Can you remember the moment of guitar playing that made you want to play

Stevepage

William Williamson said:

Got told 'if you spent as much time with a real guitar as you do with that toy, you'd be excellent' when playing the old Guitar Hero game about ten years ago - after a few false starts I want to thank my dear old dad for inadvertently causing me to spend thousands of hours more playing the real guitar than the toy one, and spending hundreds more on gear. 

This post, makes me feel old. guitar hero is 10 years old?!

olafgarten

For me it was Helplessly Hoping, CSNY. Still can't play it though. 

Paul_C

this was probably the song that had me making my first lego and string "guitar"

SteveRobinson

Borrowing a copy of the Jean Genie 45 and hearing Ziggy Stardust on the B side

the_jaffa

Various things made me think about learning to play but it was hearing the Stone Roses first album, specifically Made of Stone, that made me actually try picking up a guitar and learning

MattFGBI

chromatuna

I can't recall a specific moment but looking at the singles releases I reckon the year was 1972 when I was 12 and I was drawn to anything guitar related on ToTP especially Slade but also T Rex, Bowie etc (not Sweet). Those early Slade singles were terrific. Other bands with singles filtered into my consciousness a little later - Quo, Queen, Lizzy, SAHB and then I was off into classic rock heaven but Slade were my starting point. 

p.s. re the post above, we used to see Maiden all the time at the Ruskin Arms. That and the fact that Lemmy bought me a drink once and that I had also met Geezer and Tony won me great kudos with my son and his friends when they got into metal into the early 00s   :-)

SteveRobinson

Paul_C said:

this was probably the song that had me making my first lego and string "guitar"

My 4yo granddaughter came to me and said she knew what my favourite song was. I asked what is it but she didn't know. I said well can you sing it then? And she sang a decent rendition of Ballroom Blitz. Apparently her daddy played it in the car and he had said it was my favourite song. It isn't, I prefer Blockbuster.

BloodEagle

This was part of a BBC2 Arena Special about 'Heavy Metal' in about 1989 - blew my 14 year old mind and made my want an electric guitar more than anything I'd ever wanted before

Octafish

It was whilst listening to Shine On You Crazy Diamond by the Floyd at Knebworth in 1990 live on Radio 1... Floyd on Radio 1 .

I knew I wanted to play music/play in a band for sometime. I'd had piano lessons, but Old MacDonald etc just weren't cutting it. Then decided I wanted to be a drummer, but parents weren't keen. Then I got interested in keyboards again, then I heard Gilmour play the intro solo to Shine on.....

grungebob

1991 smells like teen spirit, the guys on the tv looked like me and my friends and it all just clicked.

nick_s

I grew up with an amazing plethora of music being played at me.  My dad was a huge Eric Clapton fan, and had a great record collection.  I remember routing through the records and finding a Clapton album, inside of which was a selection of photos of Eric playing 'Blackie' among others.  

I put the record on and read through the liner notes and gazed at the pictures, thinking that I must have a 'Blackie' one day.  I will one day, not an EC signature, but my very own guitar that defines my sound.  This would have been at some point in the late 80's.  I'm still waiting to find that guitar, and when it does, I won't let it go

ronnyb

When I was  training for my first career at an establishment in Cheshire in 1973 there was a guy who could play anything on an acoustic guitar. One of those really talented people who could just make any song up. I remember there was about 3 or 4 of us sat in his room one night and he played satisfaction by the stones, fingerpicked it while someone sung. It just sounded brilliant and I recorded it on a little cassette recorder. That was it I was hooked. Can't even remember his name, nor can I find the tape which I kept for years. I've been playing off and on for years but am probably not half as good as he was. 

english_bob

My parents left me at home one Saturday morning watching TV. Some kid had won a competition a few weeks previously to have a guitar lesson with Hank Marvin (this was the '90s!) and he came on to perform. He played the solo to G&R's version of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" with Hank backing him. I thought "I could play better than him".

I grabbed my dad's acoustic and got to learnin'.

One day it's going to turn up on Youtube, or I'm going to post this story on a forum and someone's going to say "that was me!"

ESBlonde

I remember my parents asking me what I wanted for my birthday when I was about 11? I didn't know but the TV had a band called New World on Opportunity Knocks or something like that.



I decided a guitar would be nice.

It's beginning to look like an expensive decision! I might be hooked for life!

Gadget

Seeing Twisted Sister with their 80s custom Guild guitars

proggy

When I was a little kid I heard Fleetwood Mac's Albatross on the radio and I thought "wow, I want to play the guitar".

But I ended up a bass player instead, but I've since switched to the guitar (a long time ago).

bigjon

axisus said:

the one bit of guitar that really made me want to take up playing was on a live recording on the Friday Night Rock Show in 1983. It was Stevie Ray Vaughan live at Reading, he kicked of with a fiery version of Testify and I just though 'Man, that sounds so cool, I wanna play guitar!'

It was Stevie Ray Vaughan for me too, in 1988, I'd already learnt chords on an acoustic, but I heard Scuttle Buttin' on a Radio 1 documentary on the Fender Strat and thought THAT'S what I want to play :-)

maidenfan

Watching Blackmore with Rainbow on the Straight between the eyes tour on television one night, probably about 14 years old, incendiary solo........

stratman3142

I was fascinated by guitars from an early age so it was always going to happen, but I didn't get my first guitar until just before my 14th birthday in 1969.

After about a year of playing, Free were on Top Of The Pops playing All Right Now. My parents saw Paul Kossoff, with his shaggy mane of hair, and said "don't you ever grow up to be like that".  The die was cast. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen or heard at the time and led to my obsession in trying to sound like him.