How was it for you?

[gadgie]

I'm sitting here looking at various posts on here as you do.

This might have been covered before but I've not seen it....so how did it start for you? I mean the playing of a musical instrument?

For me it was a longish drawn out thing. When I was about 12-13 I remember my uncle coming into the house with Gibson SG. He must have been excited about it, but I didn't understand GAS at the time. I remember him clearly placing the strap button against the old wardrobe door and struming away on it...the wardrobe was sort of acting as an amp. TBH I wasn't impressed.

A couple of year later he dropped off and old Yamaha Acoustic. this is mid 70's. So I started pinging out stuff. Smoke on the water on one string was about it. No idea if it was tuned at it was always one string only business. I thought I was the mutts nuts when I played it in the fashion of 'Made in Japan' the live album. Then things started to take off. I was playing along to harmonies on records.....all on the one string of course. Then a pal showed me that you could move down or up a string instead of sliding up the same string several frets. Wow! Breakthrough. Next came Caroline by Quo. Bye this time I was really looking at guitars of my own. Really struggling to get money for a decent guitar......a Baldwin Galaxy or Columbus something... I can't remember now was on the wish list but out of reach, so an Audition from Woolies had to do. No money for an amp of course...so wardrobe door came back. Got fed up of that very quickly indeed. Also began to notice that the thing didn't sound right so it lay in the corner of the bedroom for ages. God knows how long after that, but at least 3-4 years passed before my then girlfriends friend brought her boyfriend (her hubby now) round. He saw the guitar picked it up and mucked about with it (I now know he was tuning it) and he strummed out Tangerine by Led Zep. I was amazed. Plus I could see the girls were impressed and I wanted some of that action. Still no amp though. So swapped the electric for a old 12 string, removed 6 strings and I started learning Tangrine from him, and a few other.
The rest they say is history.

How was it for you?

Sorry if it's been done before. I took this from another forum.

[BigGuyAtTheBack]

All started with piano lessons being forced on me by my mother, my dad plays accordion so my mum spent a fortune on piano lessons thinking I much have some musical talent, wrong! A few years of getting nowhere on piano, just couldn't get the two handed thing down, learned to read music though. Long since forgotten. Punk happened and I was thinking I'm having some of this! By this time the piano lessons had stopped and I badgered my mum to let me buy a bass since I had seen Sid Vicious and though he was the coolest dude on the planet. Hello Grant EB3 copy bought from Bruce Millars in Aberdeen for the princely sum of £50, paid with the tattie howkin money I'd made. Got a few lessons on it from Davie Black (the Singing Painter) in Inverurie, only problem Davie is a Jazz dude. I'm learning scales when all want to do in play 'Anarchy in the UK'. My best mate Euan bought an SG copy and a Peavey amp and I got a brand new H/H VS Bassamp combo on HP and we were set to rock the world when we found a drummer! Got hold of a local guy who had played in bands, the first 'practice' lasted 30 minutes after the drummer called a halt and informed us we were sh1te! he was correct we sucked big time. After this knock back we just dicked around. Euan joined the army and that was that. Or was it? Roll on a few years I'm 28, I literally woke up one morning and just decided to buy a bass. One Aria MAB400 lefty, a farmer, a civil servant, a digger driver and a butcher I have a band which I'm still playing in 20 years later. Funny old world.

[Geek99]

Don't think I'm naturally talented but after lots of dogged listening I can hear the beat and unfailingly hit the one each time, really struggled with that at school. I started with a cheapl Spanish and then e guitar for years then found bass. A precision bass, naturally

Edited August 19, 2014 by Geek99

[gadgie]

Just remembered to add that the first two 'full' songs I learned were...Teenage Kicks, and Blitzgreg Bop.. The opening riff to Pretty Vacant wasn't long after that.

[neepheid]

I guess it started with singing and playing recorder at primary school. Then all the boys gradually quit the recorder group, so I quit also (if I knew then what I know now and all that). Then my voice broke so all that singing like a girl stuff came to an end. Years later, I got a guitar, an Epiphone Special II (Les Paul shaped thing), but I didn't really get into it - didn't get good enough, quick enough for my liking so I just pottered about without really getting anywhere. Then out of the blue, I was in a music shop some time in 2003 and saw a cherry red Epiphone EB-3 and thought to myself how bonnie it was. Dashed home - learned how to play The Stranglers "Peaches" on the bottom four strings of my guitar then headed back to the shop, tried it, smiled at how much more sense it made on bass, bought it and that was that. Still pottered about for a few years until my now wife basically dared me on stage. Had my first proper gig in October 2008, weeks before our wedding! Joined my first proper band in 2009 and it just grew from there.

[Dad3353]

First buff pay packet as an apprentice, off to the 'music shop' on Lampton Road, Hounslow (pronounced 'Arnslar'...). Their main sales were sheet music, floor to ceiling, and accordions. The only guitar was a Russian-made 6-string classical, strung with cheese wire, with a bolt-on telegraph pole of a neck. I knew I needed help with learning, and so bought at the same time the Mickey Baker guitar method. I nearly lost my fingers trying for weeks to play the chords charted on page 1. I'm still trying. It's not, I now realise, a beginners book, especially with a cheese cutter of a guitar.
I saved up for a decent guitar and found Mrs Nichols music emporium, Hampton Hill (the front room of a house, in fact...). I came away with a lovely Hofner President, Florentine cutaway, and saw, for the first time, a Verithin bass on her wall. Damp damaged, certainly, as the belly was concave under the string tension. Completely wrecked; damned shame. Swapped the President for a Burns Bison, fool that I was, then for a Vox 'toy' Clubman bass, then a set of mixed Edgware drums. The big step came with the acquisition of my present Camco kit, Paiste cymbals. I brought those here to France and have been playing them ever since. I found, much later, a Verithin bass, and have added a 6-string fretless, Cort fiver and several guitars since.
The initial impetus was provided by Fairport Convention ('Fairport Convention'...), Jefferson Airplane ('Surrealistic Pillow'...) and the Grateful Dead ('Anthem of the Sun'...). Yes, an old hippy.
Oh yes, the bands... With a younger brother's schoolmates we were The Martin Spicer Band, and played a pub, and a village hall or two with covers and original stuff, on guitar, then bass. Then with the Thompsons, original (superb...) stuff (bass, drums...) and Porpoise, originals/covers, on drums. Village halls again. Rehearsed, drumming, with Alan Stirling, from Crystal Palace, at my house and theirs, but didn't get to gigging; shame, as they were very good. Moved to France and joined a touring variety band, plus deps and function work. Mostly drums, occasional bass. Settled down now drumming with The Daub'z, doing pop/rock covers. We get invited out to play, for free, at local micro-festivals and garden parties. If I'd have known then what I know now... [size=4] [/size]

Edited August 19, 2014 by Dad3353

[AntLockyer]

This may be a little convoluted. I've never tried to write it down before.

1979 age 5 compulsory guitar lessons at school. All I remember is "thumb/strum" and the chord D
Recorder lessons through primary school.
I guess 83 I played steel pans at school (and in the school band) and around the same time started on Trumpet.
Played trumpet in the first 2 years of senior school in the school's brass band/orchestra.
Changed schools after that and their music program was lacking.
Got an electric guitar in the 90s (bought it in welling, red Marlin strat copy). eventually learned to play Green Day and Who songs along with Sunshine of your love and born under a bad sign.
bought a 1960s burns
Played power chords in a band for a couple of gigs and rehearsals.
Bought a drum set in the late 90s, studied hard, went and took lessons, attended residential school etc. Played in a couple of bands that never gigged.
Bought another couple of guitars.Took some lessons.
Played Harmonica in a band.
Bought a bass.
Then stopped playing any music at all really.
Went to a Blues jam to play Harmonica, then just started thinking about playing the blues on bass. took some lessons, became a regular at a jam, got several offers of gigs, house band in a couple of jam nights etc.

All good fun.

[skej21]

Started by doing a 'musical aptitude test' at primary school which decided whether you could do music or not. Got through somehow and got told I had to play woodwind. I ended up asking if I could do double bass (because it was huge and looked cool!). They agreed and I joined the school orchestra with my 1/8 upright. I was made to play scales, bullied into reading music and got top marks for inconveniencing the parents by making them take me and my upright to rehearsals, lessons and concerts. After a couple of years of playing through grades and passing grade 8, my tutor suggested I look at some jazzers. He gave me some CDs that included Mingus, Eddie Gomez, Scott Lafaro and Ray Brown. I soon started asking for more and the inevitable self-titled Jaco Pastorius CD made it into my CD player. I instantly sold my upright and used the money to buy an amp and electric bass. Went back the following week for my lesson and started learning electric bass. Switched school/county orchestras for youth big bands, jazz bands, Cuban ensemble and started playing in a covers band. Went through electric bass grades. The sight reading thing really helped and became much more fun out of the orchestral setting and it got my foot in the door in local theatre pits and since picking up an electric bass, I've never looked back. Went on to music college, uni and then postgrad teaching (secondary music).

[BigGuyAtTheBack]

Forgot to add, the first gig money I got I gave to my mum. After all the piano lessons I thought I should at least make the wee gesture. She was affa proud!

[RockfordStone]

i used to play saxophone at school because it seemed like a cool/unique thing to do but gave up because i was more into sport a the time. then when i was 18 a friend i worked with was in a band, decided i needed to learn to play again, so dragged me to a music shop and i just went with bass...

[Skol303]

In chronological order:[list]
[*]Got bought a cheap turntable by my dad, circa 8-9 years old. First records bought were 'I'm the Leader of the Gang' by Garry Glitter and a Top of the Pops album with a semi-pornographic cover
[*]Made 'remixes' as an early teen by chopping sections out of songs using play/stop on a tape deck and recording the outcome on another. Felt like Brian Eno, without knowing who he was.
[*]Got into heavy metal (everyone was doing it...). Wanted to be like Cliff Burton of Metallica so bought a bass.
[*]Played in an originals band that took inspiration from Metallica and Suicidal Tendencies, crossed with Half Man Half Biscuit.
[*]Fell in love with acid house and the early rave scene. Sold all of my gear and bought a set of Technics turntables and a mixer at around 18 years of age. Started DJing in clubs and at free parties.
[*]Became a music journalist aged 21. Met Bjork
[*]Got a 'proper' job aged 28; packed away my turntables and records.
[*]Started making music again about a decade later. Bought a bass. Then another
[*]Discovered Basschat...
[/list]

[Bilbo]

I used to sing at school and won the local Eisteddfod year after year )(6 – 9 years old) until the inevitable happened (kerchuck). I remember seeing two films (actual reel to reel movies) in my first music lesson at the Comprehensive school; it was Peter and The Wolf and Ravel’s Bolero – both as a sort of guide to the orchestra. I ran home and told Mum and, lo and behold, she had the Ravel piece on a record!! I wore it out. I knew I wanted to play but my parents would not have had the money for lessons or an instrument. I asked in school if I could use one of theirs and they said no. Hated them ever since but, at around 12, I visited dome older cousins and one of them gave me a guitar. To say it was a piece of crap is an understatement but, if I tell you it had 2 nylon strings and 4 steel ones, you will get the idea.

I cocked about with that until I left school and, on the day I started work (1980) I ordered a Hondo II Precision copy (black) and a Carlsboro Cobra combo. I am ready to roll!!. I learned at home and, the following December, I got an audition into a local NWOBHM band called No Quarter. Local heroes so you can imagine, I was sh***ing myself. I did the audition with my Hondo and Carlsboro and got the gig on the proviso that I got a bigger amp. Enter Sound City amp and custom 2x 18 cab I bought off the band’s ex-bass player followed by Frunt transistor amp (remember the – I bought it because Percy Jones endorsed them and I was already looking over the fence at fusion). We were in the studio within weeks and did a Friday Rock Show session early in 1982 (I think) before recording a track for the Heavy Metal Heroes Vol 1 LP. It’s been downhill ever since

Then came an Aria SB700 before, in 1986, still in my Percy Jones pohase, I got my Wal Custom Fretless (£740). I have since had a Washburn Status headless (Jon Caulfield still has it, I think), a Status Energy 6 and 4 but they have all gone and it’s only the Wal now.

Left No Quarter after 2 years because I wanted to play fusion and prog. Got into a band that rehearsed but never gigged and set up my own band that rehearsed and never gigged before joining Silent Partner in Chepstow with Grant Nicholas of Feeder fame and producer Brian Sperber). Did a couple of gigs and recordings but that petered out and, by this time, I was at last playing Jazz in Cardiff (getting on for 30 by now). Forward most of two decades and I start playing the double bass and running my own Jazz events. I wish I had done it years ago.

[KevB]

Started jamming in school with mates and we formed a band. Didn't play any instrument so became singer by default. Didn't gig while I was in it, got replaced due to a lot of daft schoolboy politics. We were all on the verge of going our separate ways to colleges all over the country anyway. Had a reunion in the the summer after we'd all done 1 year away in college just for a laugh but we knew it was all over. So on a whim I bought the bass player's bass from him (tatty and mod'd Columbus Jazz copy) for £30. Didn't touch it for years, too busy with studies. Then had a 6 month free space whilst converting from one course to another. Decided to try to learn a bit of bass (about 1985) playing right handed (I'm left handed). Rigged up a speaker and an old hi fi amp to play through at home. Never considered joining a band or having lessons. Old school band mate (keyboards) ended up in same city and we'd occasionally get together for a home jam and some very basic recording to cassette, later another mate came in on guitar. We still didn't take it seriously, guitarist had played the odd pub gig with mates but the keys player was never interested in taking it further and we all had day jobs by then. So I had at least 10 wilderness years between learning the rudiments on my own and actually playing in front of anyone. That was when I'd finally completed my masters degree, left hospital radio (which took all the spare time being in a band would have required) and tried a few blues jam sessions in a pub (late 90's). Then someone put together a band at work to do a works xmas party (about 2000) and I've been gigging in bands on and off ever since. I'm at least 10-15 'gigging years' behind just about anyone i know of my age but I just had other priorities and interests.

Edited August 19, 2014 by KevB

[BigRedX]

I can't remember having any real interest in music during the first 10 years of my life. I apparently had a good singing voice before it broke, and because people seemed to like my singing I enjoyed doing it, but didn't listen to any music for fun. I can remember my parents taking me to classical concerts that bored me rigid and I certainly had no idea about pop music which simply wasn't played at home.

Then just before my 11th birthday I spent the summer at scout camp where Radio 1 was on all day every day. By the time I came home I was obsessed with the music of T Rex and Slade, and from then on I listened to pop music on Radio 1 or Radio Luxembourg all the time to my parents' horror and dismay. However just listening wasn't enough for me.

My mum was doing teacher training and decided that being able to play the guitar would be useful for her teaching practice and so enrolled in evening classes. I badgered her to let me come to them too. So just after my 13th birthday, armed with our nasty £10 catalogue acoustic guitars (one nylon and one steel stung) we were shown how to play a random election of "folk" songs with 3 or 4 chords and some simple finger picking techniques. To say I was hopeless was putting it mildly. Probably a combination of a virtually unplayable instrument (I'd got the steel stung guitar because it was more like an electric guitar than the classical nylon strung one) and uninspiring song selection, but by the end of the year I was little better at playing than when I'd first started. I knew some chords but couldn't get a decent sound from any of them and certainly couldn't change between them with any speed.

Then that summer a friend who was also learning the guitar leant me "The Beatles Complete Songbook" and something clicked. In about a week I went from being unable to play anything recognisable, to competently strumming my way through the easier Beatles' numbers. Within a few more weeks I'd figured out that if I put a capo on the 1st fret I could do away with all those complicated Eb, Ab, Bb and C# chords and play nice easy D, G, A and C instead which meant I could produce something musical for nearly all the songs in the book that I knew.

After a lot of persuasion, for my 14th birthday my parents bought me a far better Kimbara steel stung acoustic guitar and I was away. That year I joined my first band - a group of 4 of us in my school class who had vaguely similar tastes in music. Apart from our acoustic guitars, some junior school percussion and a piano that was at one of the band member's home we didn't have any other instruments so we couldn't be a normal rock band. This coupled with a desire to write our own songs meant that our music was never going to be conventional in any sense. Over the next few years we'd write songs and get together during the school holidays to record them onto ancient mono reel-to-reel tape recorders. Slowly we built up some more conventional instruments. I sold all my model trains and just scraped together enough money to buy a second hand Carlsbro Wasp 10W practice amp and a pickup to go on the acoustic guitar. My parents were disapproving all the way...

Every so often at school there would be some sort of musical evening that the pupils were encourage to take part in. My band would regularly show up with our bizarre home made and modified instruments to perform a couple of our equally bizarre self-penned songs to general bemusement. Because we were essentially a recording band, our modus operandi would be to write a song, learn it until we could mostly play it, record it until we had a take with an acceptably small number of mistakes, and then move on to the next one. Playing live meant being able to perform our song relatively flawlessly first time. Something we were not very good at.

In my final year at school I spent a large proportion of my time when I should have been studying for my A Levels, in the woodwork shop, making an electric balalaika, and then a proper solid electric guitar. That summer (1979) we borrowed as much musical equipment (including our first bass guitar) as we could from our various classmates and from the local music shop where I was spending far too much time just hanging out, and spent a couple of weeks recording what we hoped would be definitive versions as many of our songs as we could, for our own final amusement, before all going off to different universities.

And that might have been it, except during my first term away I noticed a news article in NME which informed me that I could get an album called "Eating People" by the band The Instant Automatons simply by sending them a blank C90 cassette and an SAE (stamped addressed envelope). A few weeks later the cassette was returned to me with the album recorded on it and a photocopied sheet of A4 paper that acted as the cover. I quite enjoyed the rather primitive DIY post punk music on it, but my overwhelming realisation was that "we could do this too"!

That christmas the band got together and recorded a handful of new songs and picked out the best of our last session, resulting enough music to almost fill both sides of a C60 cassette. I drew up the cover and typed out the title and track listing and there we had our first release. All we needed now was for people to send us their cassettes. I sent out a "press release" to both Sounds and NME and by some quirk of fate both published the details. Over the next two terms I received almost 150 cassettes, either blank or containing another band's work which they hoped to swap for ours. Because our album had things that were actually recognisable as songs even tough the structures and instrumentation were somewhat bizarre, when the majority of other free DIY cassettes were best described as sonic collages, our music was proving to be popular in the "free cassette music" circles.

And then The Instant Automatons asked us to provide 4 1/2 minutes of music for a compilation EP (a proper vinyl record) they were going to put out showcasing what they considered to be the best of the scene. That summer we were in a proper (4-track) recording studio recording 2 songs for the EP as well as finishing off our second cassette album. The record seemed to take forever to be completed. I got our 25 free copies in December at the same time as John Peel played one of our tracks on his radio programme!

I didn't actually get my first bass guitar until the following year when we also bought a brand new original Dr Rhythm programmable drum machine. The sound of the band become a bit more conventional as we got better instruments and recording equipment and we recorded tracks for another 3 cassette releases. We finally split in 1982 when it became too difficult to carry on just recording during the holidays and also myself and another member of the band who had both moved to Nottingham were in a new band that was actually going to do some proper gigs.

And that's how I started playing and writing songs - now for almost 40 years.

And 10 years ago, my original band had a retrospective compilation CD released by Hyped 2 Death Records in Chicago USA, based on the strength of our first cassette and the two songs we had contributed to the compilation EP. It just goes to show that no matter how weird your songs or how unconventional your instrumentation might be there is always an audience somewhere for what you are doing.

[BassTractor]

Mom and dad took me to church every sunday. Er... in the beginning it was twice every sunday!
I got to love the church organ, the psalms and the Bach music.

Andries, the boy next door and three years my major, played the harmonium (and later became the church organist at age 11 - despite having been born with fingers missing and the like. Impressive!)

Andries was my hero. I wanted to play Bach and psalms on the organ or harmonium just like him, but my parents weren't too sure, and decided I had to prove myself first.
So they shoved me off to recorder classes for two years - a frustrating two years, also because the recorder teacher hit my best buddy, Andries' younger brother Wim, on the head for making misakes.

BUT after two years of this, mom and dad were convinced and bought one of these small electronic organs with two 3- or 3.5-octave manuals and a 13-tone pedal board.

Did my first church service at age 12, and was mightily annoyed that I was a whole year older than Andries had been! Mind you, I'd been questioning faith since age 6, but I reckoned Bach and the psalms were not to blame, so I never rejected the music that was to be found in that building.


Cool hippie Rick van der Linden (Ekseption) came along, and I wanted to be like him, including the long hair, the beard and the colourful clothing.
So I started to arrange Bach pieces and perform them with trios, quartets and quintets, and eventually got to write fake Renaissance music for a play as a result of this.

Then a large organ was bought with full length manuals and a full 25 tone pedal board. An electronic piano and two synthesizers were put on top of it, and mom only put on the brakes when a second organ to the side of this setup blocked two cupboards, and the latest semi-modular, black, synth with its knobs and cables was not in style with the rest of the furniture. Also no wooden sides, you know.

But I was on my way, and not studying music was not an option anymore.

Edited August 19, 2014 by BassTractor

[Roger2611]

My mates were out nicking cars and bikes and getting arrested, I decided that wasn't the best idea, spent £25.00 on a Satellite strat copy (which I still have) I spent all day every day practicing various punk rock classics, then decided I preferred the bass guitar (thanks Sid) managed to avoid a criminal record and the rest they say is history

[discreet]

1958: Win Mrs Joyful prize for raffia work.

1960: Find 51 P-Bass in uncle's loft.

1963: Offered position of bass player in Beatles. Turn it down.

1964: Offered position of bass player in Rolling Stones. Turn it down.

1965: Pass National Cycling Proficiency Test.

1967: Offered position of Bass player in Jimi Hendrix Experience. Turn it down.

1969: Certificate for swimming a width.

1972: Offered position of bass player in T-REX. Turn it down.

1974: Buy second-hand moped.

1975: Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award.

1976: Buy New USA P Bass.

2010: Join Basschat.

2014: Lose will to live.

Edited August 19, 2014 by discreet

[paulbass]

For me i started when i was 15. I had no intention or interest in bass and a few mates from school where trying to talk me into taking it up to join their Rock band. They even went to the extent in buying me a bass from an auction which was pretty awful to be honest and it wasnt even branded! I stuck with it and decided to get a marlin sidewinder from my mates mums catalogue and it was at this point i got hooked. The problem i had was although my friends wanted to play all the heavy metal stuff i found that i was drawn to the likes of Duran Duran and Talk Talk as the basslines seem more colourful and groovy and i had a knack for picking up their basslines really easily. This wasnt very cool considering i was supposed to be into hard rock! Alas that school band didnt last long and i auditioned for a 'proper' band when i was about 17 and i got through. The members of this band were all top musos in my area and much older than me but they saw something in me that helped me improve my confidence and ability. 30 years later i'm still doing it! Just for the record the lads that got me my first bass stopped playing when the band folded and i was the only one to carry on. Strange how it goes.

[leschirons]

Aged 11. First violin in School orchestra
Aged 15, brother starts band (3 guitarists and no bass or drums) One changes to bass and I bang biscuit tins as drums. Brother buys me 2nd hand kit (John Grey)
Buy Premier kit and we're away after two years rehearsals. Now a 3 piece. Psychedelic rock.
I audition for T.Rex and get a second try out but job obviously eventually goes to Billie Legend.
Pinnacle of drumming career, East of Eden stand in on a gig and Genesis support slot.

Get married and buy catalogue guitar (Kimbara Strat) Buy more real guitars and join band (with bro again) as guitarist.
Get call from old workmate about joining band. Get to first rehearsal with Strat and amp to find he meant as bassplayer.
Borrow Hohner cricket bat, borrow Peavey combo 300, and love it.
Buy loads of expensive exotic gear only to eventually realise I sounded exactly the same with the borrowed cricket bat and keyboard amp.
By now, about 1500 gigs under the belt. Still playing drums too and lessons from Russ Gilbrook.
Moved to France in 2004 have played about 350 gigs since then. 70% bass 20% guitar, 10% drums.

Edited August 19, 2014 by leschirons