How did you start learning guitar ?

[Gott]

How did you guys first start learning guitar ?

I started with guitar lessons at the music school downtown . The instructor was nice but he pissed me off , kept answering his cell phone non stop during my lessons (every lesson!)  so I quit going to him after a month. After that I went to learnandmasterguita r.com and got their expanded course (20 DVDS , 5 CDs , book , bonus online stuff) . Not a bad course for beginners . Once I finished the course I started learning individual songs and learning stuff from guitartricks.com and other sites. I'm pretty decent on electric and acoustic and am starting to learn a bit more fingerstyle/classical guitar stuff . Once my learning slows I'll try and seek out an instructor again , but a different one for sure !

How bout you guys , what got you started ? What made you want to start playing ? How did you start ?
 

[mitophin22]

I was going through some hard times at the time, and one day as I was cleaning out my garage, I saw a one stringed acoustic guitar with a GN'R sticker. Honestly. It was like my calling.

I played a lot with that one string and bought strings soon after

I am self taught

Sucks to say but that guitar is no longer here. I smashed the fuck out of it. :'(

Rip GN'R guitar

[Bluelion]

Listening to GNR, and then other bands afterwards, is what made me want to play guitar so I could do what they did. I go to a guitar teacher at the local guitar shop, I think it's more helpful than just watching DVD's etc, cause he can show me specifically what and how I can improve. 

[Axl_Duff_87]

just to feel the emotion, creativity and power made me want to play bass. just to play the things my heroes did and a new way to express myself

there was nothing going on in my life at the time, needed something to replace my gf (I'm 17 so dont go worrying!) so I decided a guitar was the way forward.

[Peaches]

Well....


These Christians were staying with us in the basement, This was about 5 years ago maybe.

So then I decided to go down there and the guy had a guitar. It was a strange looking guitar, A round outward curved back to it and I strummed it. It sounded so open so plain, It almost felt like a chord. I beautiful one.


So fast forward about a year when I was in high school. They were offering guitar classes so I got a 100 dollar guitar. That guitar has MUCH sentimental value to me so I went from there. I got lessons for abotu 2 weeks but they only taught me how to read it. I didn't want to read it( Although that will be pursued later on in life) I just wanted to play it. So the guitar classes in high school gave me rivals to ensure that I keep going and get a good start at it. I was....not the best at actually reading the guitar notes and everything but I'm sure I was able to improvise better.


I always wanted to see how much better my old classmates have gotten.

[axlwannabe]

I got interested in college when my fucking boastful roomate always asked me to sing while she's playing.  She can't do both things at the sametime wahaha...

The first thing I learned was "Grow old with you". with the chords A E D E, bm cm bla bla...
It was a struggle that time...My finger hurt awfully

I didn't stop from there, I had a band called "HERE COMES TROUBLE" and is still continously learning every songs of GNR and some other not cheesy artist......

INTEREST AND ENTHUSIASM won't make those fingers hurt though!

[Max_Power]

I got a drumset

[Mr Fantasy]

Well I had many influences to play Bass
But first I had an instructer who looked exactly like Robbin. No joke
I leraned the rest by myself. But now I'm kinda learning/jamming with some dude in the studio in which I work.

[jamiewarnock]

I wanted to be like Slash and Kurt so i taught myself 

[pawnshop-guitars]

I used to do classical guitar, and hated it. And sadly I didn't play again for years. Then for lulz I got out my guitar one day and tried playing something - I taught myself to read tab, and then I was off and running. It just escalated from there really; I played it for a laugh and found I totally loved it when I was allowed just to do what I wanted, and it became a freedom of expression for me. So that's why I carried on

[Rampton Hospital]

i had no intention at all to play an instrument.

When i was growing up, my father always had guitars, (he plays well).  And the most i would do is walk up to them and strum my fingers across.

The reason i started was because i filled in a postcard for a competition to win a strat+marshall amp, and low and behold i won.
When the guitar was delivered, i was motivated to learn, it was like a wake up call.  So i just fucked around with it everyday and taught myself.
Then i became obsessed with learning all i could and bought more and made one.  I now have 9 guitars, a bass and two keyboards and i try to play each instrument as often as i can

[nfan12]

Well, I remember watching "School Of Rock" and thinking" how hard could it be to play guitar" and I was gladly mistaken. I got my first guitar for christmas and then I started learning right away, but I started noticing that it was hard and I was "WTF! I though this was easy" so I stopped playing till about a year ago, where I started playing again, and I got a teacher, who tought me alot of what I know today, and all the knowledge that I have about guitars and Rock and roll, came from him. I respect him alot for what he did to help me! Sooner or later I had to cancel the lessons because I was starting school again and since I was in the marching band, I had events that where on the time and day that my lessons where, so I just though " I'm gonna do them next year" but I'm noticing that I'm advancing much faster by myself because I'm going at the pace I want to go at. I've learned alot of songs and I'm trying to learn how to do most solos (Cause that's the thing that fucking kills me) and how to pick fast on individual strings ( because I can't do that and most of the time I end up using my thumb) but i'm getting there. I record myself playing these songs, because it gives me self confidence, and it tells me that I suck, or that I'm very good. It helps me alot!

[c!]

I was 8 and there was an acoustic guitar at home, all I wanted was to rock my fucking brains out, but I didn't know shit, so, I took a guitar course at school, but I hated it, I didn't want to play those pussy songs with basic chords... I wanted to rock right away, I wanted to learn the chords and how to play ROCK, so, after 3 classes, I quit.

Got myself some crappy GNR songbooks, you know, those basic things with the chords and the lyrics... acoustic songs sounded better of course, things like wttj or scom were way ahead of my skills and an acoustic guitar didn't help much either. I kept playing though, I learned the chords and could play well enough (no solos or crazy shit). Then I got my 1st electric guitar, and my mom regretted she gave it to me for my birthday, I wouldn't stop playing, now I could play the way I wanted, with the Gain knob on 10 in the amp playing GNR and Nirvana non-stop.

Well, I've never stopped since then, never took classes (other than those shitty 3 classes when I was 8), I'm self taught. Now I have a few guitars and basses and I've made music a part of my life, there's never a bad moment to grab the guitar and play. If I'm sad, upset or frustrated, or happy, playing guitar or any instrument is a cathartic experience. Kinda same story for bass and piano, self taught too, learned later though, but I love them as well, although guitars will always be my favourite babies.

[wyldechild]

I was around 13 or 14 if I remember correctly, it was that time when I started to listen to heavier music thanks to my friends who liked bands like cradle of filth, dimmu borgir etc. But that wasnt really for me, I did start listen to hard rock instead mostly ozzy osbourne. That's when I knew I want to play a guitar.. and voilá my dad bought me nylon string acoustic (that I still have and it's one of the best nylon string acoustics I've ever played  ) and off I went.

I had some lessons for a year.. mostly I learned how to read sheet music and how to play some tunes from Finnish artists that I usually hated from the bottom of my heart. So after that one year I had enough. I played every now n' then for one more year but I didnt take any lessons and music just wasnt fun anymore. So my guitars destiny was to go in the deepest corner of our house and cather some dust.

It took me about 2-3 years to get into playing again.. and I really started to play again when I was around 18years old.
That's when I started to practise 10hours everyday like a fuckign madman and I loved it.. I played ozzy, BLS , Children of Bodom tunes and scales ... And then I turned 20 and my wife came along and our kid and school and now I dont really have time to play. Usually only 1hour/day and that one hour I have is usually during night around 10pm and then I'm already tired as fuck and I cant play for shit. But I will never give up my guitar 

[aerosmithfan]

I'm still learning currently and I'm going to get some lessons from my choir instructor. He's been playing for bout 5 years now. My friends and I were all gonna get lessons from him but the non members had to pay like $25 per lesson, So now im the only one getting lessons