First, oldest memories of wanting to play music

[MOBirds]

I was speaking to my mother the other day, and mentioned something of my childhood. It got me thinking a bit about the oldest memory I have from childhood, and the first memory I have of wanting to play music.

The oldest actually surprised my family because I was so young they didn't believe me at first. I was about a year old, standing in a crib setup behind the living room sofa. It was early spring '67 and my parents, two sisters and brother were all huddled around a little black & white TV. My bottle was empty, and I want more now! They weren't looking at me when I yelled, so I threw my bottle towards them. I assume I got a refill, don't remember much more after that. The didn't believe the memory was real until I described the layout of the room. We moved just a few months later, so there was no other way I'd know the layout unless the memory was real.

The first regarding music was two years later. Just before my third birthday, I was sitting at the kitchen table in a booster chair. My mother was fixing breakfast, and she had turned on an a.m. radio that was on the table. There was a DJ talking, then some classical music started playing. I think it may have been first time I noticed someone talking on the radio, and that's what got my attention. A thought and a feeling stuck with me...

The thought: Wow! The people inside that box must be SOooo tiny! (Hey, I was still 2 and that's how 2 year olds think)

The feeling: Sadness, because I was too big to fit inside that box, and I wanted to make music too!

Ironically, a couple years later was first time I walked past a music store with my mom. I knew by then that there weren't little people inside radios. That meant I COULD make music after all. But when I asked if we could go inside and ask about piano lessons - I was informed.... I was too LITTLE!

So, what are the earliest memories you have, and when did you first want to play music?

 

[solacematt]

My first instrument was drums but due to all my elderly neighbors calling the police (before 5pm) I had to get rid of them. Ended up switching to guitar because I really wanted to learn my favorite band (Smashing Pumpkins) music. It wasn't till 97 though my brother took me to see Silverchair, the only time they ever played the south Florida area. It was a packed like sardines kind of show and blew me away. After the show it turned out that my brother had a friend who worked the venue that night and got me to meet the band who signed my poster. I told the singer Daniel (who played a green custom 24, the same one I know play) how long I had been playing and could play almost all of their music and he said something along rock on and keep at it. Meeting someone who was doing it and just a few years older then me was somehow very inspirational and made me more serious about wanting to play music.

 

[Rusty Chops]

Duane Eddy, c 1961 had a radio hit with Ballad of Paladin.

I was 11.

Begged my dad to buy a neighbor kid's 1959 Kay Sizzler (an atrocious POS). I was hooked.

The only thing that happened before that was a friend of my oldest brother's came over with a Harmony arch top and plugged it into the family Hi-Fi. That might have put the hook in me, especially after the speaker blew. High drama and music: who could resist Rock&Roll after being exposed to something like that?

 

[Texas_minor_blues]

I was living in Chattanooga, TN. I remember it like it was yesterday... my older brother was watching MTV and I had just gotten home from school, as I walked pasted his room I heard the intro riff to Cult of Personality... I was floored. I knew right then and there that I wanted to play guitar that was 1989?

 

[László]

I don't remember when I decided to play music. I do remember my first piano recital in 1954. I was four. Been playing ever since.

And I'm every bit as adorable as I was then. :star:

 

[thieves&foxes]

in high school there was a guy who played guitar and he would always be surrounded by girls. I thought it was a great idea. look cool, get girls.

Instead i started playing bass, and I got a 'future wife'... all worked out in the end. Now I cant imagine life with out either.

 

[QueenCityGuitars]

My uncle bought me Kiss Alive II on LP for Christmas in 1977, when I was 7 years old, and I loved pretty much everything about it (the fire, the drum riser, Ace's smoking Les Paul, etc). I can't say I actively listened to the music but Kiss did get me interested in the guitar, and hard rock music, in general. Back then, here was a music store (Don's Music) where I lived and it was right next-door to the steak house my family frequented quite a bit. My mom used to say that I would scarf down my food like an inmate in order to get over to Don's so I could stare at the guitars. I can remember being in that music store right after Van Halen I came out in 1978. The salesmen at Don's were playing 'Eruption' in the store and they were all commenting about how that had to be a delay or some studio trickery. They were convinced that nobody could play a guitar like that. At the time, it sounded like something from a different planet. I'm sure people thought the same thing in 1967 when they first heard Jimi Hendrix play. Anyway, 'Eruption' started my obsession with playing guitar and still inspires me to be a better player to this day.

 

[veinbuster]

I was about 5 when the guy living downstairs from us let me bang on his guitar. I liked it and wanted to do it all the time. We moved and I didn't have access to a guitar for a few years, then got a really bad one which I endured until it became firewood. In high school I started playing double bass because that was the closest thing to a guitar in the music room. I started getting paid to play bass so stuck with it, but bought a classical guitar so I could practice my sight reading skills with something less boring than bass lines.
I never really cared much what I played, but always liked making noise.

 

[gball]

Thinking back, I wanted to play the Saxophone in Elementary School after hearing my first recital. I think it had to be around 4th grade, so I would have been about, what, 8? 9? Either way, it didn't happen because my parents didn't think I would stick with it. I do think that under my skin I always wanted to play music in the abstract though, and at that same time I was beginning to become obsessed with Kiss and Led Zeppelin, but never really thought of playing guitar specifically. That changed in 1976 (1 was 10) when Rush's 'All The World's A Stage" came out. I'd heard live albums before, but for some reason that record got under my skin like nothing before it when I realized that actual people had made these sounds while standing in front of a large group of other people. I was blow away by Alex Lifeson and it made me really pay attention to the guitar playing on my other records: Page, Frehley, May, Hendrix, Perry/Whitford, etc and I was hooked. Managed to get my first guitar at age 11 and never looked back.

 

[MotorPro]

I quess the night the Beatles did the Ed Sullivan show(Yes I am old.). Unfortintaly for many reason I never picked up a guitar until a few months ago. Better late then never.

 

[AP515]

The first time I heard Boston's "More than a feeling". I was playing my mom's acoustic and dreaming of one day owning an electric, but never thought I'd be good enough to play those solos. Still some of my favorites.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

The second I saw this, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was mad inspiring for a young vampire like me to see another playing a guitar.

 

[twbuff]

I was about 2 weeks late and a "chunky" baby. My father and others had played football and I was always asked if I would like to play. My response - according to my parents who have since passed on - was "nope, I want to play clarinet in the band like my uncle." They put me off of lessons until I was in third grade and found a local teacher for private lessons. Became quite good at the clarinet, expanded into sax and eventually purchased my first guitar while in school in Chicago - a 1967 Eppiphone Broadway - blonde - and after drooling over PRS for 6 months purchased a P22 earlier this year. Was a navy musician but have not been involved with music as much as I would have liked until recently. Love playing the PRS - if I ever get half as good as the guitar I will be satisfied. My a

 

[László]

I quess the night the Beatles did the Ed Sullivan show(Yes I am old.)./QUOTE]

As my late father always said about old, "Sure beats the alternative!"

:cheers:

 

[Bill SAS 513]

My dad had a restaurant in Hampden, Baltimore, and I washed dishes on Saturdays for 7.00 a shift...started crazy early...and down the sidewalk was an electronics store with albums and guitars...first album...I think Kiss Dressed to Kill...album a week. Guitars were Electras, I think...black LP copy like Ace or Paul, and Id rule the world. Unfortunately I really remember Starland Vocal Band as my first album, but Kiss is waaaay cooler. Hey...Afternoon Delight baby...except I was like 8 or so.

 

[MotorPro]

I quess the night the Beatles did the Ed Sullivan show(Yes I am old.)./QUOTE]

As my late father always said about old, "Sure beats the alternative!"

:cheers:

Your dad sure got that right!!!!

 

[jfine]

I had polio at three months old, and I didn't walk until I was about four years old. My mom played some piano (my dad couldn't carry a tune in a bucket), but they both enjoyed listening to music, mainly big-band standards and classical music, so that's what I heard a lot of as a kid. Apparently they played me a lot of classical records, although I have no real memory of it--but all those melodies and chord progressions are still back there somewhere, as I've always had a good ear. I remember listening to my mom, and later, my younger sister, playing the piano, and if there was a wrong note, I could usually hum the right one, even on stuff I'd never heard. I don't remember ever not wanting to play guitar--where I got the idea from I don't know, as nobody in the family played guitar. At age seven, I asked the folks for guitar lessons, and they said, "We don't have a guitar--how about piano?" So I started trying to play my mom's piano, and right away I had a problem. My right upper arm is weak due to the polio, so I had trouble reaching the upper notes on the keyboard, and it didn't occur to me or my teacher that it might be a physical problem--I thought that if I just practiced hard enough I'd get it. I did manage to figure out a little boogie-woogie line with my left hand, but when I played it for the teacher, she said, "You don't want to play that--that's just noise!" And she told my folks I'd never be a musician. So I gave up on the piano--but in the meantime, rock 'n' roll had come in, and I was into it big-time. A few years later, my cousin started taking folk guitar lessons, and I bugged my parents until they let me have a guitar and lessons. They took a lot of convincing, as they still remembered what the piano teacher had said--they had so little faith in my musical ability that they rented my first guitar--they wouldn't buy it right away. The guitar teacher did me the biggest favor anyone could have done me, by refusing to teach me to play left-handed (I am left-handed). It felt just as awkward right-handed at first, but since my weak right arm didn't have to reach out, I was actually able to play the guitar right-handed--I couldn't have done it left-handed. That was huge! I started passing my cousin up pretty quickly--he didn't have much of an ear--but we played together as long as he could hang in there. When the Beatles hit we both got electric guitars, and long story short, I've been a professional musician since the late '60's, although I'm retired now.

 

[DuncanCE22]

Pretty much as long as I can remember. My dad was always into music, stuff like led zepplin, yes, pink floyd etc. My older cousin was a massive radiohead and oasis fan and not to mention Waynes World are amongst my earliest memories of wanting to play music. I had a couple of lessons playing a nylon string acoustic when I was about 8 or 9 but didnt really get the hang of it. I started playing Bass guitar when I was 12, mainly playing Blink 182 and Rage Against the Machine in various different bands with guys at School and it sort of went from there.

 

[gush]

I remember being very young and loving music. My mom was a stay at home wife and always have music playing which may be why I love 70s music so much. I was sure I wanted to play drums but when 5th grade came I ended up playing trumpet.

I think my first album was Not Fragile BTO and my first cassette Double Vision Foreigner. Some friends turned me on to Kiss so my youngest brother and I had all the Kiss albums.

There was a guy called slide williams in high school and he was always banging on the drums in the band room, I was blown away as a 7th grader. Soon my friend who played drums said "I would like to have a band like my brother does". Since I had been messin around with my dads stella acoustic I thought WTH.

By 10th grade I was the guy banging on the drums in the band room, I was learning to play real guitar in our band called Counter Intelligence, trumpet was begining to take a back seat and I was diggin the crap out of it!

I am 49 and I have been active in music ever since. My son wanted to learn drums so I have been working with him on that but he is in 5th grade and is now learning trombone.
All the ingredients are in place for him to really discover what music can do to you. I will sit back and wait for the day when trombone takes a back seat!

 

[Snowman19]

saw my cousin playing an old song as well on a piano, first thing i asked for next christmas was a guitar. I was 9