Why we started out !

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pchorman

pchorman

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As an extension to that excellent thread started by Kristof01 "How old when started out", now that we know WHEN everyone picked it up, let's hear WHY! some folks have already addressed that, but for those who didn't, let's hear it.

For me (and for most picking up the geetar as a teenager full of hormones), the reason was obvious: to impress chicks. Sure Led Zeppelin may have had a lot to do with it, but take away the prospect of girls stripping bras off for me and it just wouldn't have had the same appeal. Alright folks, fess up.
 
Broads! Booze!

[This message has been edited by hixmix (edited 07-12-2000).]
 
Well lets see:

-The coolness of early Eric Clapton with the Cigarette lit before the solo's.

-getting to gig at a place and being able to either get free drinks on the bar or have people buy them for you.

-to be a lay-about in the hope that one day someone will scrape you off the floor and say "we'll give you a few million quid for this-just make sure you bring out an hour long album every few years"

-to go out every night and not have to que.

-to effortlessley have women walk up to you and beg at your feet (we'll the women I know anyway).

Not necessarily in that order.

But the real reason was to express in a musical manner my thoughts, feelings and asprations for the world and continual well-being of the human race.

I think I also missed out in the above about saving the world from all the bad that goes on.
 
I just thought it was the most grand thing in the world to pick up a guitar and make that glorious noise I was hearing from others come from my hands too. I wanted others to get the same feeling from hearing me that I was getting from hearing Eric Clapton. Others, too, as time went on and I heard more and more. But it was Clapton I first wanted to be.
 
I thought it goes like this

"Entertainers do it cos they want to be loved - musicians do it cos they have to"
 
A early-teen friend of mine, actually my neighbor - was starting to first learn bass. He knew a drummer who had been playing for quite sometime already. Another friend started playing guitar around the same time as the bass player. I guess I didn't want to be left out, so I gave guitar a shot. 15 years later I sometimes regret it, but for the most part I can't imagine what I would have done without playing/writing music.
 
I wish i could say clapton made my strap on an axe and if i knew then what i do now he just might have been the final straw.

alas nirvana drove me and friends insane! we all bought guitars and our parents kept wondering what they did wrong :)
 
I was a gawky asthmatic kid with nothing to complain about, other than that I was gawky, had a speech impediment (think fast, talk slow, trip on tongue, get red in face, repeat), was a little hypercerebral (as in "oh, wow, that's profound..."), and was otherwise a basic klutz. Sports? That's the football thing, right? Oh, and something about the way I looked at girls made them run for their lives. At least I was a motorhead, so those years weren't a total loss.

The guitar found me and things started changing; I could do something that mattered to other people, and hey - seems I was good at it! I really think it got me through adolescence in one piece. We've been friends ever since. Now I'm a gawky, asthmatic, middle aged guy with a case of solar plexus sag - who communicates for a living. Go figure. I wouldn't change anything. (Ok, so I lie a little - wouldn't change much...).

Now I just wish I had the time that I seemed never to notice back then!
 
Heard Peter Green playing 'The Supernatural' on John Mayall's 'A Hard Road' and never looked back.

BTW - not to be confused with the Santana tune of the same name.

foo
 
I started out on guitar because I loved songs. I wanted to play songs.

Then I started out on bass, etc. because I wanted to form a band - that exciting feeling of being a part of a whole.

Then I started playing drums because I wanted to, for 3 years I couldn't do it, because you can't play drums in an apartment, then I moved, bought a set and I'm having a ball!

I continue to play guitars, basses and drums because I love it. I don't care if I don't impress anybody or don't have anybody to play with (that's why I want to record at the time). There's nothing wrong with performing for an audience and making people feel good and I love that too, but even if I can't, I'll still play. I tried to learn many other instruments, but for fear of distraction decided to stick with those "3" for now.
 
I started out on piano, I had heard "Fur Elise" and thought "man, I wish I could make sounds like that."

I got into music - or it got into me - and I started playing every musical instrument I could get my hands on. There were guitars around my house so I started picking them up and soon my life consisted of music and music.

I play guitar and keyboards probably equal amounts now and I also sing. I do it because I can't help it. It does seem to attract girls though. Tonight I am invited to attend a rehearsal for a group of six singing girls and accompany them with my guitar.

Tucci
 
I always liked music till the beatles came out, then I loved it. I wanted to write songs like they did. Harder for me than them.

Duckhead
 
I started out to help counteract the crap guitar stylings and "grammy" quality songwriting of Eric Clapton and other false guitar gods. Boston might of had something to do with it too.

Funny thing Tucci that you mentioned Fur Elise. It was one of the first songs I almost kinda learned on the guitar. My first guitar was a nylon strung Yamaha that I borrowed for about a year... it didn't take long for me to realize that I needed a rock & roll guitar, but I must've played the hooks from Fur Elise a thousand times over.

I think my real goal when starting out was to be able to sit down with the guitar and pluck out groovy blues riffs for hours... like the Karate Kid in that Crossroads movie.... completely improvised and unpracticed. I still can't do it...but I still don't practice anything, EVER :) I always figured that it was one thing to play music that's already been written and well practiced, but something entirely cooler to be able to play completely unrehearsed. Perhaps it is for that reason that I can't play a single song beginning to end on the guitar...aside from a few that I learned when I first started and a couple that I've covered to practice recording and impress chicks. However, I must admit that I know the signature riffs of about 1000 songs simply because they've been unavoidable. If you play randomly long enough eventually you come out with a Black Sabbath tune.

But alas, I've also given up on playing blues since I obviously don't have the talent...and the fact that the "chicago" sound that I used to find so appealing has now been raped over by clueless "white" (I use the term loosely) kids, and I saw Buddy Guy playing on the QVC Home Shopping network and BB King crooning with that homo from U2... shit... people are so confused that they actually think "Blue on Black" is a blues tune..... well... enough ranting.... so now I'm writing "rock" songs and realizing just how boring, and difficult, it is to play the same 3 riffs over and over for 3 minutes solid. I really wish I could sing. I think that's where it's at if you're uncoordinated and can't keep time. My middle name is Neil after Neil Young (honestly), so perhaps awkward guitar and a strained voice should really be my strongpoints?

God I love talking about myself.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I picked it up at about 10 or 11, we had this cheezy 5$ acoustic. I don't remember why, but i'm glad we had that cheezy guit. 15 years and still a junkie. ;)
 
Slash, Guns n roses, first goes the attitude then goes the guitar. I think i fall in love with the attitude but i married the guitar. Lot's of hair, fixed cigarette in mouth, rebel look, i think it goes back to the Page image, but what does the guitar has to do with it? Probably the easiest way to express emotions, i dont know i still havent figured out althought i tried lots of times. Why did i play for 12 hours a day when i was 18? why did i play for 7 hours two days ago? Maybe i havent reached perfection. Maybe John sayers is right, i HAVE to play.
 
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