Was wondering why and how others got started playing and singing? For me, my Grandfathers’ country band did 1/2 hour live Sunday morning radio show. I was 6 the first time he drug me to the radio studio to sing, You Are My Sunshine. Soon after he bought me a snare and cymbal setup, a year or so later my first guitar and amp. He would try and teach me 1 song every month or so and then DRAG me back to the studio, usually just to sing. This would be 40+ years ago.
Neither of my parents or siblins plays or sings. Our house always had some kind of music playing whether radio or record. Dad was/is hard core old school country. Mom was/is all about new pop, classical, and jazz. Anyone else remember Errol Garner and how you could hear him humming along in the background of his recordings?
Great thread Duffman.
I was six too when a friend of my Fathers gave me an old tape. It didn’t have a cover or any writing but I found out later that it was ‘Rubber Soul’. I had it on 24/7 for years.
It’s still my favourite album of all time.
From the moment I heard it I knew I wanted to play music and sing.
School got wind of this and then forced me to stand in front of the whole school to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ every week…
Only my Grandfather was musical, but I can remember banging on pots and pans with spoons when my Mother was doing the washing up listening to the radio.
Started a “band” with a friend when I was about 9. I can still remember the words to one of the “songs” we wrote as we bounced up and down on our beds with our tennis racquet guitars and hair brush mics
Dad bought a really cheap guitar when I was 10. He started learning and so did I. A year or so later my mum bought me a “proper” guitar because she thought I had an aptitude - an Egmond Lucky 7. 1974. Cost
£20 with case. Still got the receipt. Wish I still had the guitar. Built my first guitar amp with my dad. And then a fuzz box.
Started a proper band with mates from school. First gig when I was 12. Played nearly every week at the local youth club. Not stopped since - in all kinds of bands and gigs!
I’ve recorded on anything I could find over the years. Parents’ reel-to-reel. Cassette player, two cassette players, commercial studios, band member’s 8-track reel to reel, 4-track cassette, PC… Love it.
KISS imitations in the back yard on the dog house. It was a big dog house. Jim always got to be Gene Simmons.
I had parents, uncles and aunts, cousins, people I didn’t even know always at the house pickin n grinnin. I couldn’t escape it! 
Same here - if you wanted to feel like a part of the family, you’d better be pickin’ somethin’ besides yer nose!
As the least professional one here, I’ll admit that I never sung into a mic until around 9 years ago when I was 44. Got roped into singing by a Filipino band in Dubai, became the standing guest singer. Started going to Filipino karaoke bars (the most judgemental places on earth, don’t go there if you cant sing, they take it real serious 
), then found out that wasn’t enough cos I had musical ideas buzzing around my head. Wrote my 1st song by singing the words into Beefy Steve’s mic aound 6 years ago. Bought n-Track shortly after when I heard Beefy’s recording, and got hooked. Play around with ‘n’ most nites, have a part-time band called ‘Banyaga’, and love this forum!
Cheers,
Ian
My Music Page
My father was a horn player, he and mom had a Record Store and a juke box route.
I wanted a drum kit. Dad surprised me with a guitar one birthday. Later local guys asked me to play in their band. Started writing right away.
My earliest memories are of my mom playing piano, and her and my dad singing silly songs to us kids. (Chickery chick chala chala, mairzy doats and dozy doats, etc.) My mom had wanted to go to music school in New York, but that didn’t fit in my grandparents budget, so it was nursing school instead. (She played violin and clarinet, but piano was her main instrument.) Though my dad played tuba in the band in high school, his singing voice was his best instrument. (I remember him singing at the wedding of one of my uncles.) My grandpa, Mom’s dad, played his acoustic guitar, boucing tracks back and forth between a couple of old reel to reel recorders he had back in the fifties and sixties. (Moon River is the only thing I remember of his recordings. Boy, I wish I had those tapes.) The fondest of all those early memories is of my mom playing piano by herself, watching and listening as she played “fairy music”. (That’s what I called it when I was very young. I never really cared for the style of piano playing she did at Church or on sing-along stuff with all the left hand chording.) Anyway, at 5 I asked my mom to teach me to play piano, but quit that after a couple of weeks or so. All I ever learned was how to play the C scale over and over with my right hand, but it has stuck with me all these years. My grandpa gave me an old Kay guitar when I was 13 or 14, with the strings seemingly a half inch off the neck. I figured out how to play the theme songs to Bonanza and High Chaparral, but gave up on that pretty quickly too. It wasn’t till I turned 20 and bought an Epiphone acoustic that I got serious about playing, spending hours a day learning whatever chords I could get my left hand to cooperate on. I must have a touch of ADD, because there were very few songs I ever really learned completely back then. I’d get fascinated with some new chord progression I picked up from whatever song I happened to be trying to learn, and end up heading off in my own direction with it. I tried a couple times to get some kind of band together, but we ended up spending more time getting stoned than actually trying to accomplish something musically. I my late 20’s, I got to playing and singing at church, and things kind of developed from there.
There was always a guitar around the house. Pop would sit around playing goofy tunes in the evenings. I took a hankering to it and he bought me a Mel Bay book. I was about 9 or 10 I guess.
Been fighting the guitar thang ever since…
Started recording BEFORE I could even mess with Pop’s guitar though. I got a little cassette recorder for Christmas or a birthday or something. Anything that made noise, I had to record and play it back over and over.
Been fighting the recording thang ever since…
Played in bands throughout high school. Classic rock and Southern Boogie/Rock. After graduation, the rest decided country music and bangin’ bars was what they wanted to do. We parted ways… I started playing in church about two years later.
Been ENJOYING the church music thang ever since!
Moved to a Tascam 788 Digital PortaStudio in 2000/2001. Found out you could export tracks to the computer. Found n-Track. COOL!
Moved up to an EMU1820M interface, Event TR8 monitors and various other “goodies” around 2003/2004. n-Track V4 post .NET started giving me ulcers. Bailed in V5. Found Reaper a couple/three years ago.
Been enjoying recording again ever since.
D
OK, raise yer hand if ya had a Mel Bay Chord Chart!
Why did I start?
Search the forum for WANK.
OK, raise yer hand if ya had a Mel Bay Chord Chart!
In the UK, it was the Bert Weedon Guitar Primer, with little dots showing where to put your fingers. Plus Ralph McTells, 'Learn to play guitar in 10 easy lessons(and 36 ****ing hard ones)
Guitar players will love this
What kind of guitar did Mel have? Hollow body jazz - right? but what make?
D'Angelico New Yorker for his rhythm
D’Angelico Excel for solo
http://www.myjazzhome.com/48_NY.shtml
http://www.usd.edu/smm…ar.html
Oh yeh. Cool.
i have always been more interesred in the TECHNICAL side of things - started way back when 1/4 inch tape recorders became generally available - more a “HOW did they do that” person -
M.R.