Your Favorite Guitar memory

[Photojeep]

Spurred on by the post about why we started playing guitar, I was wondering what your favorite guitar-related memory is.

I'll start with one from 2010. My wife and I traveled to Italy for a "once-in-a-lifetime" trip. We did the Big 3- Venice, Florence, and Rome. In Florence, our B&B was in a place that was built somewhere in the mid-1600's I think and the actual establishment was on the 2nd floor and our room was down a hallway off a very nice but simple lobby.

After checking in, we went for dinner and upon returning I noticed an acoustic guitar propped up in one corner. I asked the person at the desk if I could take it to our room and play it. She agreed and I spent the evening serenading my wife with several instrumental pieces as the breeze gently blew the lace curtains and brought soft street sounds from below.

As much as I try, all I can remember about the instrument was it had decent action and had a sunburst finish.

I guess the name on the headstock really didn't matter that night.

Best,
PJ

[acoustigoat]

That's a great one Photojeep and a wonderful thread to start.

One of my favorite memories is from last summer. My wife's goddaughter was visiting. We had given her a guitar for Christmas the previous year. We were sitting on the back deck noodling around with different songs and she suggested one of her new favorites (a song I didn't know). I looked up the chords, which were easy enough for her to play and strum through. I then did a simple Travis picking pattern and her face lit up "That's just how it sounds!" We played it through together and she was so excited to hear how the two instruments fit together. Pretty cool!

[sloar]

When I finally made the commitment to learn and bought my first guitar.

[Dru Edwards]

What a great thread. I have many great memories but playing a special song for a special woman is special.

[Beakybird]

My favorite practice memory is when I lived in Granada Spain many years ago, and I had a room in an ancient dwelling that had a view of the Alhambra.
During a three month period, I started practicing six hours a day. I remember during a marathon of playing patterns on the neck that I had fallen into a deep trance - the zone. I was really getting it.

[OKCtodd71]

Seeing Pat Metheny when I was 16 years old, first time I was ever in a nightclub. Seeing Parkening, Williams, Bream, shaking hands with Barrueco. Seeing Gray Sargent every week, walking miles in Boston winters to hear Mick Goodrick, Randy Roos. Every time I’ve seen Metheny it has been an inspirational and motivating experience, a revelation of what is possible with hard work. Probably most importantly, my very first guitar teacher is still, 44 years later, my best friend in this world.

[steve223]

Mine would be when I was maybe 6 in my Grand Parents Den eating my grandma's scratch made coconut layer cake and listening to my Grand pa and 3 or 4 other fiddles and 5 or 6 guitars playing old Bob Wills tunes...... Wished I could have a piece of my grandmas coconut cake while listening to my grandpa play an old fiddle tune just one more time!!!

Cool Thread!

[tj_mangum]

About 25 years ago I had the privilege to sit about 10 feet from Doc Watson for a performance at a small club in Davis, CA. Just amazing and on Doc's part it appeared effortless.

[Kh1967]

I have many excellent memories!

My favorite, however, is the day I bought my Julian Lage. My 88 year old mom was with me. I played it, she smiled and got a twinkle in her eye. Her exact words, "Buy that one...it's a keeper...sounds just like a guitar should."

And, we all know..."mom knows things."

[MHC]

I was visiting my mother-in-law Irene two years ago. She was quite elderly and frail. She was sleeping a lot and her memory and focus were weakening.

My wife and I were cleaning out her basement (a rusted out water heater flooded it) and we found her old Sears Silvertone classical guitar. My wife remembered at that moment that her mother had taken folk guitar lessons at the local music store for a while. That had been over 50 years in the past. We looked inside the case and the guitar had its original strings and was in fine shape. We also found a music workbook with a few pages of folk songs worked out in her hand (Streets of Loredo, Darlin' Clementine, This Land is Your Land, etc.). We also found a booklet of receipts for her lessons.

I tuned up the guitar (luckily the strings did not snap) and I played for Irene while my wife sang. We sang the songs from her workbook and a handful of other old folk songs (Tom Dooley, Blowin' In The Wind, Aunt Rhody, Red River Valley, etc.), Irene loved it, she remembered the guitar and the lessons and the songs and she sang along with us. The three of us played and sang for over an hour. It had been quite a while since I had seen so much energy and joy from her.

The healing power of music — simple folk songs, revived her spirits and brought all of us immense joy and deep connection that day, and for me and my wife, we gained lovely memories that we can forever recall now that Irene has peacefully left us.

[mercy]

Favorite is hard but a significant one is the first paid gig for a high school dance. I walked in the door of the gym toting my beautiful, late 50's Strat and felt like the king of the world.

[Silly Moustache]

I was probably about 1996.

I was fronting a rtio with double bass and mando/dobro.
I'd sold my beloved D35 to a friend and bought a matched pair of Martins - J-40 and J12-40, and they were horrible! the necks were so thin and narrow I was fluffing stuff.

I was doing a small solo gig - opening for the late great Isaac Guillory



I whinged to him about my problems and he handed me his Martin D35-S (12 fret dread with a 1 &7/8" nut).

Miraculous.

That night totally changed my direction in guitars.

This is the very guitar he lent me :



These are the ones I settled on :

Thanks Isaac ! (bless him!)

[MikePrent]

I've only been playing 10 years, but I have to say my favorite guitar memory was just about a month ago.

My son was out on a date on a Saturday night, the wife and I were alone in the house sipping on some bourbon and belting out tunes. I'm sure the neighbors heard us. It's the first time we ever sang together and I'm sure we sounded terrible, but it was a BLAST.

[beatcomber]

Late 1981:

I was 16-years-old and John Lennon was my hero. I had been playing guitar for a few years, and had a band going and everything.

I had been playing a pretty nice '73 Hagstrom Scandia since '78, but my dream guitar was a short-scale Rickenbacker like Lennon used, but Rickenbacker guitars were as rare as a hen's tooth where I lived, and they weren't that popular at the time anyway. I actually had dreams at night about owning a Rickenbacker.

So... my dad and I were in NYC to visit relatives, and he indulged me by letting me window-shop at the world-class guitar shops that used to populate W. 48th Street. At Sam Ash's I saw a brand new fireglo Rickenbacker 320, which was "close enough" to Lennon's jetglo 325.

My dad must have seen a certain glow in my eyes, because he kind of casually said, "Do you like that one?" The next thing I knew, my dad whipped out his credit card and bought for me, which was a stunning turn of events!

Man, I was so proud to own that guitar!

Fast forward to 1985... I was now 21 and working, and I had bought a new full-scale Rickenbacker 330 (which I still own) the summer before. To my eternal regret, I sold the little 320 for a few hundred bucks.

I have no idea where it is today, but I dearly wish I could get it back. It's not that it was a spectacular instrument - it wasn't - but it had taken on a lot of significance especially now that my dad has passed on. That was probably the coolest thing he ever did for me.

1983: those suits!!

[Shades of Blue]

My favorite guitar memory is more of a series of memories, but it was over the few short years I got to play guitar with my father-in-law before he died. We were in a Gospel duo, and he played acoustic and I played electric lead. We had such a chemistry, and it was just amazing time. Sometimes we had drums and piano, but most of the time, it was just us.

The cool thing is that I had no idea I really had much talent in the way of guitar playing. When I got up with him in front of the church for the first time, I just went on a tear and lit it up. It was like the moment where Spider Man realizes he has super powers. It was simply amazing and kick started my love for the guitar.