Why'd you start playing?

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Permalink Reply by Monkeyfinger664 on February 10, 2009 at 2:12pm

I played clarinet in elementary school. One day I was sneaking through my dad's stuff and found his acoustic. It had been ignored for a long time and had 3 strings on it. I figured out linear scales from clarinet on the strings. I thought I was sneaky and put it back just how he had it. The next weekend I went back to play some more, but the guitar was gone. Clearly my dad noticed and was pissed, I thought. A month later my dad brings in the guitar from his car. He had it cleaned up, neck straightened and a new set of strings. He showed me how to tune and got out his Beatles songs books. The rest is history!

Permalink Reply by Douchebaggery Unpleasent on February 14, 2009 at 10:41pm

I broke up with a girl and decided to pick up a second instrument as a way to make a change in life.

Permalink Reply by Clarence Dember on February 17, 2009 at 9:46am

I think the reason I started playing guitar is the fascination I have with the way luthiers can bend specially prepared planks of wood into shapes which form the chambers we use to emit pleasant sounds called music. I am perpetually amazed such a thing is possible.
Cla

Permalink Reply by Clarence Dember on February 23, 2009 at 10:34pm

I too picked up my father's guitar. How he came by it was as a gift from my mother. Because none of us knew the first thing about wooden instruments it ended it's life in splinters by the radiator and later out front with the other trash pick up. (But not before I had gone to a guitar lesson or two and learned I was holding it left handed, which I am although it was right handed. When I switched to playing right handed it took a while for the vertigo to dissipate.
Eventually I began to organize some coherent sounds out of successive instruments and with some reading and much application was never taken seriously until I played some one else's music badly. Woody Guthrie's "Cocaine", Arlo Guthrie's "Alices Restaurant", Bruce Cockburn's "Foxglove" some bogus tunes from a Hootenanny mass I'd been attending at the insistence of my mom- the world's most intransegent Roman Catholic.
I soon discovered I'd better play my own stuff. Some music just weighs against me, especially the devotional skid marks to mental oblivion.
In the end, vanity, pride, logic and apprehension led me to realize I'd rather be known for what I created in performance art than what some one else created. Doing what I love in music keeps me playing music.

Permalink Reply by Dave P on March 1, 2009 at 3:34pm

I played piano as a kid, got bored of learning music just to pass exams, starting improvising a bit, bought a cheap re-issue of Queen II and shortly thereafter the obligatory cheap acoustic. It was downhill from there.

Permalink Reply by Fr33think3r on March 18, 2009 at 10:29pm

That is a great answer.

Permalink Reply by Brian C. Newbold on March 14, 2009 at 11:28pm

I started playing when I was 13. I just wanted to be a rock star! Over time I realized I'm a musician, not a rock star. There were a few years when I didn't have a guitar and didn't play. I got one again a few years ago and resumed my love affair with the guitar. I found that I understood it better than before. Now I just wanna play in a club band for fun. The music industry has destroyed what music is with overexposure, retarded kids who think they're rock stars, and pandering to the lowest common denominator. Still, love to play! I have too many influences to list, but just off the top of my head, Chet Atkins, Randy Rhoads, Dimebag(R.I.P), anyone who did pioneering work. Good to be here!

Permalink Reply by Fr33think3r on March 18, 2009 at 10:32pm

The first record I ever had was KISS Love Gun and I wanted to be as awesome as Gene Simmons.

Permalink Reply by Ian Brightman on March 28, 2009 at 5:48pm

i decided on the bass after 28 years of playing the violin in various orchestras, mainly because it looked so much cooler (as well as easy to learn) but after watching flea doing his pop slap thing on bass in the chillis and john deacon in queen i decided it was time to learn a "proper instrument" and am currently loving it!!!!

Permalink Reply by Jason Holder on May 24, 2009 at 10:02am

I started playing because bass guitar just "spoke" to me. I think we all know what this means. A few months worth of lessons later my instructor convinced me that if I also knew a few chords on guitar it would help my bass playing. So as soon as I had the cash I got an acoustic guitar and began on that. These days I'm torn between guitar and bass. I went to school for bass and that's what I most strongly identify with, but as a private instructor guitar is so much more lucrative. So I'm probably 50/50 now.

Permalink Reply by Clarence Dember on May 24, 2009 at 10:25am

Private guitar instruction more lucrative...., I hadn't thought about that issue. Good consideration!

Permalink Reply by William Young on July 19, 2009 at 6:31pm

I started playing bass, do to the fact, that the group I was playing in at the time had 2 guitarists and no bassist. I had previously played string bass in high school and going to the bass guitar was easier for me than for the other guitarist.

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