Describe your first instrument

[rasputin1963]

Mine was an 1890 MATHUSHEK PARLOR GRAND, looking something like the one in the attached photo. MATHUSHEK pianos were manufactured by Steinway & Sons, New York. This piano really did have a great rich sound, from bass to highest treble. The ivories were all white and intact, all the strings and felts were extant and immaculate, and my folks always kept it in perfect tune. It indeed had big booming sound, not puny, flat or tinny like those waist-high piano jobbies.

 

 

Countless hours and days I spent at this thing, learning pop songs, Beatles tunes, C&W standards, showtunes, the idiotic pedagogies my piano teacher made me learn ("This is UP! This is DOWN! Let's go UP and DOWN!") , church hymns, the soundtrack to TOMMY, HAIR, WEST SIDE STORY and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR.

 

In a music magazine not too long ago, Keith Jarrett confessed he hated digital keyboards and only played an (acoustic) piano. He said that digital patches moved him emotionally not at all. While I myself wouldn't go THAT far, I must say that that the incredibly warm, natural, blended, human sound of this MATHUSHEK piano of my childhood and adolescence has been the standard by which I subconsciously judge all my musical pleasures.

 

When I was a small kid, my paternal grandfather had, in a spare closet, a ukelele and a quite nice Hohner Accordian. But, in the mid-1960's, those curious instruments just seemed like ancient, clunky relics to me, stuff you saw on LAWRENCE WELK. It was only later that I discovered, in American colleges of the 1920's and 30's, for a frat boy to play a ukelele was quite a p___y magnet. Who knew.

 

Geez, what is it with dads and trumpets? My dad made me play one in junior high. Why? Because HE had played one in school in the 1950's, and he told me that "real men" play the trumpet. I totally sucked at it, was always last chair. The band teacher said my lips were too fat for a trumpet and switched me to a YAMAHA concert tuba. It was a wise decision, instant love affair, and I took it to State and won first place.

 

Upon so many occasions have I tried to pick up the guitar... dobro and banjo, too. But I could just never develop those calluses. My fingertips just ached so badly, and so I eventually concluded that I would henceforth be only a piano man. Sigh... I guess I'll never be Prince.

[spokenward]

It was a Harmony Sovereign 1260 in 1969 from a shopping mall music (and a few records) store. If you mention it now people nod and say - "well you know that is the guitar that Jimmy Page used on "Stairway'."

 

At the time all ! knew was - "oh jeez look - there it is on the cover of R Dean Taylor's LP with Indiana Wants Me". I felt better when someone gave one to Mississippi John Hurt. I can still feel that place in my chest where a Jumbo would dig in.

[Ernest Buckley]

My pop picked up a 3 octave plastic electric organ at a flea market for $10. It took about 5 minutes to start the thing. Wish I still had it.

[Beck]

A very old Story & Clark upright piano that had belonged to my grandmother.

[DevilRaysFan]

My first instrument I got when I was a toddler: it was a drum that curiously had a picture of the Quaker Oats guy on it.......

 

 

.....(or was that a picture of Barbera Bush? I can't remember.....)

[pk1fan]

My first instrument was a one off from a little known luthier , my dad ! It had a flat piece of thin plywood about 4 inch wide about 16" long with a Nestle Quick box for a body taped together with black tape with fishing line for strings , no tuning keys , who needs those anyway when your 4 years old ! My first real guitar was a mid 60's Gibson 330 I paid $200 for in 1977 and sadly I traded off a couple years later:cry:.

[Hush]

My first instrument was a cheap Giannini nylon string guitar that I borrowed from my fathers girlfriend.

 

The first guitar that was all mine that I had to beg my father to get for me in 9th grade, was a used $35 dollar Sears Silvertone that looked something like this.

 

 

 

 

I some how cludged together an amplifier from a portable cassette deck. That lasted long enough for dad to take pitty and get me a Marlboro amp a few months later.

 

When I started taking lessons my guitar teacher helped me find a decent used Guild S-100. I sold the Silvertone, sold my comic book collection and finally had a decent instrument.

[tucktronix]

 

Started taking up saxophone in the 4th grade. Quit it after failing band in the 8th grade.

[Hard Truth]

My parents owned a crummy no-name late sixties 3/4 size acoustic guitar that I appropriated. The first one that was really mine was a solid body metal flake three pickup blue electric guitar with a wammy bar I bought for $28 from Sears in 1970. It was defintely not a Danelectro, probably made by Teisco or equivalent company. As I recall it was similar to the one posted by Hush a few posts before this one.

 

Finally I got something decent shortly after, a 1960s Hagstrom III three pickup solid body. It is pretty close to the one in the picture but mine is red.

 

These are still found in many pawnshops and other places with cheap relics, so it must have been pretty popular at one time. It didn't sound so great, but it was adequate and the neck was actually very nice. I still own it, but never use because it is so noisy. I had thoughts of reusing the neck for a homemade instrument but now the whole thing is starting to slowly splinter.

[philbo]

This is it:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-60s-Eminee-Toy-Guitar-Hootenanny_W0QQitemZ300142589517QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

 

I got it when I was 10, and played it (no, really, I did!) till I was 13, when I got my first electric - a Teiso Del Rey.

Using that plastic guitar, I learned about 85 Beatles songs.

[Karma1]

When I was pretty young, maybe 10 or so, I started guitar lessons. At the time I was fairly small so my guitar teacher started me off with a barritone ukelele. About a year later I got a Harmony nylon string guitar, which I still have. I recently pulled it out from my storage space and hung it on the wall of my studio. Sometimes I look at my racks of recording gear, synths, Strat, Tele, Les Paul, etc. and marvel that it all started with plunking out folk tunes on that funky little student guitar many years ago.

[jamsession]

1st grade Flutiphone. It was a white plastic recorder type instrument. Everyone had to get one for 1st grade music class. And everyone had to learn to read and play music. We also had to take French foreign language classes in that school. It was a very futuristic experimental school I went to back then. I think they had it right. After that was over, I found an alto sax under my parents bed. It was my fathers and he used to play in school and dance bands when he was a young man. I took that up and then later on piano lessons, then a $25 pawn shop electric Kay guitar with a warped neck, then my dad picked up some ludwigs for me, then an oboe, more drums, more guitars, keyboards ....

[nat whilk II]

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

 

I

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...

QUOTE]

 

Huh....I've got Silver Surfer #1 through about #5 sitting in a box somewhere. Maybe I should check out the going prices. Got some credit card debt to deal with and of course maybe a new vocal mic. First things first of course...

 

nat whilk ii

[monstermaker]

Kappa Continental guitar. Made locally by a music store owner. Also was my first monster job when I cut the top horn deeper and put a middle Strat pickup on then stripped and stained it. What fun.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Mine was an old hand me down ebony bodied Olds clarinet that had belonged to my dad back when he was in school. Which I fairly quickly lost interest in once I got a tenor sax... which I eventually lost interest in once I really started playing guitar, bass and piano...

 

I've toyed with getting a sax for a couple of years now, but I'd probably suck at it since I really have not played since my early 20's. But at one point, I wasn't half bad on it - I got lots of medals at HS / college jazz band competitions.

 

IIRC, my younger brother still has the Olds, but I don't think he plays anymore...

[Lee Flier]

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

 

Yep, that's exactly the one my mom had (and still has).

 

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.

 

Oh man I LOVE Vox Jaguars. Awesome sound. Too cool that you built yours yourself!

[timrocker]

An upright piano that my mom had forever. It was decent.

 

Guitar-wise, I asked for an electric for Christmas 1976. In Montana, then, that meant a 10th-owner Montgomery Wards POS. It had high action like torture. No sustain. Tone/intonation was just frightful. I played it anyway. Went through a series of slightly improving guitars. Eventually an SG and then a strat. Fender silverface amps. A couple of Marshalls. A couple of home made strats, using different aftermarket companies' parts. What a long strange and beautiful trip it's been.

[nat whilk II]

Yep, that's exactly the one my mom had (and still has). Oh man I LOVE Vox Jaguars. Awesome sound. Too cool that you built yours yourself!

 

Brainfart on my part - yes it was a Vox, not a Fender (electric guitar)....sheesh..overwork.

 

Here's a link to someone's tribute page: scroll down to see the Heathkit info.

 

http://combo-organ.com/Vox/Jaguar/index.htm

 

The guy on the site says 13 circuit boards...I don't why it would be more than 11 with divide-down osc circuitry, but to tell the truth, I don't directly remember. Maybe the walking bass section used the extra boards...

 

Shoulda held onto it....an old story.

 

nat whilk ii

[nice keetee]

Clarinet for six months,sing along w/radio, rubberbands on shoebox 'prolly first, and vocals like us all.

[rasputin1963]

Mine was an old hand me down ebony bodied Olds clarinet that had belonged to my dad back when he was in school. Which I fairly quickly lost interest in once I got a tenor sax... which I eventually lost interest in once I really started playing guitar, bass and piano... I've toyed with getting a sax for a couple of years now, but I'd probably suck at it since I really have not played since my early 20's. But at one point, I wasn't half bad on it - I got lots of medals at HS / college jazz band competitions. IIRC, my younger brother still has the Olds, but I don't think he plays anymore...

 

Wow, Phil... from your past, I say you pick the sax back up.... it it such a cool instrument. Especially the tenor. :phil:

 

 

What's ironic is, nowadays, the people who can masterfully play those "strange" or "discarded" or "slightly uncool" instruments of our youth--- clarinet, tuba, ukelele, dobro, accordian, etc.-- probably are always in big demand in LA, Nashville and NYC because of their very rarity.... Who is that well-known LA tubist who gets ALL the important tuba gigs nowadays?

[Lee Knight]

Since were talking our very first instrument, then me mentioning my Teisco wasn't accurate really... the first then was a tin whistle we purchased through school in 2nd grade. It was great. All the kids were stumbling trying to get to grips and I just starting making music.

 

I'm sure most of us here have an experience early on like that. What others find challenging we took to right off. That's why we're still talking about it now.

 

So the tin whistle, then borrowing my mom's crap acoustic, then fuzzing out the stereo with a Teisco then... transferring my new chord knowledge to our new/100 year old upright.

 

I remember hearing Mancini's Theme from Romeo and Juliet and working it out in multiple keys on the piano and thinking, "So if I play it starting on Am, it's really the same as starting it on Em only higher or lower, but the same."

 

Pianos are wonderful to have in the house for those kinds of childhood epiphanies.

[meccajay]

 

[Why?]

I was in the 7th grade I think. My buddy was a huge Rolling Stones fan and he gave me this old piece of crap acoustic guitar that someone had painted white with a paint brush. He wanted me to learn some Stones songs so we could start a band. I learned how to tune the guitar and I learned how to play the riff in "Satisfaction". I really liked playing guitar but I wanted a better instrument so my mom bought me a Harmony nylon string acoustic from Woolworths (I think it was $20 new)

[Gary Palmer]

My first instrument was a 3/4 size cello (school) which someone with a sense of humour had decided I could try playing after I'd apparently passed musical aptitiude tests aged 7. They'd apparently ran out of violins and I think my parents wished I'd been given a triangle instead. LOL it was bigger than me and sounded like hell in my grubby little hands, but I stuck with playing cello for almost ten yrs before moving onto guitar (An old Yamaha acoustic), drums (An inherited early '50's Pearl drum kit) and keyboard.

[Tedster]

What a stroll down memory lane this thread is!

 

Thanks, Lee! I remember names like "Eminee"...they also made toy chord organs (one note play and buttons for chords...not really unlike an accordion)...and Zim-Gar. Some of these really cheapo brands...but they launched a million rock and rollers.

 

Also kinda cool to see how many multi-instrumentalists there are here, and, sometimes we tend to forget just exactly what it is some of the others here play.