Deaan-Vivier
I feel that everyone has a reason for starting to learn guitar and mostly those reasons might be someone that inspired you, or the sound of someone you've heard for the first time. Name a few of the influances that made you decide to play guitar.
Here is my reason.
I've got indroduced to the sound of Rock musick through the guitars of Richie Sambora from Bon Jovi, Brain May from Queen and Phil Collin from Def Leppard. I told my dad that I want to be able to do what those guys could do and that he must buy me a guitar. Well, thats where it started.
AlanRatcliffe
:-[ Ace Frehley on Kiss Alive II. I soon outgrew Kiss, but I owe them the credit for starting me out at least. Begged for an electric guitar, got a Yamaha nylon and was sent to classic lessons. For some reason that didn't last long ;D . I was in Athlone Boys High Hostel at the time and another border started teaching me things like House of the Rising Sun, Venus and other '60s stuff. I've never looked back.
Interesting side note, but I ran across the guy who got me into Kiss recently. He's still a big Kiss fan and got into the industry as A&R for one of the big international record companies. He eventually not only got to meet Kiss, but went on tour with them! Now owns a small record company of his own.
cain
Well it has to be either Angus Young or Kirk Hammet. I now realise they weren't the best guitarists out there but they had me playing air to their tunes like a mad man!
kayDUB
for me it was a friend of mine.. he played a bit of guitar, but all I wanted to do was play acoustic around a campfire!
then electric followed, prob the influence would be the Edge and Jonny Buckland mainly.
NorioDS
I tried to get into music at a young age. Bought myself a keyboard and learned "When the saints go marching in". Never went to lessons and eventually sold that keyboard.
I eventually realised that what I liked about the music I was listening to was the guitar. Probably my biggest influence, at the time, was Brian May and Slash. Slash only because he'd played on one or two Michael Jackson tracks and I was a MJ freak as a kid.
Eventually that developed to Clapton, Santana and a few others to now, where my main influences are Satriani, Timmons, Slash and a few others.
Nice topic by the way. I'm nominating it for best topic ;D
Deaan-Vivier
Yaeh man, Slash on the Give In to me - Michaek Jakson Track is still just brilliant.
Satriani
Love this question....
I am relatively new to the world of guitar if I compare the length of time I've played guitar to other instruments I play, but nothing can compare to the feeling of bending that note, feeling that groove ?
Gary Moore's "STill got the BLues" started my interest. Been a MASSIVE Queen, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard fan since I was a little kid, and I love all the guitar work in those bands, but Gary Moore's melodies just speaks to you.
Slash has awesome groove, infectious Riffs and is downright cool to watch.
Joe Satriani...... well, that's a topic for another day, I can't even get into that right now ?
NorioDS
Hey boet,
I've got some of his earlier, not-so-bluesy stuff if you're interested. It's nice but definitely not bluesy.
Styles
Hmmmm. . . yeah i reckon it was a mixture of seeing Slash ripping it up, having Angus duckwalk over my brain and getting my eardrums pummeled by Metellica and Megadeath.
Seeing Trevor Nasser definately had something to do with it as well ;D
LMinnie
My best friend Spyke.
Id always wanted to learn but never had the time or someone to teach me.
Enter Spyke and 6 months later we were jamming together.
Influences were basically 90's alternative/rock.Bush,Nirvana,Smashing Pumpkins,Offspring that kinda stuff
JoeyBones
Nigel Hendroff, Slash, Michael Guy Chislet, Lawrence Stroud (One of our church bands lead guitarists and Dirk.
All passionate about guitar and make their instruments sing.
Garth-S
A friend in high school who could pick up the guitar and play a heap of songs on request...
JoeyBones
How could I forget. The late Gilbert Stroud. He was my first guitar tutor and he was just brilliant. Dirk and a few other guitarists I know learned from him as well.
sepheritoh
It's been such a long time since I took up guitar first. I started out just fooling around camp fires and playing sing-a-longs. It was mainly folk music like Neil Young, Neil Diamond and Leonard Cohan stuff.
Later I really got interested in the lead guitar. My greatest early influences were 2 SA guitarists: Ken E Henson and Trevor Rabin. I liked them firstly because it was the first really great players I saw life (remember the cultaral boycott days). Trevor left the country and became one of the all time greats when he eventually joined Yes. Ken E played with Brian Finch in a small night club in Pretoria when I saw him first time. I think I saw him about 50 times in those days and could eventually probably copied every note of his.
The most obvious next step was to get into the people who influenced the people who influenced me. That introduced me to the blues rock greats like BB King and Eric Clapton, Jmii Hedrix, Robbie Robertson and many more. Later I got to really like Slash. Mainly because I thought the solos on November Rain was amongst the best ever. Although I enjoy Satch and Yngwie, I never really got myself into that shredding style. Oh yes, and who can forget the classic rock greats, Iomi, Gilmour, Blackmore and Page.
That's about the story of my life.
Renesongs
My older brother and his friends use to bring their LP's to play on my dad's Hi Fi system after school, mainly Beatles, Rolling Stones, Vanilla Fudge, Ogdons Nut Gone Flake - this one cat had a weird sci-fi LP called Axis Bold as Love By the Jimi Hendrix Experience - Man this was the music of the future. I bought a new steel string guitar from Paul Bothners Claremont for R12 about 2 months later, the guitar's action was so bad that I would only be able to play the intro and 2 verses of Hey Joe before my fingers would bleed. Jimi died tragically about a year later but he still inspires me. Over the years I have studied some of the blues legends that inspired Hendrix like BB King, Muddy Waters, Freddie King etc my favorites are Buddy Guy and Lightnin Hopkins. Out of the still living and breathing I have been inspired by Carlos Santana, (I used to be his clone), David Gilmour, Richie Blackmore, Eric Clapton, Larry Carlton, John Mclaughlin, Steve Vai and Eric Johnson, to name just a few.
Riaan
For me, it began like this: my dad is the world's greatest Shadows/Hank Marvin fan. So I grew up listening to guitars from a young age, though as a kid I liked the drums more. Along came Dire Strait's first album when I was in st. 5 ... Sultans of Swing was the song! Then, curiously, I heard the prog rock group Sky, with John Williams and Kevin Peek on guitars. This got me into guitars big time. A school friend taught me a little Spanish guitar riff, and I finally got a Yamaha steel string which I still have and often play. Then, I heard of a song called "Another brick in the wall" which of course promptly got banned in those days. All of us just had to have it for that very reason, and so I was introduced to Pink Floyd...those early albums (WYWH,DSOTM) shaped my musical and guitar playing mind for ever... Later the greats like Gary Moore, Brian May, Jimmy Page, Blackmore, Clapton, Lindsay Buckingham and so forth followed. Then I got into blues - Steve Ray Vaughn - I only began listening to Hendrix after this. After several years of mainstreem listening I began listening to acoustic virtuoso players like locals Steve Newman and Tony Cox (both world class players in my opinion), Adrian Legg, Lawrence Juber and Tommy Emmanual. Mauritz Lotz eventually led to Steve Vai, Satriani, Steve Morse and the electric virtuoso players. I find nowadays that I'm rediscovering the stuff I grew up with, and appreciating it much more now.
dirkv
Ok firstly, JoeyBones, dude you have no idea how much its means to me that i am one of the people that inspires you play!
i have to say the late Gilbert Stroud was the greatest musician i ever had the pleasure of jamming with and learning from! he taught me to love, i mean really love music.
i have been listening to Eric Clapton all my life, he is without a doubt my biggest influence. My other influences include Carlos Santana, Jack Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Vai, Noah Henson (Pillar), Lincoln Brewster.
Anybody who has a passion for music no matter what instrument they play inspires me to be better
JoEllis
The guy who absolutely inspired me to start playing was my uncle. I was about 6 or 7 years old and he had a covers-band that came to play at a dance in the town we were living in. The whole band came to stay at our house. When I saw my uncle up on stage with his Les Paul I knew that was what I had to do with my life. I got my first guitar soon after this and I haven't looked back.
My whole guitar-thing took a serious turn when I saw Eric Clapton's "Unplugged". It is by no means the greatest blues record ever, but it was the first time that I noticed that this music spoke to me. It was so different to anything I was hearing my friends listen to! Then I got into Hendrix, Floyd, Led Zep, Neil Young and Dylan and then into grunge and metal.
JoeyBones
dirkv wrote:
Ok firstly, JoeyBones, dude you have no idea how much its means to me that i am one of the people that inspires you play!
Anytime Bro !
You may not be the best guitarist in the world, but you definitely have the heart for it.
andrewjbryson
it went in this order
(notice how the guitarists get incrementally better)
Kurt Cobain
Richard Patrick (filter)
Kirk Hammet (metallica)
Toni Iommi (sabbath)
Dave Murray (maiden)
Marty Friedman (megadeth)
John Petrucci (Dream theater)
and finally got into the G3 clan (Satch, Vai, Johnson, Petrucci, Malmsteen)
and finally Guthrie Govan
