The story of your 1st guitar

[Hurricane Bob]

This should be fun, try and make it short, 12 line max, I will start;

When I was sixteen I would go over to my friend Brett’s house and watch him play his Teisco electric guitar. I was so jealous and had no means to get one. But then I spied an old beat up no name arch top in his bedroom closet. I asked if I could borrow it and he flatly said, “No way!” I waited for him to go downstairs, boldly grabbed it and threw it in the trunk of my car. He didn’t see a thing and soon we said our goodbyes. On the way home I stopped at K-mart, bought strings and later strung her up. That night he called me up after figuring it out, and at first was mad. But then he said, “Ah, just keep it, I don’t play it”. My fingers bled for months from super high action and heavy gauge strings but I was thrilled and started lessons. When he went off to college he gave me the Teisco as well, but that’s another story. Thanks Brett, wherever you are.

[jimmybcool]

I guess I was about 21. Out of tech school in my first "real" job. And I heard James Taylor's Sweet Baby James album. I was gobsmacked and HAD to learn how to play that stuff.

Guy I worked with was a guitar player. When I mentioned it he said he'd help me find a decent used guitar. So we went to a store. I can't remember if it was a large guitar store or a pawn shop or what. But he selected my guitar. A made in Westerly Guild D50.

Great guitar. I paid $300 for it (a lot of money to me then). Years later I gave that guitar to my nephews. It was played a bit hard by them and lots of pick marks etc but better than than ignored in a closet I guess.

I'd say I miss it but that would be a lie. I don't like guitars that large anymore and I've been fortunate enough to make enough money to buy even better guitars than that one. But I would not have felt poor in life if that was the best guitar I ever owned as it was certainly a wonderful sounding instrument.

[Rosewood99]

I turned 50 and had just gotten divorced. Always wanted to learn guitar so I went to the local music store and bought a First Act guitar. It was piece of crap and I returned it five days later. Went on Craigs List and bought a used Seagull S6 which in a way was really my first guitar.

Eight years later and many guitars here I am.

[srick]

Oh dear - I hate to tell the story, but I will.

It was a 1975 Takamine F365 Martin Lawsuit guitar - a beautiful D28 replica in every way. I played it for about six months, learning basic strumming and chords. During that time, that guitar commuted between my house and the girlfriend's (* see postscript) house. When the "big" breakup came (the last of several), she announced, "I'm keeping your guitar - you owe that to me!"

My response was, "Fine - keep it"

She became a family lawyer - a very good one, I suspect. I didn't pick up a guitar for thirty years after that. But I've been playing now for ten years.

best,

Rick

PS - sometimes a failed relationship can be a good learning experience - and when you establish a good relationship, you can't believe how easy and wonderful it is. Later, when I met my wife, it was obvious that we were meant for each other (33 years of marriage and counting). I'm still in touch on FB with the ex-girlfriend, but have NO interest in asking about the guitar. My guess is that it has been sitting in her attic for (now) forty years! It probably sounds pretty darn good if the top hasn't split by now.

[fazool]

I was about fourteen when I started asking my older brother and brother-in-law to let me play their guitars and teach me songs.

About three years later, I had a job and saved up ~$200. I went to a local music store and found a nice satin-finished, solid-wood Aria acoustic dread with a cedar top and mahogany body. I knew nothing about guitars and got lucky when I bought this one.

I sold it a couple years later to buy an amp (when I switched to electric), then I drifted away from guitar playing for decades.

When I came back to guitars I learned that first guitar was a hidden gem so I went on a quest and got a duplicate, hanging on my wall next to me. It has a very unique comfortable neck profile and it feel exactly like I remember.

[TBman]

I was nine, saw four guys on the Ed Sullivan show back in the early 60s. Stared at a Silvertone with a tan gig bag in the Sears catalog for months until my parents folded and got me one. Played it for years.

[fitness1]

Wasn't even really "mine" - but a Stella Harmony (probably '66 or so) that my parents bought for my brother for 59.00 to take lessons on at a local music store - Jack Gridley Music. He took 3 lessons and quit. The guitar had no case - it sat around the house, one time I remember it being in the back yard during a rainstorm and was brought inside.

My brother was 7 years older than I, so by the time I was 12 or so, the strings were about 1/2" off the fingerboard at the 12th fret. I started banging around on it and got to where I could play a few chords. I took it camping with the family one weekend and my parents heard me playing it - they said if I kept it up they'd get me a better guitar.

So, technically my first guitar was an Aspen ash bodied, maple neck strat copy for 149.00 from Marshall Music. But my first acoustic was about a year later (probably '76) from Elderly - a 99.00 Applause with the one piece aluminum fingerboard and frets.

And the rest is history....

[psychojohn]

Parent's bought this 9-10 year old a Gibson Dread guitar and a years worth of lessons. The catch was my mother's Nazi vs Catholic School Nun-like insistence of one hour a day of practice, strictly enforced despite blistered fingers from the wire strings and high set up. At the end of one year, I could play "Little Brown Jug" and "East side, West Side." My teacher told my parents they were wasting their money because I couldn't read music. I came home and did an El Kabong on that guitar and subsequently used it as kindling to burn the garbage. Didn't try to seriously play guitar again until about three years ago. Bought a Seagull S6 Original and then a Godin Exit 22, then a ....


John

[Pitar]

1973 Yamaha FG230 12-string, axe handle neck, high action and perfect for raucous strumming. But, in order highest to lowest, ignorance, ambition, desire and discipline managed to let me teach myself to play Classical Gas on it within a year of buying it. Sort of promotes the saying "If you're gonna be stupid, you'd better be tough."

[JimmyJeff1]

Watching Glen Campbell and John Denver on TV gave me the itch. In ninth grade, I traded spring sports for a job cleaning a meat packaging business. Bought a well used lawsuit era Les Paul imitation with a Bigsby. Still have it.

1971 -- I was 18 and a friend let me play one of his guitars. I learned my first two chords on it (Em and Am). I wrote a song using those two chords the same day, and then the next morning he gave me the guitar! It was a Gibson B-25.

[Steadfastly]

This is not me but is very similar to a photo someone took of me with my first guitar. I think my Dad bought it for me.



Unfortunately, it was about 40 years before I picked up a real guitar and learned to play.

[ManyMartinMan]

Arrived at my dad's remote Air Force Base once he got base housing just after Christmas when I was 8. Waiting for my brother and me were our couple of presents. Mine was a new Kay Mahogany OM sized guitar. I played that until I purchased a Spanish classical guitar when I was 12. I honestly don't know what ever happened to it. But, it was the beginning of a constant in my life that has lasted almost 50 years. The only constant in my life through moving from coast to coast to .... and wives (like guitars, too many to count), cars, motorcycles, houses, boats, bands and music partners - guitar has remained with me the entire time.

[Mr. Jelly]

All I remember was I was supposed to get a guitar for Christmas but there was a delay from Sears. So while on Christmas school break my buddies and I were hanging out. We were about eight or something. The delivery guy shows up with a bunch of boxes. Sears screwed up again and sent several guitars and amps. We opened all the boxes and played with everything. Though we couldn't actually play anything. I didn't get to keep it all though.

[Athens]

It was a stella harmony, actually my sisters giutar. She was so bad that I took it away to keep her from playing it and that's how I started.