When did it happen for YOU???????

Another big influence I remember is there was a family that lived across the street from me that had two boys that were 8 to 10 years older than me. I heard one of them listening to a song in his car that I really liked the sound of and asked him what it was. It was Working Man by RUSH. I had a paper route so I had some of my own money. I started buying RUSH albums. I loved the jam sections of their songs. I still have some flashback memories when I hear one of their old songs that I wore out back then.
 
Growing up in the 80s, guitar rock was IT. I wanted to play the guitar from MTV and bugged my parents until they relented and got me a nylon-string guitar (eventually). I recall my (original) PAW cassette, alongside other mixed tapes I copied from my older cousin and his friends including Whitesnake, Dokken, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi (yep), etc.

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It was cool to turn on the radio (no pun intended) and hear awesome guitar playing even on pop songs. I think when …And Justice for All came out I was sold.

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I was in 7th grade and my best friend had a Martin acoustic. I wanted to learn how to play so my mom bought me a Mahogany Guild acoustic.

I had no idea how to play it but by ear I picked out the melody from the song "Dry Bones" which I'd heard in my grandfather's Baptist church. It was the first song I ever played.



Eventually I started following the music of the '60s, Motown, The Beatles, and the whole British Invasion. I put a DeArmond pickup in the Guild and as a freshman in high school joined a band of seniors who were playing Free Jazz to Ferlinghetti poems.

One day I saw the Are You Experienced album in the window of a Sears a few blocks from my house. I had no idea who Hendrix was but I knew I had to have that album. I literally ran home, got the money and ran back to the store to buy it. I talked my mom into buying me a Strat and the rest is history.
 
I thought it was just me. For a few years I was making more than enough money to buy one and my parents wouldn't even _let _me. If memory serves it went from "you can't have one because you'll give it up in a few weeks and it'll be too loud" to "some random guy that works for me told me that you need to start on acoustic so you can't buy an electric guitar" to "well you need lessons and you aren't going to pay for them so no" until I somehow got them to relent and let me buy one. I still have the guitar I bought after making $250 over the course of a weekend doing some consulting work when I was 15... not a single stock part of it remains except for the TOM tailpiece.

I think they thought that they were saving me from disappointing myself but, in all honesty, I don't know that I've ever fully forgiven them for being so cruel. I don't play as much as I should these days but half a lifetime later I'm in my fourth cover band and we're playing our first paid gig early next month... I sincerely don't understand why two people would go so far out of their way to stop their own kid from doing something that brings them happiness.

Didn't mean to turn this into a therapy thread. Here, have some more Boston:


Welcome to the forum Alex.
The good thing is, you did get your guitar and started playing despite the circumstances with your parents.
 
I was 16 when I took up guitar. I loved all the classic rock and metal, hard rock, pop, even a lot of the 70's funk as a kid -- so naturally that was embedded in my heart and soul, and ears. Interestingly enough though, the first thing I learned was opening riff of One by Metallica. A friend at my church brought in his acoustic and showed me that riff. So I picked up his guitar and started to learn it pretty quick right there. My dad was in the room and must have noticed my interest so the next week he picked me up a cheap nylon acoustic from a church sale or something. Only had 4 strings, but I ended up teaching myself Smoke on the Water and Ironman by ear. From there it just cascaded.
What really solidified my love was listening to Jimi Hendrix albums, Vai - Passion and Warfare, and Satriani's Flying in a Blue Dream and Surfing with the Alien, among many others-- At that point I was hooked on guitar.
I feel I should add to this because there were some other turning points or influences that shaped my development and I don't want to discount them.
The same year I started playing ('92), Matthew Sweet's 'Girlfriend' album was on regular rotation, and was probably my favorite album (still great). I just really loved the vocals and raw guitar goodness in the songs. Huge impact on me.
Another biggie was Big Head Todd & the Monsters. "Sister Sweetly" and "Stratagem" at the time. Loved the guitars and songwriting. Great stuff.
Ian Moore around the same time too. Really great with singing and guitar, and songs.
 
I started violin the summer of 1995. The first time I remember being grabbed by guitar playing was a Green Bay Packers greatest hits cd released after they won the "Big Game" in '96. It had My Sharona and I would jump back to the solo over and over in my room. In high school I started branching out from my complete collection of Weird Al CD's :puppet and buying some 90's rock stuff. I had friends who were playing acoustic and I was impressed by them playing classical gas, but it was Creed's One Last Breath that inspired me to pick up my mom's Yamaha acoustic and learn how to tune it in 2001. A year or so later I would discover Collective Soul and really got into electric guitar. I transferred from a state university to a smaller college that had some songwriters and was inspired to start writing songs.
 
1972, I was 14 yrs old. Into Hawkwind at the time, but that summer Alice Cooper, School's Out came out over here.
That opening riff!!! I was hooked 🤘🤘
 
My older brother had all the Deep Purple albums (which I now own). I listened to them by osmosis. I immediately picked up on the power of the hook. Not so much the solos. It has influenced me ever since.
 
Growing up the house was full of music. My dad was a part time DJ in our local town, just playing pubs and weddings and things like that. This was the late 80's early 90's, and he had a huge collection of vinyl. Chicago House, Rave, Drum & Bass, Jungle, Techno, Pop, Rock... loads of stuff. I even remember a bunch of times we'd go out to parties and things, and he'd DJ for them.

My family was very poor, but even so, I remember having a dual record player in my room when I was a kid. This was our Sorrell Road house, and we moved to the North in 1992, so this would've been 1990 or 1991 I guess. I even had a few small records of my own; some absolute dross, like the Superman song, and Pat Sharp (kids TV presenter who did a song lmao!) ... but they were great, and I rinsed them!

My first experience of "mixing" was playing the same song on two ghetto blasters in two different rooms in our house, and walking between them. I tried so hard to get them to sync up! Even asked my sister to press play on one tapedeck while I pressed play on the other. Wow, I'd kinda forgotten about that until now.

There was a family over the road from our house, and they were kind of scruffy people who always had stuff coming through the house. Somehow I ended up with a keyboard from them, a small little Casio or maybe even Yamaha thing. Again, this would've been 1990/1991. I would've been 6 or 7 I suppose. I played that thing a lot. Didn't do anything good, but it was around that age my interest in music began to develop.

My first experience trying to make music on a computer would've been when we did move up to the North in 1992. We had an Amiga 500, and some shareware version of Octamed. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but it felt like the future! I used to sit there tinkering with it. There were other programs like Dance Ejay, Hip Hop Ejay, Techno Ejay.. and I remember using those, but don't remember if it was before or after the next story.

The real key moment would've been my 14th birthday. My parents gave me £20, and I went down to this local shop called Entertainment Exchange. It was a shop where they sold all sorts of computer games, CD's, vinyl, posters, t-shirts, whatever.... just a little nerd shop that I suppose we all thought would be there forever. Had no idea how much the internet would decimate the high streets at that age.

Anyway, I saw this music box with the words "Acid Style" written on it. It was a cut-down version of a bit of software called Acid, by Sonic Foundry:
1706863199593.png


I kid you not... this program opened up music for me in a way that was completely ... well, everything was just massively new to me. You could sequence loops, you could record audio snippets, you could add effects, you could mix tracks. I started making techno and drum and bass and stuff like that. My dad did too.

We'd spend ages making tracks. Never together really, but we'd compare our songs and he'd encourage me. I even recorded a few keyboard bits for him at one point, which he then mangled up into complete nonsense. It was really good fun.

Then when I was 15 my dad died. Massive heart attack. I watched the first half of it before he sent me back to school. I guess he didn't want me to see what he was going through.

Music to me is partly for myself, and partly for him. Somehow it helps me keep him alive in my mind. On some level.

From there... my interest in it just grew and grew and grew. I became really interested in electronic music, virtual instruments, DAW's, recording, mixing, producing.... that whole world.

I bought an acoustic guitar when I was 17. But it was right handed. I couldn't play it. The day I got it, I rock and roll smashed it up the wall in a pitiful sense of abject frustration (tm).

I bought a cheap upright piano and put it in the dining room at home. Didn't even think to ask my mum if it was okay. Just did it. I was so into the world of music and writing stuff that I thought about nothing else. Even had a girlfriend cheat on me because I didn't do anything other than play around with Reason making tunes.

Then a friend of mine goes "you know they make guitars left handed right?" - and that was like.... BINGO. I went and got one, and even though I was crap, I could basically already form chords and strum rhythms; partly thanks to my upbringing making music on a computer and playing keyboards.

But I didn't really get into guitar until I went to university aged 19. Anyway... it all rolled from there.
 
Growing up the house was full of music. My dad was a part time DJ in our local town, just playing pubs and weddings and things like that. This was the late 80's early 90's, and he had a huge collection of vinyl. Chicago House, Rave, Drum & Bass, Jungle, Techno, Pop, Rock... loads of stuff. I even remember a bunch of times we'd go out to parties and things, and he'd DJ for them.

My family was very poor, but even so, I remember having a dual record player in my room when I was a kid. This was our Sorrell Road house, and we moved to the North in 1992, so this would've been 1990 or 1991 I guess. I even had a few small records of my own; some absolute dross, like the Superman song, and Pat Sharp (kids TV presenter who did a song lmao!) ... but they were great, and I rinsed them!

My first experience of "mixing" was playing the same song on two ghetto blasters in two different rooms in our house, and walking between them. I tried so hard to get them to sync up! Even asked my sister to press play on one tapedeck while I pressed play on the other. Wow, I'd kinda forgotten about that until now.

There was a family over the road from our house, and they were kind of scruffy people who always had stuff coming through the house. Somehow I ended up with a keyboard from them, a small little Casio or maybe even Yamaha thing. Again, this would've been 1990/1991. I would've been 6 or 7 I suppose. I played that thing a lot. Didn't do anything good, but it was around that age my interest in music began to develop.

My first experience trying to make music on a computer would've been when we did move up to the North in 1992. We had an Amiga 500, and some shareware version of Octamed. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but it felt like the future! I used to sit there tinkering with it. There were other programs like Dance Ejay, Hip Hop Ejay, Techno Ejay.. and I remember using those, but don't remember if it was before or after the next story.

The real key moment would've been my 14th birthday. My parents gave me £20, and I went down to this local shop called Entertainment Exchange. It was a shop where they sold all sorts of computer games, CD's, vinyl, posters, t-shirts, whatever.... just a little nerd shop that I suppose we all thought would be there forever. Had no idea how much the internet would decimate the high streets at that age.

Anyway, I saw this music box with the words "Acid Style" written on it. It was a cut-down version of a bit of software called Acid, by Sonic Foundry:
View attachment 18176

I kid you not... this program opened up music for me in a way that was completely ... well, everything was just massively new to me. You could sequence loops, you could record audio snippets, you could add effects, you could mix tracks. I started making techno and drum and bass and stuff like that. My dad did too.

We'd spend ages making tracks. Never together really, but we'd compare our songs and he'd encourage me. I even recorded a few keyboard bits for him at one point, which he then mangled up into complete nonsense. It was really good fun.

Then when I was 15 my dad died. Massive heart attack. I watched the first half of it before he sent me back to school. I guess he didn't want me to see what he was going through.

Music to me is partly for myself, and partly for him. Somehow it helps me keep him alive in my mind. On some level.

From there... my interest in it just grew and grew and grew. I became really interested in electronic music, virtual instruments, DAW's, recording, mixing, producing.... that whole world.

I bought an acoustic guitar when I was 17. But it was right handed. I couldn't play it. The day I got it, I rock and roll smashed it up the wall in a pitiful sense of abject frustration (tm).

I bought a cheap upright piano and put it in the dining room at home. Didn't even think to ask my mum if it was okay. Just did it. I was so into the world of music and writing stuff that I thought about nothing else. Even had a girlfriend cheat on me because I didn't do anything other than play around with Reason making tunes.

Then a friend of mine goes "you know they make guitars left handed right?" - and that was like.... BINGO. I went and got one, and even though I was crap, I could basically already form chords and strum rhythms; partly thanks to my upbringing making music on a computer and playing keyboards.

But I didn't really get into guitar until I went to university aged 19. Anyway... it all rolled from there.
That's heavy man! Way to keep the flame alive!! I am sure he would be proud!!!
 
I had pretty shitty music teachers. Still can't read sheets to this day, but even worse: I had a horrible teacher in elementary, that made me HATE most music with a passion. So I did not listen to music til I was like... 11 or 12?

Anyway, my first stint into a fav band was Linkin Park and after that it was Evanescence.

But the REAL moment was when I was late 15 and hearing Master of Puppets for the first time. That harmonized solo gave me goosebumps all over. Same for Fade to Black. Never was music so heavy, yet had so many tempi and facettes to it.

Begged my mom to buy me an electric guitar a few months later and sat down with it at home being like "Guitar, do something. Play the Master of Puppets solo!". Well, it was a rather rocky way from there.
 
Growing up the house was full of music. My dad was a part time DJ in our local town, just playing pubs and weddings and things like that. This was the late 80's early 90's, and he had a huge collection of vinyl. Chicago House, Rave, Drum & Bass, Jungle, Techno, Pop, Rock... loads of stuff. I even remember a bunch of times we'd go out to parties and things, and he'd DJ for them.

My family was very poor, but even so, I remember having a dual record player in my room when I was a kid. This was our Sorrell Road house, and we moved to the North in 1992, so this would've been 1990 or 1991 I guess. I even had a few small records of my own; some absolute dross, like the Superman song, and Pat Sharp (kids TV presenter who did a song lmao!) ... but they were great, and I rinsed them!

My first experience of "mixing" was playing the same song on two ghetto blasters in two different rooms in our house, and walking between them. I tried so hard to get them to sync up! Even asked my sister to press play on one tapedeck while I pressed play on the other. Wow, I'd kinda forgotten about that until now.

There was a family over the road from our house, and they were kind of scruffy people who always had stuff coming through the house. Somehow I ended up with a keyboard from them, a small little Casio or maybe even Yamaha thing. Again, this would've been 1990/1991. I would've been 6 or 7 I suppose. I played that thing a lot. Didn't do anything good, but it was around that age my interest in music began to develop.

My first experience trying to make music on a computer would've been when we did move up to the North in 1992. We had an Amiga 500, and some shareware version of Octamed. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but it felt like the future! I used to sit there tinkering with it. There were other programs like Dance Ejay, Hip Hop Ejay, Techno Ejay.. and I remember using those, but don't remember if it was before or after the next story.

The real key moment would've been my 14th birthday. My parents gave me £20, and I went down to this local shop called Entertainment Exchange. It was a shop where they sold all sorts of computer games, CD's, vinyl, posters, t-shirts, whatever.... just a little nerd shop that I suppose we all thought would be there forever. Had no idea how much the internet would decimate the high streets at that age.

Anyway, I saw this music box with the words "Acid Style" written on it. It was a cut-down version of a bit of software called Acid, by Sonic Foundry:
View attachment 18176

I kid you not... this program opened up music for me in a way that was completely ... well, everything was just massively new to me. You could sequence loops, you could record audio snippets, you could add effects, you could mix tracks. I started making techno and drum and bass and stuff like that. My dad did too.

We'd spend ages making tracks. Never together really, but we'd compare our songs and he'd encourage me. I even recorded a few keyboard bits for him at one point, which he then mangled up into complete nonsense. It was really good fun.

Then when I was 15 my dad died. Massive heart attack. I watched the first half of it before he sent me back to school. I guess he didn't want me to see what he was going through.

Music to me is partly for myself, and partly for him. Somehow it helps me keep him alive in my mind. On some level.

From there... my interest in it just grew and grew and grew. I became really interested in electronic music, virtual instruments, DAW's, recording, mixing, producing.... that whole world.

I bought an acoustic guitar when I was 17. But it was right handed. I couldn't play it. The day I got it, I rock and roll smashed it up the wall in a pitiful sense of abject frustration (tm).

I bought a cheap upright piano and put it in the dining room at home. Didn't even think to ask my mum if it was okay. Just did it. I was so into the world of music and writing stuff that I thought about nothing else. Even had a girlfriend cheat on me because I didn't do anything other than play around with Reason making tunes.

Then a friend of mine goes "you know they make guitars left handed right?" - and that was like.... BINGO. I went and got one, and even though I was crap, I could basically already form chords and strum rhythms; partly thanks to my upbringing making music on a computer and playing keyboards.

But I didn't really get into guitar until I went to university aged 19. Anyway... it all rolled from there.
I hear you re Acid. I use it because it's great for getting ideas down. Whatever tracks I've posted are all with Acid.

I hear you re being left handed. Damn. It is a pain in the arse sometimes but there are enough decent lefties around to allow us to make music.

Sorry to hear you lost your Dad so young. He sounds like he was a cool Dad.
 
Growing up the house was full of music. My dad was a part time DJ in our local town, just playing pubs and weddings and things like that. This was the late 80's early 90's, and he had a huge collection of vinyl. Chicago House, Rave, Drum & Bass, Jungle, Techno, Pop, Rock... loads of stuff. I even remember a bunch of times we'd go out to parties and things, and he'd DJ for them.

My family was very poor, but even so, I remember having a dual record player in my room when I was a kid. This was our Sorrell Road house, and we moved to the North in 1992, so this would've been 1990 or 1991 I guess. I even had a few small records of my own; some absolute dross, like the Superman song, and Pat Sharp (kids TV presenter who did a song lmao!) ... but they were great, and I rinsed them!

My first experience of "mixing" was playing the same song on two ghetto blasters in two different rooms in our house, and walking between them. I tried so hard to get them to sync up! Even asked my sister to press play on one tapedeck while I pressed play on the other. Wow, I'd kinda forgotten about that until now.

There was a family over the road from our house, and they were kind of scruffy people who always had stuff coming through the house. Somehow I ended up with a keyboard from them, a small little Casio or maybe even Yamaha thing. Again, this would've been 1990/1991. I would've been 6 or 7 I suppose. I played that thing a lot. Didn't do anything good, but it was around that age my interest in music began to develop.

My first experience trying to make music on a computer would've been when we did move up to the North in 1992. We had an Amiga 500, and some shareware version of Octamed. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but it felt like the future! I used to sit there tinkering with it. There were other programs like Dance Ejay, Hip Hop Ejay, Techno Ejay.. and I remember using those, but don't remember if it was before or after the next story.

The real key moment would've been my 14th birthday. My parents gave me £20, and I went down to this local shop called Entertainment Exchange. It was a shop where they sold all sorts of computer games, CD's, vinyl, posters, t-shirts, whatever.... just a little nerd shop that I suppose we all thought would be there forever. Had no idea how much the internet would decimate the high streets at that age.

Anyway, I saw this music box with the words "Acid Style" written on it. It was a cut-down version of a bit of software called Acid, by Sonic Foundry:
View attachment 18176

I kid you not... this program opened up music for me in a way that was completely ... well, everything was just massively new to me. You could sequence loops, you could record audio snippets, you could add effects, you could mix tracks. I started making techno and drum and bass and stuff like that. My dad did too.

We'd spend ages making tracks. Never together really, but we'd compare our songs and he'd encourage me. I even recorded a few keyboard bits for him at one point, which he then mangled up into complete nonsense. It was really good fun.

Then when I was 15 my dad died. Massive heart attack. I watched the first half of it before he sent me back to school. I guess he didn't want me to see what he was going through.

Music to me is partly for myself, and partly for him. Somehow it helps me keep him alive in my mind. On some level.

From there... my interest in it just grew and grew and grew. I became really interested in electronic music, virtual instruments, DAW's, recording, mixing, producing.... that whole world.

I bought an acoustic guitar when I was 17. But it was right handed. I couldn't play it. The day I got it, I rock and roll smashed it up the wall in a pitiful sense of abject frustration (tm).

I bought a cheap upright piano and put it in the dining room at home. Didn't even think to ask my mum if it was okay. Just did it. I was so into the world of music and writing stuff that I thought about nothing else. Even had a girlfriend cheat on me because I didn't do anything other than play around with Reason making tunes.

Then a friend of mine goes "you know they make guitars left handed right?" - and that was like.... BINGO. I went and got one, and even though I was crap, I could basically already form chords and strum rhythms; partly thanks to my upbringing making music on a computer and playing keyboards.

But I didn't really get into guitar until I went to university aged 19. Anyway... it all rolled from there.
OMG! Such a hi-tech software. I started with this:
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Who remembers the voice of Dr. Sbaitso?
 
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