What made you decide that acoustic guitar was the instrument for you?

[Bitt81]

Just want to point out, there's nothing at all wrong with this. There are thousands of truly timeless songs with no more than three chords. BTW, Bob Dylan just won a Pulitzer Prize for Special Consideration in Music.

Oh absolutely! In fact, I am working on Tomorrow is a Long Time...G-C-D To add more to my story, I met a client a few years ago that had about 15 guitars displayed in his family room. We became friends and I actually started to meet him on lunch hours to take some lessons and expand on what I had been playing for so many years. I guess that is when I actually became passionate about playing guitar and specifically acoustic. I have learned so much in the last few years including some finger style stuff.

[Queequeg]

it cracks me up that whenever the three chord repertoire rears its ugly head around here, Dylan's name is invoked.

I wonder if it pisses him off that he is the poster child for the three chord song.

not that there's anything wrong with it.

[Terry Allan Hall]

It's been so long ago (41 years, come September) that I really don't recall when this particular epiphany occurred...I can't recall ever not being into the acoustic guitar.

Call it an obsession...

[Terry Allan Hall]

it cracks me up that whenever the three chord repertoire rears its ugly head around here, Dylan's name is invoked. I wonder if it pisses him off that he is the poster child for the three chord song. not that there's anything wrong with it.

 

 

Country music is three chords and the truth.

 

-- Harlan Howard, the Dean of Nashville Songwriters

[Mike_C]

I always wanted to play piano, but didn't have one. When I was small, I was hypnotized by impressionism - I wanted to play Debussy's preludes more than almost anything. Alas, no piano. There was a crappy old guitar lying around the house, though, and I could apply it (I thought) to interpretations of piano music. I slugged and slugged on that crappy old instrument. I started as a straight classical player, maybe for three or four years, memorizing the fretboard and drilling sight reading in... there wasn't much tab around, and I remember wanting to lean Steve Howe's "The Clap" really badly... there was only standard notation, so I slugged it out. I joined a band as a teenager, it was experimental, I played exclusively with fingerpicks and retuned between open D, open G, dropped D and standard during our shows - it must have been beyond sucky for the audience to have to put up with. I started hanging out with Juliard kids, kids who were applying to go there, I was trying to find anything worth playing... I remember Genesis "Horizons", Spanish Dance "Oriental", "Sounds of Bells"... I found ragtime... that ate about four years, memorizing "The Entertainer", "Hot Dogs", the Rev. Gary Davis instrumental stuff, then of course "Quah" by Jorma, which changed my life... never could sing, never wanted to. Honestly, I still can't sit through 'strum sing' songwriters (although I love Nick Drake) because it bores me to tears to hear the same static chord inversions over and over and over again... I remember playing my first solo show in 1987. I'd been playing for about five years by then, but didn't want to play publicly solo unless I had something really good, different, just having a standard that I had to meet. I got encored and consequently offered a job. Of course, playing countless shows since then, some nights are great, some nights truly suck ass. Hell, some nights nobody's even paying attention. In all this time I notated everything. I have hundreds of pages of fingered standard notation, always using a pen and paper - I still don't use software, but should soon, since it takes awhile to write everything out. After all this time, I can start to organize everything - A suite in D, a suite e minor, three songs without words, three concert solos, etc. I need to publish some of it, maybe send it S. Rekas at Mel Bay. Hmmm...

Within the last three years I got hired to play in a rock cover band, but quit the band after one rehearsal. They just wanted to play the same old tired crappy rock songs that everybody grew up with in the 70's and 80's, as if the world really needs more of that. It's not worth the money or time. Only been recording, two new CDs this year, loads of session work, a solo album in production. Sometimes it would be nice to concertize again, but it would have to be at a tea house or similar vibe, maybe a lounge. The acoustic guitar is so damn anachronistic - unless you play super fast or very loud and blues heavy, it can get lost. And it's too tiring to play super fast for longer than a three minute stretch, not to mention kind of boring to listen to.

It's funny, I think, how some music becomes so signatory as time goes on. Stephan Grossman's "The way She Walks" and "Bermuda Triangle Exit" are two I learned pretty early on, and I still remember them, but they're probably very far from the notation. I played "Embryonic Journey" for years in open D before learning it was in dropped D (I still play it, but now it has tags and improvised sections and harmonics all over the place). There is real investment of spirit to be made with a piece of music, to decide to marry it and settle down - it's something that most non-musicians (probably) don't understand.

I'm always amazed at how much music is out there nowadays, remembering the same four or five public domain classical books I fought with. Fingerstyle, nowadays, is everywhere... books and books - with CD's no less! - that I would have murdered somebody for as a teenager. You can buy instructional DVD's with no transport time and multiple angles. And you can get a guitar that stays in tune for almost nothing nowadays! CNC has its merits.

Lastly, it amazes me that after all this time the instrument still guiles me. I study how to use a harmonic minor over a dominant 5, and it's like I'm a kid again. I hear Sergio Assad's "Aquarelle", and I'm still floored by the beauty. I'm selling off guitars now, just keeping the Martin I had built for me over 20 years ago, a Taylor GSMC, and my classical. nothing more is necessary - it's the fretboard itself, the strings and the smell of cedar. After practicing this thing every day for anywhere from two to ten hours, it still confounds. There's still major blues to be tackled, swing, three-note-per-string scales, tapping... it never ends. Just a good instrument, a cup of sencha, and someone to share it with. Damn if this instrument didn't eclipse my thoughts, guide my life, dictate my career. Sort of a gentle curse in a way, a curse because it can never ever be changed. Having so many artists as friends, going from desperately broke to flush with money and back again, remembering the good and bad and strange, always seeing 'proper' and 'normal' from a distance. Not a bad curse though... that's a tough one. Sometimes I wonder how different everything would have been if I had a piano as a kid.

Great thread, by the way. I love reading everyone's stories.

[kwakatak]

Well, it isn't the "only" instrument for me, but it's become the primary one when I moved in with my girlfriend who frowned upon the noise levels and general clutter factor of the electric. That was OK with me because I'd always thought the acoustic was easier to just pick up and play without fiddling with all those damned knobs and pedals. Eventually I learned that an acoustic can play almost as easily as an electric too if it's set up properly.

[pawsable]

Great thread! I enjoyed reading how you all got started.

I have always loved the sound of an acoustic guitar. It's what has made me want to play one all these years. Back in the early 70's I tried to learn on my own (anyone remember Roy Clark's Big Note Guitar Book). Really didn't have the focus or money for lessons so I didn't get very far.

Tried again in the 80's when I found a used guitar in a yard sale (cheap). Still lacked focus & funds and was busy raising kids and earning a living.

Last year (September) I needed something to do while my teenager was at art school. To far to go home for 2 hours and shopping got real old. It was then I decided to take music lessons. I traded that old beater guitar in on a Seagull S6 and am still taking lessons every Thursday night. I'm having so much fun.

[triumphant_gleam]

Great thread, by the way. I love reading everyone's stories.

I second that!

I'm a fairly recent convert to the acoustic guitar. I played in various metal and rock bands from my teens onwards (I'm 27 now) but I think I just got fed up of relying on other people (especially {censored}in drummers! ). This time last year I sold a couple of Floyd Rose equipped shred axes to fund a Martin 000-15, got a couple of the Stefan Grossman DVDs and set about trying to learn some country blues. I'm still not particularly great at it but at least I can strum a few Maiden and Manowar songs at parties until I'm ready to bust out the Mississippi John Hurt tunes

Also, I've developed a major hardon for Neil Young's acoustic stuff in recent months, so much so that I'm considering splashing out on a D-28!

[panhandler]

It's been so long ago (37 years, come September) that I really don't recall when this particular epiphany occurred...I can't recall ever not being into the acoustic guitar.

+1
I changed the years to protect the guilty!

My beginings had something to do with a Cat Stevens song and Beatles Norweigen woods. That's about all I can remember. It was the 70's after all... and to be honest... the whole damn decade was a blur!

[Freeman Keller]

You all have seen the two pictures of me at the Annex so I won't repost them. Sufficient to say I'm still not sure it the the instrument for me. Bag pipes maybe.

[8 Finger Jeff]

I got interested in guitar back in the early 70's as a kid. I have this crazy uncle, who ended up a little more crazy when he got back from Vietnam. He lived in his old van and would show-up at our house for a week or two and live in our driveway. He would sit out there with some rum and play bluegrass and folk music on his beat up old Martin, tell me stories and in general be a bad influence (as a good uncle should be). I lived with my mom and a step-father in southern Maryland at the time and it was not a nice place - those visits from my uncle and seeing him drive off in his van made me realize there was a way out of there. I gave up on guitar for several years after mine was smashed by a step-father but eventually started again.

 

Thinking about it, I have to laugh because I became a black sheep in the family just like my uncle did. I traveled all over the states after getting out of the military just like he did. I stopped wandering and settled in Seattle 20 yrs ago. A few years later I found out my Uncle who I had not seen in years lived in Washington on the Olympic Peninsula not far from Seattle. - We now get together once a month or so when I can get out to the coast. We sit around playing our Martin guitars (he still has that same guitar), drinking rum, and telling stories on his boat.

[totamus]

I could write a long story. Ill try to be short. While hitchhiking around the country in 1972, I wound up in the keys living on the beach in with some other travelers. Had agreat time. Some of the guys played guitar. We would sing, contemplate various types of herb and discuss the merits of free love.

 

The next year I got into Cat Stevens and Neil Young. "Needle and the Damage Done" hit me to the core of my soul - I had to learn it. Joined the Air Force, bought a guitar, and became a closet picker. Later became a garage band Blues Player.

 

Now I play the acoustic pretty much exclusively. I have more time and emotion invested in my Martin than I care to admit. Now I play in a group, and do solo coffeehouse gigs.

 

Acoustic guitars have soul and feeling. Electric guitars have sex and drive.

 

I still play "Needle and the Damage Done"

[triumphant_gleam]

"Needle and the Damage Done" hit me to the core of my soul - I had to learn it.

 

 

Amen to that. Especially cos it's relevant to some guys I went to school with.

[Hudman]

I started off playing electric guitar when I was 15. I got tired of messing with effects and amps so I started playing more acoustic guitar. Eventually I reached a point were I realized that I prefer playing acoustic guitar more. I sold all of my electric gear and have no regrets.

[Arizona Ken]

Started with an old nylon string beater - it was cheap and easy to play. I started about '64 or '65, and played Beatles and folk music; the first song I learned was "Blowin in the Wind". There were 4 of us learning guitar at the same time and every time we got together, one of us had learned a new song and an additional chord, and taught the others. I had a little leg up on the other guys as I had music lessons for 5 years (piano accordion - hey I'm Polish and had to learn all those Polkas for the folks!)

Got a Harmony 12 string in 1967 (it's retired now 'cause it needs some work on the tuners) and learned to finger pick on it (!) Played in college for mass on Sundays (they called it Guitar Mass back in the 60's and early 70's and you could write your own music).

Sang through high school and college in choruses and glee clubs, and did a little bit of Community Theater in the late 70's. The guitar went through phases of being ignored for a year or so at a time, until the late 80's when I got my Martin.

Played the Martin, mainly for myself and friends until about 5 years ago, when I got together with a couple of friends and formed a hobby band. We started as acoustic only and then one of the guys started adding his electronic keyboards. Got another friend as a bass player, and that started me on the electric side (which I enjoy very much).

Our little group disbanded about two years ago,and I mess around with both electric and acoustic now; I want to get into jazz, old standards, rock and roll, a little folk music; whatever strikes my fancy.

I feel that the acoustic side is a little more personal and open to an audience, and is better understood by the audience. Often on the electric side people don't understand how you get those sounds (I don't always understand either), but on the acoustic side, it is pretty obvious; I think acoustic is more difficult because there's less room for the performer to hide.

Because of my years playing acoustic, it is the instrument I pick up when I want to figure out a song; later I'll go to the electric guitar if that is what is needed for the final sound.

Arizona Ken

[brahmz118]

Enrolled in grad school for music therapy as a piano player. The program director said I would need to develop some guitar skills in order to meet graduation and certification requirements.

Back then I was a purist who wouldn't even consider buying an electric / electronic instrument. I've since switched to digital pianos. But I stuck with acoustic guitar.

[Muddslide]

I think I just got fed up of relying on other people (especially {censored}in drummers! )

Oh man. I hear you. I hate to slam drummers because I know many great people who are great drummers, but in band situations it's been my experience that they are the weak link.

Is there something genetic that makes them come with severe emotional baggage or psychosis or makes them prone to mental breakdowns?

The other issue (to derail the thread further into drummer whining territory) is that finding a good drummer who doesn't want to play real busily is so damned hard.

Also, they seem to either:

A- be a good drummer, but their equipment is in pawn or in pieces or they are lacking some essential equipment, or

B- they're a good drummer with a good, complete kit, but they are already playing in 4 other bands.

Sheesh.

[Verence]

I haven't really decided it's THE instrument for me, but currently it's the instrument that I suck the least at.

[nylon rock]

I'm "old" yet I never owned a steel string acoustic until three years ago. So I learned how to play many years ago on nylon strings and electric guitars and was in a band for a few years which really cemented my playing.

I just got tired of the electronic aspects and the sound reproduction of amps.

With an acoustic you just pick it up, it's usually in tune, and you play. No hassles. The mood that you were in, or the ease of staying in that mood since you have almost zero impediments, that prompted you to play at that instance, is maintained.

Not to mention that I'm sort of addicted to guitar, a junkie so to speak. I have to play.