Lacuna-ZA
Since I can remember I've been singing or humming tunes. Not that I can sing or that I'm musical at all, I've just loved music for as long as I can remember.
I first started out on drums, because that's the instrument I've always felt drawn too. Had to put a stop to it as my parents moved around alot and one day they just couldn't move it again and sold it. I picked up a guitar few years later but gave that up very promptly. I wanted to be involved in music somehow so I then thought of doing sound engineering.
Again, that didn't realize because my parents didn't think it was a good career choice. So for years after that, I kinda forgot about my passion for music and settled into the routine of becoming a grown up. And last year I had a wake up call, that I wasn't doing anything for the love of doing it. So I set myself a goal to be involved with music and no matter what I would stick with it.
Guitar was the easy choice as I've already had little experience on it. Also, easier to practice without annoying the neighbors. But I would love any instrument really.
AlanRatcliffe
For me it was in boarding school (Athlone Boys in Bez Valley, JHB) in Standard 7. A friend played me the guitar solo from Kiss Alive II (don't laugh!) and that was it - I was going to be a guitarist. I did the obligatory pleading to the parental units for a guitar from and got one (nylon Yamaha) and got packed off to classical lessons. With two 15 minute classical lessons and with a repertoire of Finnegans Wake under my belt, I quit - It just wasn't the same thing as the music that got me interested.
The next year (Std. 8) a new guy (Thanks Dudley!) came to the hostel and he was one of those "hum it for me and I'll figure it out" guitarists (the bugger), so I hauled my Yammy out of storage and wheedled and whined until he taught me things like House of the Rising Sun, Apache and Venus. Never looked back from there - kind of threw myself into it, devouring every book I could get my hands on... and of course, started buying electric guitars and immediately taking them apart to figure out how they worked, building ever-larger "guitar" amplifiers (with Autona modules and/or Bailey/Lindsay Hood kits) and cobbling together home-made effects on the cheap.
It has to be said (and I don't think anyone else has mentioned this. You cowards!), but another prime motivating factor was Athlone Girls High down the road from Athlone Boys ?
I just love music and try learn as much as I can. No great shakes as a guitarist, but I tend to branch out into every related area, which makes me a decent generalist. As far as I am concerned, the important thing is having fun - and I'm succeeding in that.
DonovanB
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
It has to be said (and I don't think anyone else has mentioned this. You cowards!), but another prime motivating factor was Athlone Girls High down the road from Athlone Boys ?
Thats why I played rugby.
Creaszy
My father used to play guitar back in the day, so his 6 and 12 string acoustics were always sitting in a corner begging to be played. When i was about 12 i had 2 friends that played and i geuss i just wanted to be cool too. Plus my heros Beavis and Butt-head said that guitars were chick magnets.
I've picked up a few things here and there from other people, but mostly i'm self-taught. Its quite strange that i'm far better than i ever dreamed of being when i started playing, but somehow i still have tons to learn, especially theory - i know almost none. I can remember the first song i wrote with a band, the whole song was 2 chords (Eb & E), the "solo" consisted of 8 notes. After years of progress and a ton of influence from Opeth, that 2 chord song was still our most popular. Guess less really is more.
Thanks for the Thundercats clip Viccy, i used to love that show.
Explorerlover
I was introduced to the Beatles at the tender age of 6, and Metallica at 14. Sound very cool, and then I saw James Hetfield jamming at some show with an Explorer...that was it...I had to be that man...
[deleted]
I had to learn how to recreate that music so that I could be responsible for that feeling
Well said.
chris77
In my std 7 year our school choir once sang at a festival/competion/show or something and one of the songs was Bohemian Rhapsody, which they did with a full band. I wasnt in the choir, but we could all hear them rehearsing after school and I was curiously attracted to this supposedly dweepish spectacle. On the day of the performance me and a few other blokes were "volunteered" to carry the heavy equipment to the bakkie and help offload and set up at the theatre. The guitarist was first to plug in and played something that just froze my mind and boiled my blood. Something just went click. I still dont know what he played or how long it lasted but I remember that it blew my mind at least twice as severely as my First Big Kiss that I had only a few days before. (Sad but true. Not all first kisses are magical I guess...) When I started working after school a big chunk of my first paycheck was used as deposit on an red Starfire strat with practie amp and I have not been without at least 1 guitar since.
TomCat
I've started my foray into guitars fairly late in life. Although I do not come from a musical family, My wife's family are all musicians and performers.
My wife recently wanted top move from piano to electric guitar and so at the beginning of this year went and got our first electric. I suddenly became her "unofficial roadie" as she is no "Technocrat" and so I started studying guitars in more depth so that I could support her better........
Anyway, the guitar big hit me bad so I bought my own guitar about two months ago and have had great fun since then.......
I also decided that as a sound engineer I needed to increase my musical knowledge and experience more so that I can engineer better.....
MikeM
I remember before I was even in primary school I had a mini guitar, must've been like a 12" scale or something jammed that thing like a rockstar (Well I'm sure it must've at least looked that way) and then a dumb neighbour kid broke it ☹ Years later, probably when I was 11 or so, I got a guitar for Christmas and yea - always been interested in music!
Neps
DonovanB wrote:
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
It has to be said (and I don't think anyone else has mentioned this. You cowards!), but another prime motivating factor was Athlone Girls High down the road from Athlone Boys ?
Thats why I played rugby.
Mister's Alan & Donovan.. Thats why I did both!!! Rugby for the girls to think 'damn, thats a rugged, well built guy', and then in the evenings I'd whip out the guitar and show them my softer side.. I got it down to a FINE art I tell you.., a fine art!!
Lacuna ZA wrote:
I wanted to be involved in music somehow so I then thought of doing sound engineering.
Again, that didn't realize because my parents didn't think it was a good career choice.
My folks also thought so, but I persisted by bugging them, and it paid off!! hahaha
As for when I started to play.. It was a dark and stormy night. As the wind howled outside the holiday home we were staying at, I heard footsteps.. Everyone hid.., except me, I was drawn to this mysterious being that was approaching us.. It turned out to be Brian May, and he said "Johann, go forth and play guitar, you may never be as good as I am, but at least give it a shot!' hahaha
Nah.. I started when I was 12/13, same time I started to drum. Started drumming cause it's cool, started playing guitar cause you can play guitar at house parties and the girls loved it.. Vanity is a bad thing!! Haven't stopped since then!
Byron
heard some generic metal riffs which I thought were amazing. I really wanted to be able to rock out and do the whole head banging thing ( and play guitar at the same time)
Tauriq
Crossroads (Not the Britney Spears one >☹ ) Steve Vai kinda sunk his teeth into me and converted me with that guitar duel at the end.
Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad - Japanese anime about a teenage boy who starts to learn to play the guitar and eventually joins a rock band. Really cool watching it now because I can relate to the character.
Guitar Hero - Believe it or not Guitar Hero was one of my reasons for starting. I felt like a guitar hero playing something like cliffs of dover and eventually that rockstar feeling ended up inspiring me to really play guitar because I wanted that feeling to be genuine one day. Plus watching the movies of Tom Morello rocking out that are one the game definetly helped. ?
MikeM
Beck was really cool I won't lie ?
Mannemarak
My uncle used to play in a band every weekend at a venue and my parents sometimes went and all those country tunes plus a very very world moving version of 'Cry to me' almost the same as the Staccatos version made me want to play....and one morning in Standard 7 I got up and I knew, I had to have a guitar... ?
Bob-Dubery
This is an interesting question really. I have gone through 3 distinct bouts of guitar playing - probably with different motivations each time. The most interesting is the current phase. I started playing again after nearly 20 years of not picking up a guitar. Saying why is difficult. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis. Maybe I just wanted to be a guy and have some fun. Being in a financial position to afford a hobby certainly had something to do with it.
I've often "blamed" Norma Waterson. Her performance of Gerry Garcia's Black Muddy River (with Richard Thompson and Martin Carthy playing guitars) is what I identify as a trigger, as the inspiration (if I may be so bold). But it was probably more of an itch that had needed scratching for a long time and the itch had been getting more and more intense.
Music is a powerful thing for me, and the beauty of the guitar is that it allows you to perform music without huge outlay or needing lots of space or auxiliary equipment. I would probably enjoy playing piano just as much. But you have to buy a piano and have a place for it. Or buy an electronic piano. But then those aren't so easy to noodle on when you're watching TV, are harder to take on holiday etc. I like violin, but the guitar is an easier option for self accompaniment.
The guitar is a very handy, well evolved instrument when you start looking into it. So once I got to a stage where I wanted to play a little music for myself and had the time and a bit of cash to allow that to happen then the guitar was the instrument that would allow that to happen. Sure I'd played before - but a long time ago, and I had so little "muscle memory" or whatever left that the previous experience wasn't worth a whole lot anyway.
Motivations change. Now I like to learn and perform songs that I don't hear getting played a lot. I have no interest in playing Hotel California or The Leaving of Liverpool. Nothing personal, but there's plenty of people doing those. I hope that by learning and performing less commonly heard songs I might enrich a few lives in a small way - or even just my own. Singing a song where I can connect to something within that song, where the song resonates with something in me is a pleasurable and satisfying thing.
singemonkey
I watched The Song Remains The Same at a buddy's house. In between Robert Plant's simulated orgasms and the embarrassing castle scene, Jimmy Page was a god with that Les Paul at his knees.
But I've only learned a little discipline in practising now. For years I just didn't put in the work to get good. Somehow I just didn't "get" the link between practise and improvement. It feels like that's coming right now.
[deleted]
My dad played, so it was inevitable in the long run
I started on Piano and Saxophone, but i soon grew out of it I think 8)
I picked up my dads guitar in Std 9 and just started teaching myself.
It's been downhill from there. ?
[deleted]
The Song Remains the Same! Hahahaha, I had a very similar experience. That's going really cheap in DVD bargain bins these days, especially since that whole four-disc thing came out a while back. Man, memories...
Squonk
Stratisfear wrote:
The Song Remains the Same! Hahahaha, I had a very similar experience. That's going really cheap in DVD bargain bins these days, especially since that whole four-disc thing came out a while back. Man, memories...
I actually went to the Colloseum in JHB and saw 'The Song remains the same" with about 100 speakers all over the show. The whole thing was about bringing the concert to you. My life was changed from that day onwards.
Page and Plant are the reason I play today.
After seeing the film, I went up to "Hillbrow Record Library" and bought "Physical Graffiti". Drove my poor parents mad.
Carmen
I think the movie 'Freaky Friday' was my inspiration to start... ?
