Share Your Acoustic Guitar Journey: How and Why Did You Start Playing?

[Slothead56]

I’ll make this brief.

There was this girl I loved in High School who loved to sing….that’s about all you need to know.

[Aahzz]

I was 13 when MTV came on the air, and I was immediately enamored with all of it. I had been a fan of music before, but I IMMERSED myself in MTV when it hit the air.

At 14, I bought a cheap Hondo II Les Paul copy from a friend's older brother, with a Silvertone solid state amp, for $50. All I had was a Mel Bay book, we couldn't swing lessons, and my dad, who was a very good natural musician with perfect pitch, kept telling me to just play along with records. I gave up, and sold the guitar and amp for $75.

At 19, I got a Peavey Bass for Christmas after begging, and even had some lessons, but I just didn't stick with it - I thought bass would be my instrument, and I love bass, but I still didn't quite stick with it.

At 25, after hanging with friends who could play, I finally decided I wanted to get an acoustic because we camped often and I wanted to be able to strum simple songs around the fire with everyone. Bought a Takamine acoustic. Not sure of the model or anything else in retrospect, but I kinda wish I still had it.

That time, though, it stuck. I moved on to electric, played in some bands, flipped more guitars than I can ever possibly count because I fell in love with new toys. I've always had some fine motor skills issues, so I was never going to burn it up on lead, but I became a solid rhythm player, and I'm a good singer. Turns out earlier this year, at age 54, I was diagnosed as autistic, which explains the fine motor skills issues - not uncommon at all among autistic folks. I can bust out a good lead on occasion at this point, but I still prefer sticking to rhythm, and I adore singing.

Anyway, earlier this year I also got really fed up with trying to hold bands together, so I decided to ditch the majority of the electric rig and get back to my original goal - playing and singing acoustic songs. I've since hooked up with another guitarist/singer and a cajon player/singer and we're doing an acoustic trio, and it's all coming together quite nicely. So, that's my guitar journey so far...

[gerhardp]

I was 22 (1983) and drinking way too much, so I decided I'd need a hobby.
Since music was pretty much the only thing I cared for, I thought playing an instrument could be a nice distraction.
Piano would have been my first choice but there was none around.
A friend borrowed me his classical guitar with steel strings on it and a little book with campfire music and chordpics. Being a lefthander, I felt more like strumming with my left hand, but it seemed too complicated following the chordpics, so I learned it the "right" way.
Practise kept me busy, though it combined well with beer in the early years.
Played quite some gigs in '97 and '98 as a duo. I was the weaker part of the two and gave up, sold all my stuff.
Family and work kept me busy so had a break for 12 years.
I felt like noodling again if I only could get my Yairi CE-1 back. Found it, bought it back and noodled without aim on the couch for some minutes daily.
2018, after I sold my business and had plenty of time available, so I decided to give it another serious try and started practising 5+ hours daily.
A good motivation was, hearing from my ex duo-partner, that he's now in the position where hes does not have to look for gigs, but can choose the better paid ones.
Two years ago I got my first paid solo gigs.
Stil got 1 to 2 weekly. I'd like to do more, but have not been asking around a lot. Hakuna matata.

For me it was always acoustic, because it's there and ready to play.
No fumbling with cables and buttons and volume etc. Just grab and play!

[EllenGtrGrl]

My acoustic guitar journey had first an abortive start, and then a second start, when I REALLY began playing guitar.

Abortive Start - when I was little, I used to watch my uncle's rock band rehearse. In 1969 (when I was 6) my uncle was all set to give me one of his cheapo, short scale electrics (I think it was a single pickup Harmony Bobcat), so I could start playing guitar. My grandpa (Guitar Generation #1 in the family - he used to play in dance bands in the 1920s-1950s) was a luthier, who HATED electric guitars, so he decided to make me my first guitar (it was basically a 3/4 sized classical guitar). I never did learn how to really play that thing. Grandpa got sick and died of cancer (though I doubt he would have been a good teacher - he was such a grouch!). My uncle went into the Air Force, and my parents weren't very musically inclined (nor could they afford guitar lessons for me), so it went into the closet until 1979

When I Got Serious About Playing Guitar - in early 1979 (when I was 15 years old), after hanging out with friends who were guitar players (they learned how to play guitar from their father - he played rhythm guitar in country music bands), and years of listening to guitar oriented music (which gave me a hankering to play guitar), I got serious about learning how to play guitar. I took the guitar that grandpa made for me out of the closet, and started fiddling with trying to play it. It helped that the friends I just mentioned could teach me a few basic chords, and show me how to tune the thing. I stumbled my way around the fretboard of the guitar, learning bit by bit how to play it.

Not knowing any better, realizing that the strings were shot, I restrung granpa's guitar - with steel strings (the guitar was build for nylon and silk & steel strings). I almost wrecked the guitar. Shortly after that happened, my parents went halfsies with me on a cheapo Washburn 'dread (list price was no more than $100 - It was more than likely an all laminated guitar - I wish I still had it for sentimental reasons) as a part of my 1979 Christmas present. My uncle (the one who played in rock bands) was home visiting family before moving back to the area, and he took the guitar grandpa made for me off of my hands (he said he had grandpa's guitar repair tools, and that he would fix the guitar, and due to its smaller size, use it to teach one of my young cousins [his son] how to play guitar).

Once I had the Washburn acoustic guitar, my playing really started to progress. It helped that I had a musical background courtesy of playing brass instruments (I played in concert, symphonic, jazz, and marching band from 6th grade, through my sophomore year of college), so I had a good understanding of music theory, and was able to figure out the fingerboard pretty quickly.

I have been been playing guitar since 1979 (44 years). I did stints in rock bands (usually electric guitar, as the lead guitarist), and nowadays, I get my band fix, mainly playing in a church band (for the past 4 years - mainly 12-string acoustic). I still play electric (I have a killer Les Paul Junior), but most of my playing nowadays, is on an acoustic guitar. I had times over the years, where I played infrequently, but I never stopped playing guitar. I doubt that I ever will.

[Harlowv]

My father’s cousins ranched in SW Montana and I worked summers there, early 70s. Driving home to CA, I broke down in Idaho, (Coeur d’Alene as I remember) was stuck for a few days fixing my beat up old VW Beetle. I noticed a beat up old guitar in the window of a pawn shop and traded my beat up old 22 rifle straight across. That guitar hung around me for years until my kids gave me a really nice Fender acoustic guitar. Played on and off for more years until I retired just before the pandemic and traded up to a nice Martin that now gives me great pleasure every day. Listening to these stories, sounds like I’m in good company.

[EZYPIKINS]

Dad played at home. Recording mock radio shows in my bedroom. So I was hearing live music, as far back as I can remember.

He'd play all the Country&Western music of the day.

Not learning to play, never seemed to be an option.

Although my tastes were a bit different from his.

He never thought too much of my playing, till he heard me play and sing on stage.

[Jdogblues]

Rediscovered guitar in 2020 after a 20 year hiatus. Started on electrics but had the goal of playing in front of people but didn't feel like dealing with a band/other people. Saw someone play acoustic fingerstyle country blues and that was it. Here I am.

[815C]

I received a $5 acoustic guitar my mom got me for Christmas in 1969 from the Ft. Rucker, Alabama ARMY PX. I hadn't asked for a guitar, but she said she didn't know what to get me, so she bought that guitar.

From the moment I picked it up that Christmas morning I was hooked. My older sister got Black Sabbath's first album that same Christmas (what parent buys their daughter a Black Sabbath album for Christmas ????) and she was playing it on our giant wooden console record player in the living room. I figured out the simple bass line on the 6th string to one of the songs (can't recall which one) that Christmas morning. "LOOK! I'm playing the song!!" I yelled as I played along with the record. "NO YOU ARE NOT!" my sister insisted - being mad that I had figured it out.

My dad signed me up for lessons on the base. With my guitar slung over by shoulder I'd ride my Stringray bike to this Army barracks where about 8 of us kids sat in one room while a chain smoking white haired lady taught us chords. The first song she taught me was HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN, and next SITTING ON THE DOCK OF THE BAY.

A few years later my future brother-in-law started hanging around the house a lot and he was a pretty good guitarist. We jammed all the time. He taught me a bunch of Simon and Garfunkel, Jim Croce, and John Denver songs. A high school buddy showed me a bunch of Neil Young songs.

Then I discovered flatpicking when I heard my first flatpicking solo by David Bromberg on his song Hard Working John. I just about did a back flip when I heard that solo. I bought a flatpicking book from Happy Traum/Homespun and it had one of those square floppy tear out 45 RPM records in the back. I learned my first flatpicking tunes from that book & record. It took me all summer to master the first flatpicking solo (it was for the song Mama Don't 'Low).

I then bought Artie Traum's book on slide guitar and learned slide.

After studying aerospace engineering in college and working a gig doing top secret weapons design for the F-16 at General Dynamics, I left that world to become a full time musician and moved to Lake Tahoe to play in a rock band.

And the rest is history.

[IraDuncan]

Originally Posted by Yair Matayev

Hello fellow acoustic guitar enthusiasts!

I thought it would be interesting to create a thread where we can all share our personal journeys with the acoustic guitar. Whether you're a seasoned player or a beginner, we all have unique stories and experiences that have led us to pick up this beautiful instrument.

So, let's get to know each other a bit better and share our acoustic guitar journeys! Please feel free to answer any or all of the following questions: answered below

Don't be shy – let's share our stories and inspire each other in our pursuit of musical growth and enjoyment! Looking forward to reading your responses!

When did you first start playing the acoustic guitar? I had dabbled very little on maybe 1 or 2 guitars from 96 to 97. I bought my first acoustic, a Samick sunburst dreadnaught, during my senior year in high school (1997). I also got my first electric, an Epiphone Les Paul Special II vintage burst, that Christmas.

What inspired or motivated you to learn the instrument? Dad played and I was going to a Christian high school where we had Wednesday worship services. I asked if I could be part of the worship team. We also had a bunch of performers at church in our youth ministry.

Did you have any musical background or experience before playing the guitar? A little bit of playing violin, 4th or 5th grade. I gave it up when mom moved me to the Christian school in the 6th grade.

What was the first song or piece you learned to play on the guitar? Hard to recall, but I spent a lot of time my freshman year of college trying to copy David Gilmour's solo of Comfortably Numb on the Pulse album.

What challenges did you face while learning, and how did you overcome them? Taking a classical guitar class my 2nd semester that year, and figuring out I had a hard time using my ring finger to "press" through the string. I got a B. There were also challenges with money being a poor college student and not having the gear I wanted.

Do you have any memorable experiences or milestones in your guitar journey that you'd like to share? I met some friends up in Ohio to see Phil Keaggy play at a church on March 19, 2004. Phil signed 2 of my Taylors, and my friend's all koa Larrivée and his wife's 410CE.

How has playing the acoustic guitar impacted your life? I find great joy in writing music

[Bluebonic]

Originally Posted by Yair Matayev

When did you first start playing the acoustic guitar?
What inspired or motivated you to learn the instrument?
Did you have any musical background or experience before playing the guitar?
What was the first song or piece you learned to play on the guitar?
What challenges did you face while learning, and how did you overcome them?
Do you have any memorable experiences or milestones in your guitar journey that you'd like to share?
How has playing the acoustic guitar impacted your life?

Hello!
I started playing in 1988, during my first semester at college. My suite mate, Dave, played an acoustic guitar and I was fascinated. On my first trip back home, I went to a local guitar shop and bought a Yamaha acoustic guitar for $150. I can’t remember which model it was, but it was shaped like an OM. Dave and I had a mutual love for REM and the first song I learned was Driver 8 off of Fables of the Reconstruction; the second was Carnival of Sorts off of Chronic Town. I still love and play a good bit of older REM tunes.
Before playing the guitar, I tried violin and saxophone in third grade but didn’t stick with either one. From 5th through 8th grade I played trumpet, but very badly; I’m pretty sure my band teacher created a third-chair position just for me. I never learned to read music and could never tell which note I was playing on that thing. But I could follow the melodies and ‘funnel in’ my playing with the rest of the band. Otherwise, I just faked playing.
My biggest obstacle was pain. My fingers were screaming for months but I played anyway. My next challenge was barre chords. The action on my Yamaha was not very good and my hand and wrist would cramp, but again, I kept playing anyway.
The biggest milestone for me was joining a band and playing live. We started at local open mics and over the course of two years, got to headlining at local bars. I couldn’t believe that people not only paid me to play, but that they asked me to come back and play again. Most of my band work has been electric.
Just recently I’ve rekindled my love for acoustic guitar. I have some physical difficulties, an old injury to the shoulder on my picking side, a severed fingertip on my fretting hand, major back surgery and arthritis is starting to rear its head in my fingers. But, I’m too dang stubborn to quit, …

[Twin Six]

My earliest musical memories are of my mother playing piano and singing to me when I was a child. Later, she briefly learned acoustic guitar with a Yamaha of some sort. The kid who babysat me at the time introduced me to Johnny Winter, who I thought must be the coolest person alive. I wanted to learn guitar, but didn't.

Later, I started learning French horn sitting at the baby grand. In my first and only experience of school band practice, I lost my place in the score and was terrified. Then we moved, and the new school only had a left-handed French horn (!), so that was the end of that.

Later, I took piano lessons because we'd always had a piano and also because I became steeped in the keyboard-heavy prog rock of ELP and Rick Wakeman as well as Bach organ works. I continued this for many years, but as life moved on, pianos weren't always available. At one point, I acquired a Micro Moog, Crumar organ (Hammond B3 stand-in) and Clavinet. Gigged very briefly with this setup. Then sold it and moved.

Much later, I chanced upon the sitar and spent the next six years immersed in it essentially full-time. I practiced six to eight hours per day, three hours minimum.

From this basis, I took up guitar in the mid-90s as a complement to sitar, learning from The Guitar Handbook by Ralph Denyer. It was then that I acquired the Alvarez Yairi 12-string that I still have. Since just before the start of the pandemic, I resumed playing regularly. I had to relearn everything, which was greatly helped by discovering justinguitar.com.
Then, I acquired a 6-string counterpart to my 12-string.

My brother, who is a drummer, asked what I wanted for my birthday. I asked for guitar strings. He showed up with not only guitar strings, but with a Squier Telecaster & Vox Valvetronix amp. I play primarily acoustic, but it's nice to have the electric now and then.

So here I am, age 60, a progressing beginner . . . again.

[rstaight]

When I was nine, I was playing youth football. I was the center and after breaking a huddle the next thing I remember is realizing where I am at and on the sideline. The game was over.

A couple of weeks later I had a seizure. End of sports for me.

My parents believed you should be involved in some type of activity. So, I said what about guitar lessons.

By the time I started I was ten. Took lessons for approximately 6 years. I remember getting my driver's license and still going to guitar lessons.

Here I am, 64 and still playing away. And still the same old reactions. The young ladies are pleasant, but the older ladies like to flirt.

[Jim Comeaux]

I have two stories to tell here. The first one was over 40 years ago. I was living in a small village, make that a very, very small village in Alaska, population about 40. One would think that there just isn’t much to do in an Alaskan village of 40 people, but in reality it is quite a busy life. There are so many things that we in the first world take for granted, like heat and electricity, water, etc. that the villagers do for themselves. But there is a lot of neighborly cooperation going on. If someone is going to dig coal (lots and lots of native coal deposits right on the surface) they would dig up much more than they needed and share it with their neighbors. The same is true of music. It just so happened that there were several pickers there that were really good bluegrass musicians and they very often would gather at the only roadhouse/restaurant/gas station and play. It took me about ten minutes to get solidly hooked on bluegrass banjo (3 finger Scruggs style) and in about 18 months I was playing right along with them. I later switched to mandolin and had some luck at that too! I had plenty of support. I had unlimited free lessons and opportunities to play and practice. But in 1985 life got in the way and for two reasons and I just flat out quit. The first reason was that I burned myself out with ambition. I had made had made work out of something that I loved. The other reason is that I took a job working as a construction manager on international projects and putzing with an instrument while traveling internationally is a major pain in the neck. The end result was that I didn’t touch a string for over 20 years. Then the pandemic happened and I found myself in a real pickle. I was retired and 74 years old and I had had my liver transplanted back in 2009 which made me dangerously vulnerable to the virus. So what was I going to do for the next three or four years? I decided to try music again. I bought a guitar and started teaching myself how to play it. No, I couldn’t risk personal contacts and I just can’t get anything out of on line lessons. So I hit You-Tube and just about every music related site on the internet looking for free lessons, and there are plenty out there, but the progress will be much slower than if you are taking face to face lessons. As a general guideline, the You-Tube videos will teach you half of a song (the “A” part) and you can figure out the B part from the free music or tabs pages on the internet. Why a guitar? I mean why not? It’s as good as anything else for what I wanted it for. After three years of hacking away at the six string, I have progressed to the point that I can play the leads on about 12 to 15 tunes at a reasonable speed (my personal speed limit seems to be at 120 BPM). My next big effort is to learn some more back-up. Wish me luck. Oh yes, I also bought a mandolin and surprisingly enough. Some of it still lurks in my muscle memory after all those years. The lessons learned? Don’t make work out of something that you love to do. Don’t be delusional enough to believe that you will eventually be just as good as (fill in the name of any famous musician here). Be reasonable about your expectations for yourself.

[Jack the Pearl]

In school, even elementary, I took lessons on brass (coronet & trombone) but I finally settled on clarinet. I'm 77 yrs. old, and I thought Benny Goodman was as cool as my parents did. From these experiences, I can tell you that brass and reeds are difficult, requiring a real ear and some skills with your mouth (they call it the embouchure) that I never learned.

Then, one summer day when I was just out of high school my younger brother (a student of the electric guitar) announced that he was going to start a band. I figured it was a way to meet girls, as many of us do, or did. That worked out for me, as you'll read later. Got my parents to buy me a cheap foreign-made electric bass (a Conrad, as I recall). My brother and I shared the used Gibson guitar amp our parents bought. I took lessons from a cocktail lounge bassist who played in the jazz trio in the lounge of the hotel where I worked that summer. We came back to school, rounded up the other guys my brother had recruited, and started working a repertoire together for the first gig we already had that was only a month away!

The rest is history. We played 3 or 4 weekends each month for 3 or 4 years in bars, bowling alley lounges, dorms, fraternity parties, off campus let's-break-the-lease parties, as well as off campus move-in let's-horrify-the-landlord parties, and various social events of varying degrees of legitimacy. It was a blast and we loved it. Anyone want to guess why I couldn't get in to medical school? That level of fun stopped, inevitably, when we graduated and moved on. We were paid pitifully though I've since learned from several presently employed professional musicians that we were paid what was union scale back in that time. And we weren't in the union. So, I learned there's not much money in it. But we got paid, and I've also learned that many musicians back in the day did not. We did it for love, but the money was a very nice touch.

I still play, and I take lessons at a conservatory. And I'm still tight with the band members that are still alive. I don't miss the brass or the reeds, but I do value what I learned from being forced to read sheet music at an early age.

How did I get to acoustic guitar, you ask? Just before the band broke up, we decided to make our sound bigger by adding a 12-string guitar. I was elected to get one and play it in the band. Got one, sort of learned to play it. Then the band broke up. The twelve string (a Guild F212) was a good one, bought new, but it was a handful for a bassist. I kept it for a good 15 years before I got smart and sold it to buy a reasonable 6-string. The first song I learned to play on it was "Catch the Wind" which was a hit for Donovan back then. When I met her, my wife was pleased that she had a suitor who owned a guitar and could play it. So it all worked out. The part about meeting girls, that is. I can cook, also write and argue criminal appeals. The last part is the one skill that put enough money in the bank to make it possible for me to pursue a beauty like my wife. So that worked out too!

[Pfran42]

In the 80's, I heard the song Jane Says on tape and a buddy of mine said it was easy to play and only had two chords.

Simple as that.