Why did you want to play guitar?

[rick-slo]

Stringed instruments:
"Beverly Hillbillies":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwzaxUF0k18

The Dillards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-SK0tz-ZM4 and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMw2Fdylb4E

Segovia and Bream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISXznwKgKR0

Various:

[RustyAxe]

It was the 60's. I played piano for 10 years, and piano accordion for about the same time. I couldn't haul a piano to the beach, and the chicks weren't diggin' the polkas ... so logically ...

[DesolationAngel]

My first love was the drums. Didn't have any, couldn't afford them, didn't have space and I was only about 8 years old. But loved 'em and 'air drummed' all the time. Then the British punk movement rose up and I loved 'em even more. And then...

I remember my older brother had a cassette tape. I can still picture it; a kind of greyish yellow cassette with a faded orange label. Hand written on it, in pencil, the words 'Physical Graffiti'. It blew my tiny pre-teen mind. I loved the sound of the guitar from the very first crawling riff of Custard Pie through to the monumental hugeness of Kashmir right through to Sick Again. But I didn't have one, couldn't afford one and I didn't know anyone with one.

Scrub forward a handful of years and I'm 16, I've just left school. But I don't know what I'm doing or what I'm going to do. Later in the year I'm going to start a government sponsored training/work experience program that will pay me £25/week (40 bucks?). My buddy and I have been listening to tons of what was known as NWOBHM, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Bands like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Diamondhead, Tygers of Pan Tang etc. And then we stumbled upon a couple of electric guitars in the Woolworths store in Nottingham. They were £25 each. We both went home, both convinced our parents that we needed them and both went back and bought them. They were 'Kay' branded but probably, in hindsight, Teisco guitars. They had an action that could be used as a boiled egg slicer.

We got them back to his place and realized that we didn't have a clue what to do with them. Didn't even know we needed amplifiers. A school chum had an older brother who played and he kindly came over and gave us a rundown on what we needed to do. We didn't even know how to tune them.

Anyone remember that little stub in the top of a cassette tape? The one that was missing on pre-recorded tapes that stopped you from recording over them? I'd figured out years before that if you opened the cassette deck, reached into the top right corner and pressed the write-protect switch and then pressed Record and Play at the same time then you could make a microphone output through the speakers. This is how I 'made' my first amp. A Decca cassette player, a homemade 1/4" to 1/8" cable and fingers in the cassette deck.

Learned a lot with that guitar. Took it apart. Put it back together again. Several times. Learned some chords, made a racket. Loved it.

Epilogue: of course I wanted to be like Jimmy Page. I got my chance to see him play at around the same time, in a small room with a bunch of other notables (Charlie Watts etc) at a small gig in Nottingham. But what I really wanted was a Les Paul... it seemed like I might as well have been asking for an F-16 fighter jet. On April 9th 2005 I found myself in San Francisco and in the Haight Ashbury Music Center. I walked out with a brand new honey burst Gibson Les Paul standard. Took just over 22 years, but I got one in the end.

[guitarelic]

1968, at a friends brothers room at U.C. Boulder, when he put on 'REQUIA' ....John Faheys Music Wrecked My Life....in the best way possible!

[Smitty70]

That's a great story Angel. That's what I'm talking about!i love Gibsons, have owned two but never as nice as yours.

[ameetnsharma]

Not sure what my initial reason was. Guitar is just a very convenient instrument. Also I find it a very "welcoming" instrument... i.e.: an instrument for everyone... not saying it's easy... but I feel like anyone can bring their own style to it... there isn't really a "wrong" way to play it. The instrument adapts to you... you don't have to adapt so much to the instrument. Guitar (especially electric) for me symbolizes freedom (guess because it is the rock and roll instrument). Some other instruments make me feel constrained by the weight of tradition. I want an instrument that makes me feel more free, not less.

I like the punk rock attitude towards music... Anyone can "just do it". guitar fits into that.

[phxguy]

Way back in 1965 I had a friend who played and I really liked the new folk scene; Dylan, Donovan etc. My friend who was all of 18 had a coffee house (his dad leased a building for him) and every Friday and Saturday night he along with other performers would play. He got me started (never did play out) and for the rest of my high school and college years just messed around with guitar and never really progressed very far; I had a very limited attention span and even less patience. After college I sold the guitar, a Martin 0017, and forgot about playing. Fast forward almost 40 years and I decided to give it another go as I always loved music and particularly the guitar. I also felt that I now had the patience to stick with it. I started in the summer of 2010 of really trying to improve and although I am not nearly as accomplished as I would hope to be I am having a great time.

[guzzijeff]

Originally Posted by SzyB

I just wanted to.... at least that's what I thought. Out of nowhere, about two years ago, a friend asked what I wanted for Christmas. I replied, "A guitar". I do not know why. Seriously. For two years I kept it shiny and tuned, I had a local, well known luthier set it up (I read about having that done)... and I bought a wall hanger for it.
Then, in April of this year I knew it was time to learn to really play. And that is when I started to be flooded with memories of my Mom and Dad taking guitar lessons in the '60's. As I very young kid I sang along with Tom Dooley and 500 Miles Away From Home... I think possibly the only two songs my parents ever learned. My Dad has passed, but my Mom thinks it's great that I'm learning... it is bringing back memories for her too. She is 74.
I am a 53 year old female whose first lesson EVER was on April 21st, 2014. I am shocked at what I can do now... as well as worried that I will never get changing chords down! My instructor is a neighbor who is a retired music/guitar teacher. I said I wanted to learn finger style... Howard said, "I will teach you only if you are willing to learn how to read music, music theory, oh.. and how to play the guitar." I couldn't have gotten luckier... when I notice the time is up, and mention it to him, he says, "You gotta be someplace?" Friends of mine in their 50's, who have played since they were teenagers, say they can't read my homework!
I am so happy about progress so far... But, I could use some assurance. Individual notes... scales, thirds, simple songs are a blast! Building major and minor chords in my head as an exercise for my teacher is a blast! Changing between chords cleanly and in any sort of timeliness? Not happening. I have heard it will come, but I am fighting the thought that I what I've got down now is all that I'm gonna get.

Whew! This got long... but I have read so many entries here, and feel like I know most of you... Hopefully, I will post in two years with a whole new set of worries!

Oh, it won't take you that long!.... You've got the fire in you!

[pete1960]

After hearing Ritchie Blackmore on Made In Japan. Blew me away...... still does

[creamburmese]

SZY B wrote:
" Individual notes... scales, thirds, simple songs are a blast! Building major and minor chords in my head as an exercise for my teacher is a blast! Changing between chords cleanly and in any sort of timeliness? Not happening. I have heard it will come, but I am fighting the thought that I what I've got down now is all that I'm gonna get".

Hi Szy B - your story is a lot like mine... though I'm a year ahead of you I was a musical (ish) kid - singing in school choir, piano lessons, recorder in the school band etc. but gave it up at college. Then life, family, career took over for many years. 18 months ago as an empty nester I finally slowed down enough to realize that I could again pursue hobbies just for me... took a while for that to percolate - I had a keyboard but could never really sustain any interest (same reason I didn't hang onto piano I suppose) and one day I picked up a strum stick that my son had abandoned. I was hooked. Got to the point where I could accompany some songs with rhythm strumming and decided I needed to get the real thing, so bought a guitar (the first of quite a few). Been taking lessons since, and having a blast. It's the only thing in my life that has ever voluntarily got me up in the mornings to practice before work, and I wonder now how I lived without this source of personal enrichment.

So to your question - how to get better at chord changes? Two answers really - using Justinguitar's technique of doing as many switches between 2 chords as possible in 60 seconds really helped a lot to increase speed - for me about 45 secs into it, things clicked and transitions got faster - doing this consistently had remarkable effects on speed, which reminds me I need to use it now for jazz chords, which I find insanely hard. However what really got things moving was joining a local guitar jam group. Yes they are mostly better players than I am with vastly more expertise and knowledge of songs, but I was happy to discover spending evenings strumming and singing to popular songs really made me much more comfortable switching between the common chord combinations without looking or thinking about it. I also made a lot of new friends - not so many opportunities in my "regular" life to do that!

For me the real holy grail though is playing melodies finger style... so I've been taking classical lessons for nearly a year, and in the last 6 months I've been teaching myself music theory and the fretboard so I can translate sheet music onto the guitar and figure out how to play what I hear (being able to read music is not a lot of help if you don't instantly know where the notes are on the fretboard, duh ) Don't know if I'll ever be able to come up with my own songs, but would surely love to be able to develop my own versions of melodies I hear and enjoy. Progress is definitely being made... for the first time this week I managed to sing and play (at the same time no less!) a finger style version of a Beatles song. Maybe never ready for public consumption but so rewarding....

And it's all fun

[Ciarre]

These are some very enjoyable stories.

[KarlK]

Originally Posted by songz

The girls at UT didn't like the banjo, so I traded it for a Gibson J-50.
That worked.

Ron

Best reason so far.

[jersey]

My dad took me a guitar shop and bought me a cheap acoustic to play around with. I started playing simple songs out of a Beatles songbook. I guess I just liked the feeling of playing the thing, because I haven't stopped since then.

[Photojeep]

I came home from school one day and my mom was watching the Mike Douglas talk show (probably around 1969). That wasn't all that unique, but what WAS unusual was that Chet Atkins was playing Dixie and Yankee Doodle Dandy at the same time on the guitar. I was stunned and promptly took my entire life savings of $16 and bought a $14 acoustic and a Mel Bay chord book. I was determined to do the same thing.

With the exception of a 2-3 year break in the early 80's I've been playing ever since.

Still haven't learned that Dixie/Yankee Doodle Dandy thing yet though...

Best,
PJ

[Blueshoes]

Watched some interesting players at a local acoustic music venue , they made it look so easy. I figured what the hell looks like a good time so I bought myself a guitar and here I am 5 years later and having a really good time .