Why did you choose to play the guitar?

For me, it was the beautiful sound of a slightly overdriven guitar ... and the ability to create great music with single note leads AND by punching / playing chords with different voicings.  Finally, it just stirred something deep in me. 

I needed a way to express myself. Living on a Farm once milking was done at night It was nice to sit on the porch and play. We were poor and an aunt give me a guitar to use but it was an old slide guitar that just cut my fingers. I had to save and buy a Silvertone from sears.  Now I have too many guitars...if thats possible. I learned how to play by reading and listening to the Radio. Later I hooked with a local group and Started playing in the South Dakota area.  The lead guitarist was special. He could hear a song on the radio once and play it...he told me chords and he played the lead.  He is now the Chief of the Tribe but he can still play. I want to thank you for this site. You all seem like old friends. 

I started very young, and was attracted to the guitar by the bands of the time.  In 1971 I was in 2nd grade and The Monkey's were my first LP album, although I wore out 45 from the Surfari's with Wipe Out and Surfer Joe on the flip side...my mom wouldn't let me trade with a neighbor kid for Jerry Lee's, Great Balls of Fire, she thought it was too suggestive I suppose for a 7 year old.  I never thought of switching instruments.  Although as I have gotten older I really wish I could play piano, drums, clarinet, upright bass, so many things...there's still time I suppose to learn.  But the cool thing about guitar is that you can get so many emotions out of it, string bends, slurs, let alone equipment changes and the never ending number of tones you can get.  I find that just playing a different guitar will make me play differently and it will make me come up with different stuff.  How many pianos can you have in your house or fit under your bed?

Thanks for putting up the lessons Duke, I've been a longtime fan.  Great to have a forum of like minded musicians here too.

Steve

Believe it or not, back in 1976 when I was about 14 I saw the movie The Song Remains The Same. I fell in love with the guitar after that. I started taking lessons but I didn't want to learn any of the songs the instructor was teaching me. Jim Croce stuff. I never practiced enough and never got good. Then I heard a guy named Stevie Ray Vaughan in the eighties. He had a bigger effect on me than Led Zeppelin ever did. But even then it was the Blues that I liked so much even though I didn't know it in 1976. I started looking at all his influences and have never stopped being completely in love with the Blues ever since. College didn't leave a lot of time to play guitar either, although,I did spend some time getting much better than I had as a kid. Now I'm older, don't care about being a famous Blues player and putting so much pressure on myself. I just love Blues guitar. I will spend the rest of my days enjoying playing and learning as much as I can. Best thing I ever did was start back playing again.

I'll paraphrase from my profile description:

In grade school, my dad wanted all of us kids to play an instrument in band.... clarinet and flute for my sisters, a trumpet for my brother and a tenor sax for me. Played it for several years... but just didn't think the sax was cool enough back then (should have stuck with it). Wanted to play guitar or drums... now THOSE were cool!

One of the first albums my dad bought me as a kid in the late 60's was Creedence Clearwater's "Willie and the Po Boys".... man, I was hooked at that point. Fogerty's swampy guitar and vocals slayed me. Played the grooves off that record and begged for each new album they came out with.

I noodled with guitar during my teen years - power chord stuff and things friends showed me. Started to play by ear once I learned chord shapes.... I IV V stuff came pretty easy to me.

In the 80's while living in Austin and digging SRV and the T Birds, I decided I wanted to learn how to play for real. Saw an ad in the Austin Chronicle from a guy named Duke Robillard giving lessons. I didn't know who he was.... just thought he had a cool name and had to know how to play. Duke had just joined up with the T Birds and was living at the Lexington Suites hotel and giving lessons from his room. My first lesson, Duke asked me what I wanted to learn and I said "how to play like Jimmie Vaughan"....LOL. What a numbskull.... but I didn't know any better. I had the sounds in my head but didn't know how to get them down to my fingers.... Duke showed me how and for that, I am forever greatful. He also told me that it is equally, if not more important, to listen to lots of music...starting with all of the blues greats - T Bone, Wolf, Muddy, Sonny Boy, etc. Been listening and playing ever since.... actually gigging now here in Dallas.

For me it was my Dad. ALthough he never played an instrument or sang a note, he was always listening to great music. In the early 70's when I was 7 or 8 years old, I discovered through his record collection Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Boots Randolph, Duane Eddy, Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Scotty Moore, Bo Diddley, and many others. Thanks Dad. 

I wanted to play drums originally because one of the cool guys in the neighborhood was in a band and let us hang out with them.  He was the drummer and I thought the whole concept of "head - hands and feet going at the same time was amazing.

Mom and dad said - NO WAY!

So then I gravitated towards the bass gtr because holding down the rhythm and working so closely with the drummer seemed like the next best thing.

Mom and dad said - NO WAY!

They bought me a very nice nylon string accoustic and said that I could play that if i was willing to learn.  457 guitars later I guess you could say it stuck.  While mom and dad never envisioned Marshall stacks and fx racks rattling the china out of the cabinets I suppose I have to give them credit for starting my path with the guitar.

Somewhere along the way it seems like the guitar also chose me and it really has grown into an experience more than an excercise.   Not being gifted with Angelic vocal ability the guitar allows me a range of expression unequalled by any other medium. 

any talent that I may have is a gift from my creator and on a good night when the band is really in form the guitar allows me to show my praise and appreciation for this gift by taking me to another plane of existence as well as putting smiles on the faces of those that come out to see us.

I'll have to second Terry's line

"I still feel like a kid when I learn something new and cool."

.. I couldn't agree more.  It's like a new door opens, and the world just got a little bigger and more beautiful.

Well, my brother played guitar and is 10 years older that me. When I was 6 he was 16 and it was 1954 the birth year of rock and roll it is said. I decideded then I was going to be a guitar player and never changed my mind. Grew up listening to Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Duane Eddy, Link Wray and many more. It was a great time to grow up. Got to see Buddy Holly, Duane Eddy James Burton with Ricky Nelson on TV right at the beginning of R&R. It was very exciting and I was introduced to the blues via the flip sides of Chuck Berry 45 RPM records. Wee Hours and Deep Feelin being the B sides of Maybellene and School Days. I built (with mostly my dad's help) my first electric guitar for a science project in the 8th grade out of two pieces of 3/4 inch marine plywood and a neck from an old Kraftsman acoustic. Got a DeArmond pickup for 20 bucks and I was in a band a week later. The rest, as they say is history........ 

Read Duke's post and I hadn't heard Wee Wee Hours before so I looked it up.  Love it ... so I thought I would put it in the thread.  Enjoy.

I chose the guitar because its portable, and also because you can play it and sing at the same time.  Before guitar I played trumpet (can't sing while you play) and piano (not portable).  I also remember hearing ZZ Hill as a small child.  A big inlfuence was my parents taking me to see BB King when I was 12.  I was amazed that anyone could make a guitar sound like that.