Your first guitar, your story

[warddix]

First guitar was my father’s abandoned reconfigured Hawaiian, set up to play ‘western’ style (fretted). I was 9, 1974 or ‘75. Could have been Kay, definitely Sears purchased in the early 50’s. One of those birch bodied painted binding jobs. I Begged and pleaded to learn, stuck with it and they sprung for better guitars over the next several years. A gift to last a lifetime. It finally folded itself up under string tension around 1995 after being carted around the northeast and surviving as the ‘lab guitar’ for a while in grad school. Didn’t realize how good the tone was till late in its life, Action was mile high from day one till the end. Chipboard case was totally mildewed. And that’s while I’m looking back through rosy memory now...

[mtdmind]

Originally Posted by letterk

My first post, so might as well talk about my first guitar. I started playing in the late 80's / early 90's on my dad's Yamaha. For my high school graduation present my parents gave me a 1994 Guild D4-NT. I played it a lot during college and grad school. Played at church, coffee shops, the beach, all over, never once really carrying for how it was treated. Moved all over the country, hot to cold, humid to dry. Got married and had kids and the guitar ended up sitting in the corner of various rooms for 20 years. Every once in a while I'd pick it up and play a bit, but barely at all until last year. My interest picked up again last year and finally brought it in to the shop for a tune up. Expecting to do a LOT of work based on a phone conversation with the guitar tech, I was surprised how little it needed. I think the tech was surprised as well. Plays and sounds amazing. Tech told me to never sell it and I don't think I will.

Welcome, LetterK! Hang onto that Guild. I'll bet it's real nice!

[RRuskin]

A Kay Classic for my 14th birthday. Crappy sound but it was easy to play.

[ZacInSC]

I must’ve been in 6th grade when I got an old, beat up, nylon string guitar for a couple bucks at a garage sale. It was already falling apart, and I had no clue what I was doing. I bought some no-name electric guitar off my brother about 5 years later. My grandma helped him sand it and repaint it when it was his first useable instrument. And when he upgraded to something gigable, I bought it off him.

But my first real acoustic guitar, that I was ever absolutely in love with, was a solid-top Ibanez 12-string I bought my third day in NM, which was my first permanent assignment in the military after training. Bought it at Tarpley Music, which used to be a block away from the recording studio used by Buddy Holly, in Clovis. I played it for years, even after snapping the headstock because I was stupid. Eventually, the headstock snapped again about 20 years later as that glue joint failed, and the guitar didn’t survive.

[Don Lampson]

My first guitar was an absolutely horrible Stella, that my parents rented for $10 per month, which included one 1/2 hour lesson per week... This was 1955, and I was 10 years old. I stuck with it for three months, and my mother was so pleased with progress, that she bought me a brand new Martin 0-18... The following year, I won 1st place in my elementary school talent contest, singing "Folsom Prison Blues", a song that I still sing 60 years later....

Don

[Dloz]

Went to see Pearl Jam 16 years ago. Eddie played a song on the Uke & said everybody should have one, but "be careful, it's a gateway instrument, next thing you'll do is buy a guitar" I thought for a couple weeks, 'why not' & went to a local store no longer opened. Walked in & said I never played but want to learn acoustic guitar. They sold me an Excel for $80. Might be the only guitar I never sell. It's worth $80 but not much more. I mastered D, C & G chords on it. Wore down the fret board in that first position. Actually pitted into the wood on the board. Been a hobbiest since & love it.

[EllenGtrGrl]

My first guitar was a classical-style one (it was a little bit smaller than your typical classical style guitar) made for me in 1969, when I was 6 years old by my grandpa, who was a luthier (Sigward Rugowski - along with doing guitar repairs, he made 200 or 300 acoustic guitars). Unfortunately, grandpa got sick with cancer shortly after he made me my guitar (he died from it in 1971), my uncle (Guitar Generation # 2 in the family), didn't teach me anything playing-wise before he left to serve in the Air Force, and my parents (who were not musicians) could not afford guitar lessons for me. So, grandpa's guitar wound up in sitting in the closet in a cheap cardboard case, until I was 15 in early 1979, and decided to get serious about learning how to play guitar on my own.

I didn't like the silk & steel and nylon strings that grandpa's guitar had on it, so like the ignorant doofus I was at the time about all things guitar, I put steel strings on the guitar, almost wrecking it in the process (the rather lightly built bridge started to crack, the bridge started to pull up from the body, and the neck started to pull up). My uncle was visiting family during Xmas 1979 (it was shortly before he got out of the Air Force), and informed me of the damage I did to grandpa's guitar (as he said, "you do realize that your grandpa didn't make this guitar for steel strings?"), and offered to take it off of my hands. He had inherited some of grandpa's luthier tools, and said that he would fix grandpa's guitar up, and give it to my cousin Josh (his oldest son), who was in grade school, and needed a guitar to learn how to play. Since I had just gotten a cheapo laminated Washburn acoustic (my parents, chipped in some money towards it, when I bought it, as part of my Christmas present) for Christmas, I accepted my uncle's offer, and gave the guitar to him.

I wish I had back the guitar that grandpa made for me. I've had better guitars than it, but it would make a great family heirloom. But, I don't even know if my uncle has it anymore. Oh well.

[EllenGtrGrl]

Duplicate post

[fuman]

I was a 17-year-old trumpet player and my dad suggested girls might be more impressed by the guitar (yeah, that never worked out). I found a Harmony Monterey archtop at a yard sale for $5 and bought it. It had this hideous Halloween sunburst finish and the plastic buttons were broken off the tuners (I had to tune it with pliers until I figured out these parts, like the strings, were replaceable).

I stripped off the finish and painted a Grateful Dead design on the back and clear-coated over it. I put tung oil finish on the mahogany neck (another suggestion from my dad, who had no experience with guitars, but lots of practical experience with wood, electronics, mechanics, etc.).

That was 42 years ago. The guitar was irreparably damaged in a burst-pipe flood in 1991.

[Silurian]

40 years old.

Epiphone SG 310.(I wanted to play like Angus Young). Upgraded to a Les Paul a year later.

First acoustic was a couple of years later, Fender CD60. I hardly touched it for years. Then I discovered fingerstyle blues. Now I want to play like Lightning Hopkins.

[mawmow]

Got a "no name" high action false intonation acoustic as Xmas gift by age thirteen. Tried to play it fo a while...
Found it in a basement closet later on : Bridge had peeled away with part of the laminate top !
That poor crappy guitar had passed away alone in a cold and black closet without ever meeting player's love. Sad...

[Adamking86]

My first guitar was a brand-new Samick dread my mom bought me in the 7th grade. I remember it being $110 brand new. It was certainly the most expensive thing I owned at the time. I played that guitar every day for a solid year and brought it out in front of girls as much as possible

The top sadly collapsed a couple of years later. I think about that guitar every now and then. That local shop is still open and every time I go in there, I get that same feeling of anticipation when I picked out that Samick. It was, by an measure, a terrible guitar. But served it's purpose and lived a good life.

[Planemaker]

I was 20, had my first good paying job. I had been borrowing my younger sister’s cheap 3/4 size Fender and was gassing for my own guitar.
I bought a brand new 1979 Gibson Hummingbird Custom. $895.00 Canadian with case. Had it 40 years 38 as my only guitar before selling it.

[Bob Womack]

My parents reluctantly gave me a Sears and Rarebucks classical for Christmas 1970 when I was 13. Still have it.



I had about four lessons on before my instructor gave up on me. I was a lefty playing righty and he wasn't optimistic about my future. I was a semi-latchkey kid so I spent my afternoons learning on my own. I dragged that guitar to every summer camp and retreat for years and bought others from pawn shops to enter the electric world when my parents made it clear they weren't into that. In 1977 I joined a major band and bought a major guitar with money I'd saved for three years. My former instructor was the promoter who brought my band to my hometown the next year.

Since then it has been "listening, learning, and turning," to quote Loggins and Messina. After college in 1981 I became a recording engineer and eventually started playing session dates. And that's where I am now, nearly forty years later.

Bob

[Skip Ellis]

Inherited a 1936 Martin 0-17 in 1960. Learned during the 'great folk scare' of the 1960's ('Green Fields' was the first sheet music I ever bought). Then went on to Chet Atkins, Ventures, Wes Montgomery, Johnny Smith. Never was a 'rocker' (except 50's/early 60's) and don't like blues at all (except Piedmont types stuff, Mississippi John Hurt and Blind Blake). Still into Merle Travis, Comer 'Moon' Mullins, Eddie Pennington and other Kentucky style thumbpickers.