how old were you...

[Incidents Happen]

hi im new here. anyways,im 14 and have been playing guitar for 9 months. So i've been playing since i was about 13 and a half. I can play chords real good and some solos, and i can solo half decent, although i dont know many solos yet. Now, i was wondering how old everybody was when they started playing guitar?

[James]

16... maybe 15

[lionken07]

18, kinda old to start learning...but better late than never right? enjoy

[Psycho Amram]

i got my clasic on my 14'th birthday
and my elec. on the 17'th
Incidents welcome to the club :)

[SoS]

I started when i was 15 years old. Started with a acoustic and i picked it up fast then i got my electric for my 16th birthday.

[Lordathestrings]

I bought my first guitar for my 16th birthday. It was an old second-hand hollow-body electric with one pickup. I bought it because it was the most playable guitar I could afford.

I played that thing like an obsessed lunatic, thumping away at it every chance I could. I have vivid memories of callouses on my fingertips with blood-blisters under the callouses!

You don't have to be that fanatical about it. Pick one thing, (like changing smoothly from D to G while strumming), and keep at it until you can nail it every time. Then start to add more things, one at a time, until you have a practice routine that you can use for a warm-up exercise.

Good Luck.
L

[SoS]

That exactly what i did i kept playing a G to a D then to an A smoothly in all different types of rythems
:D

[trendkillah]

I started hogging my sister classical guitar when I was 12, got my first electric guitar about a year later.


Greetz, TK

[Zeppelin]

i started playing when i was 14, it was 3.5 years ago..
got my first electric when i was 15, after year of playing.

[Barreta_jetstream1]

i am only 15 now and i started when i was 8. it's been a while...

[Branislav]

I was 14, but I played only for about a month and I quit.
Then at the age of 17 I began again and year later I got electric guitar.

Take care,
Branislav

[Incidents Happen]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
I bought my first guitar for my 16th birthday. It was an old second-hand hollow-body electric with one pickup. I bought it because it was the most playable guitar I could afford.

I played that thing like an obsessed lunatic, thumping away at it every chance I could. I have vivid memories of callouses on my fingertips with blood-blisters under the callouses!

You don't have to be that fanatical about it. Pick one thing, (like changing smoothly from D to G while strumming), and keep at it until you can nail it every time. Then start to add more things, one at a time, until you have a practice routine that you can use for a warm-up exercise.

Good Luck.
L

for the D to G part, im alot past that. I learned how to go smoothly from D to G to A to Am to Em to E to F to Gm to Em7 to Dm to ( well you get the point). i am a fanatic about playing though, i really love playing good old 'roots' music. traditional music, country, bluegrass, phish ( yeah phish is kinda roots music ;), just good ol' songs, ya know? but now im learning extensive guitar theory, i can solo half-decent, and am gettin better all the time. Sometimes i find myself playing for hours on end. One day last week i had to put my fingers under cold water after playing and learning the song "Stash" by Phish. Its one tough son of a #$@#!, very fast played, but after 5 hours of work i got it down. my fingers literally burned to wear i had to wrap them in ice. And I have some callouses too...but for some reason the more i play, the more they peel off. i'll develop a callouse, i'll keep playing, and it will peel off. Kind of makes me angry.
I have another story. Well, when I first started playing guitar i Bought a Squier Strat Pak, which comes with everything you need to start out. 7 months later, for my birthday, i got a Guild D-25 Acoustic Guitar. I absolutely loved it, but right away i noticed a slight crack at the end of the body on the guitar. it was about an inch. Nothing major, i just figured if i was going to spend $740 on it ( i bought it at http://www.guitartrader.com ), i might as well get something thats flawless. We sent it back, then got notification that the D-25 was either being discontinued or Guild halted production, and they couldnt get anymore of them. So they sent our money back, and now im going to either get the Guild DCE-1 Acoustic/Electric guitar, or the Guild D-40 Acoustic Guitar( the one Richie Havens opened woodstock with!). Both end up with a price tag of around $1050. I have a part time job at mcdonalds (yeah im 14:). So far I have $850 saved up, so i need 200 more. So now instead of just saying when you started playing, also if you have an opinion on which one you would suggest, i would appreciate that too. Thanks, you guys rock! in one day, 10 replies!

[Incidents Happen]

if you go to http://www.guitartrader.com, it has the D-25 at the website, but they say that its a mistake and they dont have it.

oh yeah- and is "Edit/delete" on here, is that to change what you say??

[Hootayah]

Yeah, but then it tells everybody that you edited it so you look like a dork. Personally I think of it as an alcohol delete button for when you've posted something really stupid after a few too many.

[Edited by Hootayah on 12-24-2001 at 06:44 PM]

[friskynibbles]

I started at 17 (almost 10 months ago). Wanted to long before that but couldn't afford to.
*shrug*

[Lordathestrings]

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was 'talking down' to you. I didn't have a good idea of your skill level. Also, I write my posts as much for other surfers looking in, as for the guy I'm responding to.

I'm amazed at how much money you're able to put into your instruments! That beat-up old Guya I started with, cost me $40 in 1968. I guess that's about $100 in 2002 dollars.

Anyway, keep at it. The callouses eventually settle down to become a smooth, hard layer on your fingertips. You may wear a hole in them once in a while, but they soon smooth out.

And a Merry Christmas to one and all!

[Benoit]

About 15

I started really practicing and composing around 17 years old.

[Incidents Happen]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
I'm sorry if it sounded like I was 'talking down' to you. I didn't have a good idea of your skill level. Also, I write my posts as much for other surfers looking in, as for the guy I'm responding to.

I'm amazed at how much money you're able to put into your instruments! That beat-up old Guya I started with, cost me $40 in 1968. I guess that's about $100 in 2002 dollars.

Anyway, keep at it. The callouses eventually settle down to become a smooth, hard layer on your fingertips. You may wear a hole in them once in a while, but they soon smooth out.

And a Merry Christmas to one and all!

Hey you have the right to 'talk down' to me. well not really the 'right' , but ya know. 1968...wow. You guys will be hearing from me often, as my two favorite things to do (when im at home) are to play guitar and go on the internet.
anyways, i bought the DCE-1 HG over the internet last night, i found a SWEET deal on it. $800!!! at Zzounds! well anyways, i must have gotten the last one because it says "Out Of Stock", just one day after i ordered it.

oh yeah- i always wondered this. you know when you get a band together thats real good, but kind of unknown? if they dont want to sign a record deal that would restrict them to playing what the record company wanted them to play, and they refused, and set up their own company, how would they start getting bigger gigs? you know what i mean?

[Lordathestrings]

There's stuff even an old fart like me doesn't have the last word on. :D

Check out Canadian Musician http://www.canadianmusician.com/
for all kinds of info on the business side of making music. Even if you're not in Canada, The Biz is pretty much the same everywhere.

This mag covers every side of playing music, on any instrument. Its refreshing to find out just how much we string-slingers have in common with woodwind or keyboard players.

[Incidents Happen]

i didnt check it out yet but i will later tonight...

I just bought the Phish Farmhouse Official Recordings Tab, thing, its better than any phish tab i've seen. It even has some of freakboys mistakes.

[stratman42]

I'm 15 now. I started classical when i was 10 and electric when i was about 14.

[canuck01]

Well I played a single chord on a friends guitar like 5 years ago when I was 18 (yup I'm 23) which got me further hooked on the instrument. Unfortunately I had....blah, blah, blah...and that is my life story up until now...I have some spare time and money to burn(even after touring down to L.A. just b4 christmas...and I toured to the mall and picked up a guitar pack and started playing at the tender age of 23. LOL

Later

[Joseph]

I've been playing guitar since I was 13 years old, I started out on an acoustic nylon... I'm an old man now. :(

-Joseph

[Lordathestrings]

Originally posted by Joseph
I've been playing guitar since I was 13 years old, I started out on an acoustic nylon... I'm an old man now. :(

-Joseph

...so, youv'e been playing for, like 40 years, now? :D

[Incidents Happen]

heh. old geezers:)

after seein SCI play , it makes u think u dont ahve to be young to be great

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
Originally posted by Joseph
I've been playing guitar since I was 13 years old, I started out on an acoustic nylon... I'm an old man now. :(

-Joseph

...so, youv'e been playing for, like 40 years, now? :D

Nahh, I just feel old. I blame an insufficient supplement of calcium while I was growing up.

-Joseph

[Incidents Happen]

Damn those companies for not inventing High-C earlier! lol

[msula]

17 or 18, which was about 6 years ago.

[icecool]

I started when I was 7 years old, and now i'm 14...

i got a crappy acoustic encore to start with,
but now i've got an updated fender strat with the Marshall AVT 50 amp...

Just stick at it!

[HaVoK]

I got my washburn on the christmas of 2000, when i was 12. Im 13 now and have been taking lessons since mid september.

[msula]

I would give anything to have started when I was that young. Although I did play trumpet and some piano 5 years prior to guitar, I wish I could have started earlier!