch to guitar. They said sure, but you have to learn it on your own.  And that started it all. Never had any lessons since. I was 14 then.

This is a harbinger of the future. I was 3 here I think around 1958.


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)

Head Cuttin' Duel and Master Of Puppets. 1989
Begged for a guitar, mom was a single parent and managed to get me a red Profile and a Ross amp from The Guitar Clinic in Sudbury.


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## BGood (Feb 20, 2015)

In 1966 I was 13 and my older Elvis admirer brother bought a white Vox Phantom, what a friging ugly guitar. There was a cheap almost cardboard acoustic in the house, don't remember where it came from, maybe my dad bought it for me, but action must have been ½" high, awful. But that is what started me. When my brother was absent I'd sneak in his bedroom and play that weird Vox, it was almost as bad as my acoustic and those single coils sounded like chicken wire through the tiny speaker. A year later we moved. I met new kids that were forming a band and they needed a bassist, that was me.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

My step father played guitar as long as I could remember. In 1973 (I was 13) he influenced me to pick up a guitar and learn. I took lessons for about 6 months but was having a hard time getting inspired and almost never practiced. As soon as I quit taking lessons I couldn't put the guitar down and learned from my step father. There were a lot of reasons my step father (and mother) were not good parents but guitar playing is one thing I came away with. I jammed a lot with my step father and we attended some bluegrass festivals together up until 1981 when he died from Leukemia. 
I imagine we would have been great jam partners over the years had he lived longer.


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## Guncho (Jun 16, 2015)

In high school I had two friends that were very good guitarists and there was a lot of jamming around the campfire. I sang but couldn't play. One day I thought, hey if I could play guitar, I could sing and play a song whenever I wanted without needing those other guys so I set to work learning some chords. At parties I would pull my new $150 Samick acoustic out and play the chords I knew. If there was a chord I didn't know, I would mute the strings and pretend to play. After the song was over I would ask how to play the chords I didn't know. If I played poorly, my friends would literally take my guitar away from me and put it in another room.


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## BlueRocker (Jan 5, 2020)

1969. Little Bluerocker.


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## Davidian (Sep 8, 2008)

I chose the course in high school for a credit one semester. It was either some sort of music course or visual arts


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## Derek_T (10 mo ago)

I was 13-14, I went a good friend's house after school, he just got his first electric Strat type guitar. He showed me how to play the intro riff of "Smoke on the water" and that was it.
That's how it all started, I spent maybe less than a year learning on my own then took lesson as I wanted to learn improvisation, best move I ever did, a good teacher can save you years of struggle.


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

The year was 1981, maybe, I was in Grade 5 and they cancelled the debating club so I had to choose a different course. My friend was in the guitar class and urged me to join.


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## Rollin Hand (Jul 12, 2012)

I was 14. I saw my friend Pete let it rip on his guitar one day and said "I wanna do that."

I then borrowed $50 to buy an old Harmony H-802 from a friend (with a plywood hard case!). My dad fixed up an old Ford amp (not exactly like the one pictured: mine 2 speakers and black tolex) had he had in his shop, I got a Boss DS1 for my birthday, and I was on my way.


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## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

1968, I was fourteen. My father bought a Yamaha FG-140. I still have it. The two of us took some group lessons at a local school gym. There were around a dozen people in the class. We would pass the guitar back and forth during the lessons.


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## Chito (Feb 17, 2006)

Wow this is interesting. Most of us who have posted started when we were 14, others where 13 or 15. So I guess 14 is the age where someone decides I'll play guitar and go on with it? Very cool...


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## Granny Gremlin (Jun 3, 2016)

It was 1995 and I was in 12th grade. Been drumming in bands for a bit, but the guitarists were only interested in showboating (soloing over classic rock covers, sometimes venturing into metal). I was more into other music but didn't know anyone who wanted to play such music and was tired of 5 minute shazz breaks. Taking the punk ethos to heart I decided it was up to me to fix my situation. Borrowed a pointy purple bridge pickup only Charvel and a Peavey Rage from my girlfriend's older sister and started to try some shit on my own. A friend introduced me to this new thing called a DAW (before then we'd rent 4 or 8 track cassette machines from L&M for the odd weekend) and got myself the first commercially available USB interface to start writing/recording my own stuff. A year later I was cruising the Church St pawn shops (anyone remember Richmond's Trading Post - RIP; I could never afford anything in there but kept going in because they always had cool shit and their test amp on the floor was a wonderful sounding Ampeg fliptop which was so fun to play through, but I digress) and got ripped off (not at Richmond's - one of the places dealing mostly in cameras) on a Gibson Sonex 180 Custom (didn't know better - saw the Gibson logo and the shape and thought it was a Les Paul ) which I still have and love today. I was working at a Pet Food store at the time and the Boss's husband was a former 12th fret guitar tech. I showed him the Sonex, and he showed me a few things about care and maintenance. I house sat for them one time and fell in love with his solidbody (cresting wave shape) Ric that a customer had ruined by oiling the finish and he had customised with a Firebird pickup in the bridge. Still chasing that as a dream guitar (tho ideally without a finish that is perpetually flaking off and leaving schmutz all over you after playing it). Still not a fan of using the neck pickup. I try it every now and then and still nope.


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## Doug Gifford (Jun 8, 2019)

I was 17. I'd been taking conservatory piano lessons since I was 6. My best friend, Dave, played guitar quite well. On a school band trip to NYC, I picked up a Kent Las Vegas or similar. At home I ran it through a mono Heathkit tube amp my dad built. Dreadful guitar but distortion galore. Screamed along with Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix.








Mostly played slide because the action was so high -- no tension rod. Which, along with the photo on CCR's _Green River_, led me to my first REAL guitar and lifetime companion. I special ordered it at Weiner's Pawn Shop in the Byward market and paid for it with money I made as a lifeguard.


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## Jalexander (Dec 31, 2020)

Grab n Go said:


> I played classical piano (RCM) as a kid. By the time I was 13, I was tired of the whole process


Yep, me too. Then I met a bunch of kids at summer camp playing Indigo Girls songs. Got an acoustic for Christmas and a Gibson Les Paul six months later. The piano was a good foundation though!


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

1983...I started late IMO at 19. Made up for the late start by woddshedding for 3 or 4 years to try 'n catch up to my guitar playin' friends....been hooked ever since.


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## MetalTele79 (Jul 20, 2020)

I was around 12 when my parents gave me a Korean Vantage and a Peavey Rage combo. Took a few lessons and shelved the gear. Picked it up again around 16 and purchased myself a used MIJ BC Rich from the Buy N Sell and have been playing ever since.


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## Sneaky (Feb 14, 2006)

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan planted the seed, but it was a few years later when I saw Creedence Clearwater Revival on the Tee Vee that I really got interested. Then I was at somebodies house around age 12 and they had an old guitar sitting there. Within five minutes I had mastered the Secret Agent Man riff, and I knew I was going to be a star.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

When I was 11 or so, my dad brought home a sunburst Stella for me, with a sheet-metal tailpiece, floating bridge, and little furry balls at the ends of the strings, a different colour for each string. I sold it shortly thereafter to buy a record player. But of course, having records now made me have something to learn (the impetus of seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan on Feb. 9, 16 and 23, 1964 is taken for granted), so I got another guitar. It was a blond Regent acoustic. I had one lesson (the one finger G-chord) from a guy across the street, who lived upstairs from my friend John. John's father worked the nightshift, and valued his quiet during the day enough that he threatened to smash my guitar on the driveway if he as much as heard it invading his slumber again, so my lessons ended there.

A year later, we moved from Ottawa to Laval, Quebec,and as "new kid" in the local high school and a housing development (who often had to babysit his kid sister) I had a lot of time on my hands, and few friends to share it with, initially. So I practiced, but also started exploring what I could do, soundwise, with that guitar. My first "fuzzbox", in 1965 or so, consisted of a Canadian nickel (the optimum size and density) dangling and loosely attached to the lower bout of the Regent (about where volume and tone controls would go), that would vibrate in sympathy with the notes being played. It sounded great. As The Beatles introduced sitar a year later, I found that if I pulled out the white plastic saddle from the floating bridge, so that the strings had a shallower angle at the bridge, I could get a buzzing drone from the strings that sounded a lot like a sitar, so I started goofing around with different tunings to have drone strings and melody strings. Finally, I found that if I slid the bridge back to rest just under the tailpiece, the strings would have a quick decay that sounded a lot like a banjo.

A year or two later, I got my first electric (a 4-pickup Kent Videocaster) and amplifier (a Symphonic with a 12" speaker and more input jacks than control knobs), purchased from the older brother of a friend, whose father, I later learned, was involved with organized crime in Montreal, had pal'd around with Gerda Munsinger, and played a key role in the "tainted meat scandal" of Expo '67 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Obront ). A friend of the family gave me a tube-based reel-to-reel that also had plenty of ins and outs (I think it may have been a Roberts, though 55 years later, that may be a false memory), and I learned that if I plugged my guitar into the mic preamp (with the motor on "pause"), and then fed the line out of the tape machine to my guitar amp, I had "the overdrive of the gods". The guitar signal overloaded the mic preamp, and the line out overloaded the amp's input stage. My bandmates referred to it as "the monster", because the tape deck was probably about the same size as the amp.

So that's about the first 5 years.


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## Vally (Aug 18, 2016)

At 46 I feel so young. I was about 14, every aunt, uncle cousin played guitar or some instrument. By the way, my mom had 12 siblings and my dad had 7.


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)

I just remembered. I was 10.

Step dad bought a flimsy hollowbody no name 70's guitar and amp that would shock ya off of his brother. I ended up smashing it to pieces in the basement a few years later. Step dad told me he was super disappointed and hurt to see it smashed like that. He liked beating on me when i stood up for myself why Mom took off and got a young BF in summer of 89and dragged me along and left my younger brother behind. I was alone ALOT. thanks to Zeppelin i would just sit and play and play. Estranged from my parents and family now.. But i have a nice guitar and amp and brain cancer. I have seizures every few weeks and it throws everything off. But i can still play. Cant get in to see Drs so fuck it im just waiting to die. One seizure and a face dive away from death. Im cool though. I have plenty of time on my hands to come to terms. Im content though. I look forward to being with my ancesters.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Thunderboy1975 said:


> I just remembered. I was 10.
> 
> Step dad bought a flimsy hollowbody no name 70's guitar and amp that would shock ya off of his brother. I ended up smashing it to pieces in the basement a few years later. Step dad told me he was super disappointed and hurt to see it smashed like that. He liked beating on me when i stood up for myself why Mom took off and got a young BF in summer of 89and dragged me along and left my younger brother behind. I was alone ALOT. thanks to Zeppelin i would just sit and play and play. Estranged from my parents and family now.. But i have a nice guitar and amp and brain cancer. I have seizures every few weeks and it throws everything off. But i can still play. Cant get in to see Drs so fuck it im just waiting to die. One seizure and a face dive away from death. Anyway... Cheerio.


I'm sorry about that brother. Sometimes I think that's all I'm doing (waiting around to die). I guess I take much for granted. Thanks for reminding me.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Milkman said:


> It was 1975. I was 14. My dad taught me three chords. He continues to entertain people even now at 85, and I continue to learn from him.
> 
> View attachment 450171
> 
> ...


Love your Dad's hat, Mike. Does your Dad still live in the Miramichi area?


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## Pierrafeux (Jul 12, 2012)

It was in 1963 (8 years old) and I learn basic chords on my mom knees, since then I never stop.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Steadfastly said:


> Love your Dad's hat, Mike. Does your Dad still live in the Miramichi area?



No, he lives in Niagara Falls. I bought his duds in Nashville while on a business trip.


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

Pierrafeux said:


> It was in 1963 (8 years old) and I learn basic chords on my mom knees, since then I never stop.
> 
> View attachment 450255



Stupid question, but are those your parents?

Very nice picture.


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

I was given a little


Milkman said:


> No, he lives in Niagara Falls. I bought his duds in Nashville while on a business trip.


That's good to have so close to your place, especially at that age.


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## Pierrafeux (Jul 12, 2012)

Milkman said:


> Stupid question, but are those your parents?
> 
> Very nice picture.


Yes they are both passed away now but everybody at home brother and sisters were musicians, big thanks to mom and dad.


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

Mooh said:


> The year was 1972, I was 14 and I wanted a drum kit and wanted it bad. I wanted to hit things and I loved British invasion and later drummers. I guess my old man saw me coming a mile away because when I broached the subject I got a flat no, drums are too big, too loud, and too expensive. For something I would pay for myself, keep in my room, and promise not to play when he's around I couldn't fathom the logic but one didn't argue with the old boy in his hypertension period. (I discovered years later that he could actually play drums a bit himself...wtf that was about I never knew.) Then I wasn't too impressed with his almost mocking, "You know your sister has a guitar she's not playing..." Whatever.
> 
> Anyway, I took that guitar to the summer cottage (that sounds more highbrow than it was, I slept in a canvas tent for two months and we didn't have running water) and taught myself Greensleeves and House Of The Rising Sun by ear. Greensleeves in G minor because I picked a random note to start on, and HOTRS in A minor because someone showed me the chords once and the melody was easy. Thanks to the parents for providing me with decent piano/theory/choral lessons for my entire upbringing which got me my ear, but no thanks for anything guitar related at that point. I suppose the thing kept me out of sight and out of mind and reasonably quiet...though I did get an electric guitar a year later.
> 
> I still wanted a drum kit but I was 55 before I got one.


My mom also put my through a year of piano lessons when I was 11. Definitely helped me pick up guitar later.


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

Chito said:


> 1969 for me. I had piano lessons from 61-68. I got bored with the piano. So I told my parents I'm not doing that anymore and want to switch to guitar. They said sure, but you have to learn it on your own.  And that started it all. Never had any lessons since. I was 14 then.
> 
> This is a harbinger of the future. I was 3 here I think around 1958.
> View attachment 450231


You were a cute baby


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

Guncho said:


> In high school I had two friends that were very good guitarists and there was a lot of jamming around the campfire. I sang but couldn't play. One day I thought, hey if I could play guitar, I could sing and play a song whenever I wanted without needing those other guys so I set to work learning some chords. At parties I would pull my new $150 Samick acoustic out and play the chords I knew. If there was a chord I didn't know, I would mute the strings and pretend to play. After the song was over I would ask how to play the chords I didn't know. If I played poorly, my friends would literally take my guitar away from me and put it in another room.


HA I’m the opposite, I can play but can’t sing that well. I’m taking voice lessons though.


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

Chito said:


> Wow this is interesting. Most of us who have posted started when we were 14, others where 13 or 15. So I guess 14 is the age where someone decides I'll play guitar and go on with it? Very cool...


Yup! 13-15! I read somewhere that the majority of guitar players quit after the first month. I’d bet 13-15 is young enough to learn new things but just old enough to be determined to stick with it.


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## mawmow (Nov 14, 2017)

Well, I got a first barely playable guitar for Christmas as a teenager for an optional music course at college. I had learned some basic chords but the poor no name acoustic would soon die in a damp basement closet.

But I almost never stopped playing after I had borrowed my brother’s 3/4 nylon some years later, buying pop fakebooks… and buying better and way better acoustics over the last thirty five years or so.


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

Doug Gifford said:


> I was 17. I'd been taking conservatory piano lessons since I was 6. My best friend, Dave, played guitar quite well. On a school band trip to NYC, I picked up a Kent Las Vegas or similar. At home I ran it through a mono Heathkit tube amp my dad built. Dreadful guitar but distortion galore. Screamed along with Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix.
> View attachment 450235
> 
> Mostly played slide because the action was so high -- no tension rod. Which, along with the photo on CCR's _Green River_, led me to my first REAL guitar and lifetime companion. I special ordered it at Weiner's Pawn Shop in the Byward market and paid for it with money I made as a lifeguard.
> ...


That reminds me I need a dedicated slide guitar just for learning blind willie Johnson songs.


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

Thunderboy1975 said:


> I just remembered. I was 10.
> 
> Step dad bought a flimsy hollowbody no name 70's guitar and amp that would shock ya off of his brother. I ended up smashing it to pieces in the basement a few years later. Step dad told me he was super disappointed and hurt to see it smashed like that. He liked beating on me when i stood up for myself why Mom took off and got a young BF in summer of 89and dragged me along and left my younger brother behind. I was alone ALOT. thanks to Zeppelin i would just sit and play and play. Estranged from my parents and family now.. But i have a nice guitar and amp and brain cancer. I have seizures every few weeks and it throws everything off. But i can still play. Cant get in to see Drs so fuck it im just waiting to die. One seizure and a face dive away from death. Anyway... Cheerio.


Sorry to hear that, I hope you can find peace before you go. I’d jam with you if you were here.


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

mawmow said:


> Well, I got a first barely playable guitar for Christmas as a teenager for an optional music course at college. I had learned some basic chords but the poor no name acoustic would soon die in a damp basement closet.
> 
> But I almost never stopped playing after I had borrowed my brother’s 3/4 nylon some years later, buying pop fakebooks… and buying better and way better acoustics over the last thirty five years or so.


I still have my fender acoustic from that Christmas in 1014. everything works perfectly. It’s not the best sounding guitar but lasted longer than my more expensive norman so.


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## mawmow (Nov 14, 2017)

whyarecanadiangirlshot said:


> I still have my fender acoustic from that Christmas in 1014. everything works perfectly. It’s not the best sounding guitar but lasted longer than my more expensive norman so.


1014 ! Really ?! Wow !!!
Vintage… before it was invented ! 
Yeah ! Kidding !


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

mawmow said:


> 1014 ! Really ?! Wow !!!
> Vintage… before it was invented !
> Yeah ! Kidding !


im a vampire


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## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

whyarecanadiangirlshot said:


> im a vampire


Watch out for Werewolves. SOmeone reel smaart told me they can kill a vampire.


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## Pat James (5 mo ago)

2004. I was 16. To get chicks.


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)

Milkman said:


> I'm sorry about that brother. Sometimes I think that's all I'm doing (waiting around to die). I guess I take much for granted. Thanks for reminding me.


Your welcome mate, glad i could help.


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

Pat James said:


> 2004. I was 16. To get chicks.


well it didnt get me any chicks


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Pat James said:


> 2004. I was 16. To get chicks.


Did it work?


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)

Mooh said:


> Did it work?


Yup😘


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## Pat James (5 mo ago)

whyarecanadiangirlshot said:


> well it didnt get me any chicks





Mooh said:


> Did it work?


None that stuck around too long. That might be my fault though. I won't blame the guitar for that


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## Pat James (5 mo ago)

Thunderboy1975 said:


> I just remembered. I was 10.
> 
> Step dad bought a flimsy hollowbody no name 70's guitar and amp that would shock ya off of his brother. I ended up smashing it to pieces in the basement a few years later. Step dad told me he was super disappointed and hurt to see it smashed like that. He liked beating on me when i stood up for myself why Mom took off and got a young BF in summer of 89and dragged me along and left my younger brother behind. I was alone ALOT. thanks to Zeppelin i would just sit and play and play. Estranged from my parents and family now.. But i have a nice guitar and amp and brain cancer. I have seizures every few weeks and it throws everything off. But i can still play. Cant get in to see Drs so fuck it im just waiting to die. One seizure and a face dive away from death. Anyway... Cheerio.


I'm sorry to hear about this @Thunderboy1975 I don't really have any words but I am glad you still enjoy playing the guitar!


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## Thunderboy1975 (Sep 12, 2013)

Pat James said:


> I'm sorry to hear about this @Thunderboy1975 I don't really have any words but I am glad you still enjoy playing the guitar!


Thanks i appreciate the kind words.


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## elburnando (11 mo ago)

My Dad played, and had loads of friends who were musicians. He used to show me little things here and there on guitar when i was a kid. When I got to be about 10(early 90s), he gave me an acoustic and got me some lessons. I stopped playing in my 20s, but took it up again a few years ago after my dad passed away. I started playing a bit with him in his last year, but one thing that really made me want to play is the thought that he wanted to play so badly in hospital but couldn't. I figure i should get back into it while I can. I had been in the hospital for 7months myself, watching youtube guitar videos. I bought a new one the week I got out and never looked back.


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## AlexOT (10 mo ago)

1994 bored of class we started a punkband, nobody played anything, but we went at with the same gang for 23 amazing years, I mainly did vocals and some bass, but picked up a guitar playing along the way. Much later played and toured playing keyboards in a postmetalband with 3 guitarists around me, that's when I got really hooked on everything guitar. I continued experimenting with live processing them through sequencers, samplers and pedals. About 6 years ago, I started practicing guitar more seriously, clean playing, I dabble in jazz and improv, and fail a lot trying to shred maiden riffs, I am and always will be an unhealthy big Iron Maiden fan.


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## MarkM (May 23, 2019)

@Thunderboy1975 I always say everyone gets dealt up a hand of cards, some get a full house, others get a pair of deuces. Some piss away a full house and others bluff their way through life and win with a pair of deuces!

I have never seen you bitch about the hand you received on this forum, keep on keeping on brother!


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

I was in grade 5 and we went to some fall fair or something and there was a really hot looking flamenco dancer there. She was about 30 and looked great in that tight red dress that they wear and there was a guy playing flamenco guitar while she pranced her ass around. I realized right then that women like that would always need a guitar player. So I got a $20 classical guitar for christmas and started taking lessons. The songs in the Mel Bay guitar book sucked and I said as much to the music teacher pointing out more than a few times that I wasn't going to anywhere with flamenco dancers playin that shit. He said "I hear ya" and he started showing me stuff like the rasgueado strumming pattern for flamenco. It eventually dawned on me that there was a shortage of flamenco dancin women round where we lived so I quit with the lessons, got an electric guitar from Sears by grade 7 and then I started drinkin & druggin nearly every day and jammin with my friends thinking that was the way to go in music. Then I took theory for a bit and played sax in high school. Also played a fuckin bugle in the corps for awhile but I didn't like marching.


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## guitarman2 (Aug 25, 2006)

whyarecanadiangirlshot said:


> well it didnt get me any chicks


It got me chicks. I married the best looking one and then just last year she bought me a guitar


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## silvertonebetty (Jan 4, 2015)

My brother, not because I looked up to him but because I wanted to show I’m I was better at him with everything in life.


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## Ship of fools (Nov 17, 2007)

it was back in 1959 that I got my very first guitar which did not go so well for my brother a nice martin it was till I did a El GoBong on his head ( damn that stupid horse ). and then several years later I got serious or sort of for that age after I saw the Beatle ands heard them at swan guard Stadium in Vancouver even though we were several blocks away heard some music but mostly girls ( and probably a few boys ) screaming.
but to be honest I started my music career by starting with a accordion and then went to auto harp got to play them blues you know.


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## keithb7 (Dec 28, 2006)

I started showing interest when I was about 9 years old. 1980. My folks got me a ¾ sized used low priced generic acoustic. I took off from there. Then Dad dug out an early 60's ES125-TDC for me. Buried in the basement somewhere. Garbage nobody wanted anyway...Lol. Mom said a hollow body guitar meant it didn't need an amp. It could be played electric or acoustically. She was just trying to appease me. Also maybe keep the noise ceiling down in the house. Next came a Simpson Sears tube amp. A garage sale find. it was good for a while. Dad started teaching me 50's and 60's licks. Then we found an original 1957 or so Fender Tweed Deluxe 5E3 amp. I paid $80 for it in about 1981. Paper route money. IT as all I had and drained my bank account. The old amp had never been serviced I don't think. It kept shocking me whenever I touched the chassis. A pretty good jolt. Touch your buddies electric guitar strings while touching your own? A near death experience. All the amp's pots cracked and popped but I made it work. Fast Forward 40 years. I am still at it. Still learning all the time. I owe it to my parents for supporting me and putting up with the noise and distortion pedals, pointy headstock guitars and whammy bars. It was the 80's man! It was my Scorpions and Iron Maiden era.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

My teen-aged aunt lived with us and brought home a lot of singles (records that is).


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## fernieite (Oct 30, 2006)

I started in 1978 at the age of 15.

I bought a brand new Yamaha acoustic, and then proceeded to put the record player on and try to learn by ear. Didn't have a clue!

The best I could manage at the beginning was a few of the bass notes of the intro to Pink Floyd's "Time". 

Since I was into Zeppelin, The Beatles, Floyd, etc. I soon realized that I wanted to play the electric guitar. I quickly sold the acoustic to a friend of mine, (he still has it) and I found an "electric guitar" for sale in the Toronto Star classifieds. It was a nice 1968 maple cap Blond Telecaster.

I had to play the Tele through our god-awful console radio/ record player plugged into a mic input, until I could afford my first real amp - a 1956 narrow panel Fender tweed Deluxe! (from Vic here in Toronto)

That amp sounded really good, ( I also had a MXR Distortion +) but like @keithb7, it did shock me a couple of times! 

I've never had a real lesson unfortunately. I learned a few licks over the years when I heard a decent player at a music shop, or from a friend who may have learned something.

Eventually, tab showed up in guitar magazines and books; and now the internet video lessons make it so easy. They're really really helpful!


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

fernieite said:


> I started in 1978 at the age of 15.
> 
> I bought a brand new Yamaha acoustic, and then proceeded to put the record player on and try to learn by ear. Didn't have a clue!
> 
> ...


That's funny, I never cared for electric and always preferred the way acoustic guitar sounds. I took guitar lessons for about a year, but then stopped when I realized I wasn't getting my money's worth. A friend from Britain who canme to visit and he was trained in classical guitar and he helped me improve my playing in 10 minutes than one year of lessons with the other guy! So it may not necessarily be a bad thing if you've never had lessons.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

The real bug came in the fall of 1963. We were in England visiting my grandparents. I was 7, laying on the living room floor watching Top of the Pops (I think). The Beatles were pretty big in the UK at that point. They came out and did Love Me Do or something. They looked so cool. The girls all screamed. I was hooked.

I just didn't realize how long it would take to achieve their level of success 😕


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## iCGM (1 mo ago)

I started playing in 1995 when I was 11. My neighbour at the time got a guitar for Xmas, and my mother had a Yahama acoustic at the time, so we would get together and teach each other. I then got a Black Squier Strat the year after and proceeded to rock out to Metallica, Soundgarden, Pantera... etc. I got pretty good by the age of 18-19 during my college years. After the age of 22 guitar ended up taking a hiatus for about 10 years where I would play maybe a handful of times per year. I then started a new collection of electrics and had 3 Les Pauls, 1 PRS 245, and a PRS S2 Singlecut. I then ended up switching over to acoustic because it forced me to better as it's not as forgiving. I recorded a bunch of instrumentals in 2018-2020, 1 of my compositions was picked up by a friend which is a local artist and is in production with for her album with a producer from Nashville. It's actually supposed to be released in the next few months! 

My journey continues today as I start learning more finger style songs.


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## whyarecanadiangirlshot (2 mo ago)

iCGM said:


> I started playing in 1995 when I was 11. My neighbour at the time got a guitar for Xmas, and my mother had a Yahama acoustic at the time, so we would get together and teach each other. I then got a Black Squier Strat the year after and proceeded to rock out to Metallica, Soundgarden, Pantera... etc. I got pretty good by the age of 18-19 during my college years. After the age of 22 guitar ended up taking a hiatus for about 10 years where I would play maybe a handful of times per year. I then started a new collection of electrics and had 3 Les Pauls, 1 PRS 245, and a PRS S2 Singlecut. I then ended up switching over to acoustic because it forced me to better as it's not as forgiving. I recorded a bunch of instrumentals in 2018-2020, 1 of my compositions was picked up by a friend which is a local artist and is in production with for her album with a producer from Nashville. It's actually supposed to be released in the next few months!
> 
> My journey continues today as I start learning more finger style songs.


That’s awesome, does she have any other albums out yet?


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## diyfabtone (Mar 9, 2016)

My older brother played bass and had rehearsals in our basement until my Dad banned guitars - I was Jonesing for a Les Paul at that point and waited 30 years before follow that urge. It turned out alright because I had a 20+ year career as a classical musician - I’m a crappy guitarist but I know how to stay out of the way!


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## iCGM (1 mo ago)

whyarecanadiangirlshot said:


> That’s awesome, does she have any other albums out yet?


Not to my knowledge no. She plays a lot of the local scene. It's Alex Black.


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## Acoustic Tom (Apr 6, 2020)

E chord, A chord and a D chord.


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## AJ6stringsting (Mar 12, 2006)

1976 , the Beatles got me going. Then in 1978 , a fellow classmate sold me a tape of Jimi Hendrix's Rainbow Bridge, UFO's Strangers In The Night, Queens first album and I was in awe listening to Richie Blackmore's 1st Rainbow album .
I got a Natural toned Memphis Strat, like Blackmore and my guitar teacher taught me the intro to Jimi's Hear My Train A Comin' and later got a Reel to Reel and I accelerated after that and was addicted to the guitar .


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## MarkM (May 23, 2019)

AJ6stringsting said:


> 1976 , the Beatles got me going. Then in 1978 , a fellow classmate sold me a tape of Jimi Hendrix's Rainbow Bridge, UFO's Strangers In The Night, Queens first album and I was in awe listening to Richie Blackmore's 1st Rainbow album .
> I got a Natural toned Memphis Strat, like Blackmore and my guitar teacher taught me the intro to Jimi's Hear My Train A Comin' and later got a Reel to Reel and I accelerated after that and was addicted to the guitar .


This really reminds me of my I’ll spent youth, even the timeframe!


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## Jetter (1 mo ago)

My dad played guitar, started teaching me the chords to House Of The Rising Sun around age 12-13 on his Gibby J-45.


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## Renoguy75 (Feb 9, 2020)

The year was 2015, I had just turned 40 and managed to rupture my kidney mountain biking. Stuck on a couch for 6 weeks with nothing to do. After exhausting the Netflix catalog (it was pretty lame back them), my wife told me to do something productive or I would get depressed. My buddy Don was in a band, taught me a few fundamentals and off I went on my journey. Pretty sure I’ve played everyday since…
And bought a crap load of guitars….


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## AJ6stringsting (Mar 12, 2006)

Renoguy75 said:


> The year was 2015, I had just turned 40 and managed to rupture my kidney mountain biking. Stuck on a couch for 6 weeks with nothing to do. After exhausting the Netflix catalog (it was pretty lame back them), my wife told me to do something productive or I would get depressed. My buddy Don was in a band, taught me a few fundamentals and off I went on my journey. Pretty sure I’ve played everyday since…
> And bought a crap load of guitars….


Hearing stories of newer guitarist stories, talking about their joys of learning and accomplishment .... gets me fired up, it inspires me more and reminds me to be in more tune with music .


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## AJ6stringsting (Mar 12, 2006)

fernieite said:


> I started in 1978 at the age of 15.
> 
> I bought a brand new Yamaha acoustic, and then proceeded to put the record player on and try to learn by ear. Didn't have a clue!
> 
> ...


Wow !!!! .... learning the bass lines and the associating the bass notes to the harmonic chord structure of the song. 
It's like a MAGIC MOMENT , like a Big Band in the brain and fingers ..... A MUSICIAN IS BORN !!!!


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