How old when started out?

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Ron Galicia

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Started electric guitar at 10 with about a year of lessons. Bass guitar around 15 when a band needed a bassist. Voice classes around 18. Starting to plink around on keyboards around 32.
 
I started with a really cheap acoustic ($8.88 at E.J. Korvette's in NY) when I was around 13 or so, but it wasn't a real start -- fiddled around, but gave up when I realized it was hard.

Then I heard Eric Clapton in Cream when I was 15-16 and went up to the storage loft in the garage and pulled it out again...

Got my first electric, a Gibson SG Special, a year or so later, right around when I saw the Allman Brothers Band play in a movie theatre when Duane Allman was still alive... and I haven't stopped since.

-AlChuck
 
To celebrate my 100th post.
100, roll on 1,000.

I started to play guitar at 16 which I consider quite late-I have never had a single lesson and I didn't really start playing to any decent standard for about a year and a half after this.

How old were you when you started out and what instrument was first?
 
Started on electric guitar when I was 15, and like you, never had any formal lessons. - Except a few classical guitar lessons which I took when I was 18 or so.

Damn, a few more posts and this could've been my 1000th :)
 
Started on acoustic guitar at 18 - just strumming chords first - to accompany songs.

Really started learning music on bass and electric guitar at 20.

Started trying on friend's drums also at 20, but only got my first drumset years later (3 months ago).

It's all very late, but I'm too crazy about wanting to play, so nothing has stopped me so far... well, except work and stuff, which consumes so much time. But then again, it pays for the gear :)

I wish I'd started as early as possible, wish I played the piano, the violin, the cello, the trumpet, the sax... yeah, ok, I'll shut up :D
 
Had a year of paino lessons off-and-on when I was around 5-6. After that didn't touch another musical instrument until I got a guitar at 13. Self-taught for the first few months, then I had about 3 months of lessons which didn't seem worth waking up early on saturday morning for so I quit.

Wish I had stuck with piano but my parents were having financial trouble so I had to quit taking lessons, and shortly after that we moved and sold the piano :(
 
I started when I was 7 (my family are all musicians)playing mandolin and guitar but didn't really get into it until I was 12 when I dicovered chicks dig musicians. Then I started learning everything I could get my hands on. Now it's too late, I'm doomed to be a gear slut for the rest of my days.

[This message has been edited by Track Rat (edited 07-05-2000).]
 
Drum lessons at 13-14, then gave it up to play sports in high school.

Picked up guitar on my own in college at 19 and picked up enough before graduating to sing and play rhythm guitar for a band. I played for a few years and then hardly at all for about 11 or 12 years. I just started playing more regularly again about two years ago. I got into recording about a year ago as my reason to keep playing.

Also started doing drum programming last year at age 34.

Just started on the bass three weeks ago at age 35.

My wife was smart and stuck with lessons on several instruments from the age of 6 to about 20. Now she's able to play with a local orchestra on a minimum amount of time. I'm trying to keep learning, as well as write and learn recording, all pretty late in life. It's @&!%'ing hard to do at this age!

[This message has been edited by DaveO (edited 07-25-2000).]
 
Started playing guitar when I was 17 self taught -- I blame Hendrix and Purple Haze for the big move -- been playing for 19 years and hopefully 19 more if my liver does'nt explode from drinking too much beer -- getting thirsty gotta go ........ :)
 
17 here, My buddies and I decided that we should form a band, So me and another guy went out and bought some Harmony Strats(129.00 each if i remember correctly), another guy bought a bass then and we went across the street talked the 15 year old neighbor kid into playing the drums. I think we found some drums at a rummage sale and bought some used amps that doubled as practice monitors.

Anyway.......never really had any lessons. We just bought some cheap books and wore out the rewind on a couple of boom boxes trying to learn songs. This was before TAB. We played for six years and had a blast. We actually got pretty good, then the singer moved away and we called it quits, got married and i basically didnt play a guitar for 8 years. Last christmas I got a fender strat and here we go again! The guys are talking about getting together once and a while to play some gigs a couple of times per year for fun. Now I sit in my little studio at night trying to pick up where I left off and play better then before. Still cant read music, still pissed that I sold my 25/50 Marshall Jubilee stack!
 
I was one year old when I started playing guitar. I taught Les Paul and Hendrix how to play when I was three. Oops, wait...that can't be right. I was eleven when my mom made me join the school band and learn the clarinet. I was cool man. Used to wear my hair in a jelly roll with a duck tail. My collar turned up. My short sleeves rolled up, and my pants way down low on my ass. After five years I switched to sax. Then I was super cool. Added shades, booze and drugs and from then on it was history in the making. What? You never heard of me? Shit. Okay then I switched to keyboard, bass, and guitar. And now years later I still can't play. Whaahhhaaahhaaa......But I'm still cool. No, I can play. I just fake it and nobody can tell. Whaahhhaahaaa......
 
I started bangin' away on drums at 2, and still goin' strong at 13. Am I the youngest one on the site? Oh, yeah and I started playing guitar about two years ago, just cuz my dad has a collection and they're always lying around.

[This message has been edited by FBstdminime (edited 07-05-2000).]
 
from 15 on, always had at least a gut acoustic (Austin being fairly close to mexico, ya know)....learned some chords, made up some chords.....always played keyboards in the highschool garage bands..keyboards skills were pretty rudimentary, guitar even more so, and nothing's really changed, come to think of it....'cept I play more guitar now than keys....gibs
 
When I was 5, I started going to music class after the kindergarten day was through. I joined the flute/recorder group because there was this 1st grade hotty in that group. I joined so I could be close to her. My plan backfired because the teacher eventually asked me not to come back anymore due to my lack of musical talent.

Started piano lessons shortly after that (kind of pressured by grandparents, who were both accomplished pianists) and I had a Nazi piano teacher. She would hit my hands with a ruler when I screwed up and that kind of crap - her house always smelled like rotten vagina- not that I knew what rotten vagina smelled like when I was six. Took those stinky piano lessons for 2 years.

After that I wanted to play drums like Bobby Brady did on that one episode of Brady Bunch, but my family lived in an apartment building, so that was out.

At 12, I got my first guitar and had private lessons for about 2 years. When I realized how bad my stage fright was, I turned to recording at age 15 and I have been a gear slut ever since.
 
I was age 13. Had a junque nylon string guitar with brass frets. Beatles, Doors, Janis Joplin, Elton John, Gordon Lightfoot. That was in 1969. At 14, my brother gave me a guitar that hadn't been used much. 1959 Gibson LG2; a sunburst steel string acoustic of modest ambitions, but which had a killer sound. It became my constant companion, and was with me when I first heard Leo Kottke; I've not been the same since. (Remember the Greenhouse album?) Some seven guitars later, it is the only one I've never sold, other than my current guitar, a Taylor.
 
Started playing drums in my high school marching band, and got into guitar after hearing Paul Simon play 'Anji' on 'The Sounds of Silence' at 14.
Heard Peter Green on John Mayall's 'A Hard Road' and got my first electric for my 15th birthday (it was an Egmond acoustic with a pickup - I didn't know the difference)
Found an old Selmer 50 watt tube amp (yeah, no kidding and wish I still had it)
... and it's been downhill ever since.

(c:]

foo
 
Guitar since I was 11. I used this cheesy Harmony electric through my dads Marantz Stereo (with tubes). Once I learned my modes at 15 my world changed forever. I know people that have been playing for years and they still don't know the modes. How do you do it?
drums since 14
piano since 16
....I am guitar player at heart.
 
am I the youngest person here?? I started when I was 13 and I'm 17 now. I started playing the drums about 5 days after guitar and it helps sooo much. I played piano for a year when I was 7 then switched to trumpet to be in the school band, so I've been playin that for almost 10. The guitar is the best though by far, just look at my collection (4) compared to all the other instruments (1 of each). we out.
 
My older cousin taught me some chords, enough to play "House of the Rising Sun", when I was 13 or so, and in about 3 weeks I passed him and never looked back (he still knows only the same 6 chords). OK, that was more than 30 years ago, before I became a famous lead guitarist and joined a blues band jammed all over the country...but...what the hell's a mode?
 
I seriously started playing guitar when I was 14 (i'm 26 now), before that i plunked around on it now and then, but not in any real way. First guitar was a sears eddie van halen copy which i played through my parents stereo! I took a couple of lessons when I was 20, but it wasn't really for me.
I also have been playing drums off and on for about 10 years, but only got my first kit a few months ago.
I took piano lessons as well from 6-8, and still play when I get the chance.
 
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