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Describe your first instrument


Lee Knight

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Describe your first instrument.

 

Mine was a Tiesco electric guitar. At the time, in the summer of 70, it wasn't cool. In fact it was almost unplayable. But it was cheap and I convinced my Mom that this was what I needed for her to get her even worse acoustic guitar back.

 

I didn't have an amp so I got an adapter at Radio Shack to plug my guitar into the 'aux in' of our cool Montgomery Ward 8 track Console Hi Fi. That sounded great when you cranked it for tube and speaker distortion.

 

Sorry about those speakers Dad.

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Describe your first instrument.


Mine was a Tiesco electric guitar. At the time, in the summer of 70, it wasn't cool. In fact it was almost unplayable. But it was cheap and I convinced my Mom that this was what I needed for her to get her even worse acoustic guitar back.


I didn't have an amp so I got an adapter at Radio Shack to plug my guitar into the 'aux in' of our cool Montgomery Ward 8 track Console Hi Fi. That sounded great when you cranked it for tube and speaker distortion.


Sorry about those speakers Dad.

 

 

Mine wasn't a Teisco. It was probably worse. I think it was supposed to be a Kingston...but I don't recall a name on the headstock. It was solid bright red with a black pickguard and one pickup. Sort of a pseudo-Strat like body, but not really. It had a non-adjustable bridge (except for height) and a sticker that said "steel-reinforced neck"...which I guess meant they had to "pre-warp" the neck HAHAHA...

 

I bugged my mom for a guitar, she said she'd "rent" me one if I took lessons...so I took two Mel Bay lessons at Quinlan's Music in Port Huron, Michigan. Enough to "rent" the guitar. She eventually bought it for me. I ran it through the PA input of an old Wollensak reel-to-reel tape recorder.

 

My next guitar was a black Crestwood Les Paul copy.

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My first instrument was an unknown upright piano that my folks were using more for furniture than as an instrument. I started piano lessons before my 4th birthday.

 

My second instrument was a nylon-string guitar that my Pop owned... again, since he didn't really play, I have no idea why it was in the house.

 

The first instrument that was all mine was a Matsumoto knock-off Les Paul. It was a wanna-be Black Beauty that I got in 1979, when I was about 10. I loved that damn guitar. :)

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Mine was a Washburn bass I got at the pawn shop for $100, along with a tiny Gorilla practice amp. They were both pretty much POSes, but within five weeks I was able to join a band. Kept the Washburn for a while before I picked up an Ibanez TR Series bass, that I actually still have but the neck is completely :freak: on it. The Gorilla got replaced by a Peavey TNT combo once I joined the band. This was all early '90s.

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used-guitars-silvertone-ampcase-1965.jpg

 

Got it in '64 at Sears for $79.

 

Still have it.

 

 

Edit: I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I blocked out the bad years. My first instrument was really a trumpet that I was forced to learn to play. I really didn't want any part of it. Then I was forced to take piano lessons. The first instrument I wanted was a guitar so I could be like Ricky Nelson ;-) It was a nylon string accoustic type with a neck like a baseball bat.

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A Bundy trumpet. It sits in my basement, in a case, in pieces.

 

2nd instrument? A Getzen Eterna Doc Severinsen model. Bought new by my parents, circa 1973-74. I still play it all the time. No dents/dings/major scratches, silver plate is 100% intact, valves are lightning fast.

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I got a guitar and a little amp. I guess I was about 13. It was horrible. I think it was made out of like balsa wood or something. If you rested your arm on the body while playing, you'd actually bend the neck joint enough to hear it change pitch a bit. It was also a pseudo-Strat type shape, but that's all I remember about it. The amp was some tiny thing I can't remember anything about; though, I'd kind of like to have it back now because you could overdrive it and get some really vintage grunge sounds out of it.

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A large upright player piano made in Boston in the late 1800's. It has no brand on it unless "Boston" is the brand. My uncle had it first and took out the player mechanics, ... and lost them somewhere. :(

 

Someday I will have it redone. It sounds great with those long strings and has lots of sliding doors to let the sound out.

 

The sad thing about it all, when I started piano lessons my mother bought a new piano and gave the old piano to my sister. The new piano is a crappy Wurlitzer with sticky keys. I hated that piano. My sister has since returned the old piano and does not want it. I have made it known that no one is to move that piano and I consider it mine.

 

Robert

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Starting plunking around on my mom's spinet before I was 3. She still has it, and it's still my favorite piano.

 

First guitar was some POS Yamaha acoustic. It's a miracle that I ever learned to play on that thing. Fortunately I only had it for a year, then my parents were finally convinced I was serious about guitar and bought me a decent one, an Ibanez which I actually still have.

 

Since I really dug the Ibanez acoustic, when it came time to buy an electric, I figured maybe an Ibanez would be good for that too. I forget the model, but it was a sunburst and in retrospect didn't sound bad and the build quality wasn't bad at all. But it was very neck heavy, and I never could get used to playing it standing up. I traded it for some Epiphone that did all right for gigging, but was kind of a piece of crap. I played it for a year or two till I could afford my first Les Paul, a '75 Black Beauty Custom. :thu:

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Another Teisco here. Probably Christmas of 68. Also got a small no name Amp with an 8" speaker and two knobs.

Next year, one of the guys wanted me to swap the Teisco - which had THREE pickups - with a guitar that his Dad had tucked away. Dad's guitar only had one pickup, but I said sure, since it said Fender on it:eek:

 

Yep, it was an 60's Esquire that I kept around till the d-i-v-o-r-c-e around 1980,

 

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I played an old upright piano that my parents had to move around (dad in military). It was an old bar piano, and weighed a TON. They had it until about 10 years ago when the movers said NO to moving it.

 

My first guitar was a Stradolin "Gibson Dove" copy - yeardsale version..

I was a VERY naive 7th grader and when I got my first mail order catalogue they had a real Gibson Dove in there listed for like $5k. I nearly had a heart-attack. It was actually a year or so before I realized I was a shmo.

 

My first electric was a Kay starter..candy apple red, 1 humbucker. and a small muscle amp. I remember being devestated that it didn't "sound" like an electric guitar when I got it home. (No OD/GAIN) eventually I bought an Ibanez Soundtank Classic Metal and Super Chorus and had my first GAS attack looking at the Catalogue.

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Mom had a Thomas organ, and my brother had a local-branded guitar. Additionally, an uncle gave us an old Zim-Gar guitar that, by the time I got it, had a neck bowed so badly it was essentially unplayable. Which sucked, because it was a cool guitar!

 

But MY first instrument was a pair of sticks, and a pad.

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First to put my hands on was parent's old Baldwin Acrosonic. Light action, low volume, dinky spinet popular with the 50s parents.

 

Second to put my hands on was standard issue clarinet for school band. Wanted to play trombone but they ran out and said, "cmon kid, play this instead. You'll love it!!" I hated it. I played well enough, but something about my sinuses and ears felt weird with the air pressure that you get with wind instruments, gave me headaches.

 

First all of my own was a Fender Jaguar combo organ. A Heathkit version that I put together (9th grader) - soldered all the components to 11 boards, ran the buss wires, tuned each board with a little special tool that came with the kit, all that stuff. I loved the thing - got a decent amp for it too, name's now forgotten. Very limited, sure, but I could play all the Doors stuff, Iron Butterfly, 96 Tears, Last Train to Clarksville, all that stuff.

 

Soon 'tho I wanted a Hammond/Leslie very badly - being a Steppenwolf/Booker T/Deep Purple "Hush" fan...so GAS appeared at a very young age, unfortunately.

 

nat whilk ii

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First all of my own was a Fender Jaguar combo organ. A Heathkit version that I put together (9th grader) - soldered all the components to 11 boards, ran the buss wires, tuned each board with a little special tool that came with the kit, all that stuff. I loved the thing - got a decent amp for it too, name's now forgotten. Very limited, sure, but I could play all the Doors stuff, Iron Butterfly, 96 Tears, Last Train to Clarksville, all that stuff.


 

 

That is so cool!

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I started playing on a Silvertone acoustic that I borrowed from a cousin who never learned to play. The neck was bowed and the action was so high that it would have taken vise grips to press down the strings anywhere past the fourth or fifth fret. I played it for a whole summer until I could convince my folks that I was going to stick with it. At that point my dad bought a used Strat and a Bassman head and cabinet from someone he worked with.

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Piano: Well, my first one was a little toy piano, but if you discount that, it was an old Kimball upright with Elmer's Glue to keep the hammers and felt from slipping off.

 

Guitar: A $75 Gemo guitar that never stayed in tune. The pick-ups came off, and I had to use masking tape to keep them on.

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Hello,

 

I'm new here and hope to get the most i can out of this forum as well as give something back. My first real instrument was a trumpet. My parents would always buy mini keyboards but i would just mess around. My trumpet was from a pawn shop. It was not in any good conditions; since i was young and did not appreciate my parents effort to buy the trumpet (at the time), i used to play baseball with rocks (with my friends). :freak:

 

When i got my first guitar it was the whole opposite, i was in love with it :love:

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My first instrument was a Stella Harmony acoustic guitar.

 

stellaharmonyguitar.jpg

 

The action was high and the tone was very tinny, but, what the heck, it was a guitar and I learned how to play it from an old Mel-Bay book.

 

At one point, the guitar fell over and broke the tuning knob for the G string. I had no idea how to fix it, so I just made sure I always carried around a pair of vise grips for when I had to tune up.

 

I played that guitar until my sophomore year in high school when I got my first electric, a Japanese Zim-Gar.

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Oooooh this is embarasing Ha!! Ha!!

 

First I played a rented Stella acoustic while taking my 1st lesson to see if I'd be interested ... Oh Yea I got bit ... here's my 1st GTR, a Harmony with a whammy bar.

 

Jeff, that Silvertone is way cool. They have one just like it in the Blue's Museum in Memphis.

 

181116GTRMan.JPG

 

 

Russ,

Nashville

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My first instrument was a rented alto sax.

Looking back now its amazing how I played it in the school band for several years and never really experimented with different instruments, mouthpieces and reed configurations. OTOH- When I got into blowing sax again in my old age I spent a great deal of time on those things.

 

First geetar was a Teisco sunburst. I had it from around 66-68. After that I got tthe Gretsch Nashville slimline that I still own and play.

 

That Teisco hung around in the attic for many years until it became sooo warped that it just had to be thrown out. I remember putting that axe in front of my Lafayette electronics solid state amplifier and actually feeding back some decent/sweet tones. Rock and Rooollll

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My first guitar was a POS Sears nylon string. The strings were about 6" off the fretboard, but I struggled with it and kept on going. Next, I got a cheap Japanese electric and a little Gibson amp. Don't remember what model it was but I wish I still had it, it was back in '65 that I got it.

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used-guitars-silvertone-ampcase-1965.jpg

Got it in '64 at Sears for $79.


Still have it.



Edit: I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I blocked out the bad years. My first instrument was really a trumpet that I was forced to learn to play. I really didn't want any part of it. Then I was forced to take piano lessons. The first instrument I wanted was a guitar so I could be like Ricky Nelson ;-) It was a nylon string accoustic type with a neck like a baseball bat.

 

I'll give you $89 for it right now.

 

I LOVE those...

 

 

 

 

Below is the most important part of my first guitar -- an $18 gut string model I bought (with some help from my old man) at the old White Front discount store in Anaheim, CA. My cousin, who was a guitarist in a popular bluegrass band (and had a beautiful old Martin -- well, it wasn't old at the time but it's old now) went with us and argued us up from the $13 model I'd had my eyes on. He said this one would be more "playable." He had a good imagination.

 

That was when I was 13 and I dutifully learned 6 chords (learning to tune was harder still) but could never seem to make it sound like music. I tried again when I was 20 and, with the help of my roomie at the time (now a successful soundtrack engineer) who loaned me his '62 Strat (this was the CS&N era and he was focused on his own D-28) and told me to plug it into something with headphones and close the door so he didn't have to hear it and then just play the two chords in the middle of Down by the River back and forth until it started sounding like music to me... it took maybe about 3 weeks of dutiful playing before something kind of dropped into place and I thought I heard something that sounded vaguely like music in what I was doing. After that, I had to go back to the $18 wonder but at least I had no compunctions about leaving it in the back of my old Karmann Ghia, taking it to the beach, and generally abusing it. I still have it, somewhere in the garage.

 

MyFirstGuitar-3.jpg

 

Of course, if I'd known the Silver Surfer #2 comic I X-acto knifed that logo off the cover of would now be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars (or whatever, every time someone tells me what it's worth it's gone up ridiculously), I MIGHT not have cut it up to put the Silvery One on my $18 Hong Kong guitar...

 

(Yes... Hong Kong... can you imagine what it would cost to build guitars in HK, now??? Probably about what you could get for a cherry condition Silver Surfer #2.)

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