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Old 10-05-2008, 11:45 AM
random works random works is offline
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Default Who helped you get BACK into guitar?

About 8 years ago, I got rid of everything guitar and stopped playing for a year or so. When someone asks how long I've played, I don't subtract that year because it was so unusual. My wife said little to me about this ( wise woman) but came home one day with a very low end student guitar ( classical), you know the kind, had to tune one string with pliers until I got a set of tuners to put on it...I think she got it at the ocal Goodwill store. I played it off and on, then, wham, I really started playing that little student 3/4 size guitar. Several months later, unannounced, she presented me with a black Johnson dread. Well, it sounded like heaven compared to the 3/4 student guitar.
I got back in the groove and stayed there. I just wondered if anyone else totally quit and had someone else help?
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Old 10-05-2008, 01:31 PM
charlie45 charlie45 is offline
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Doyle Dykes video on the Taylor guitars website
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Old 10-05-2008, 01:57 PM
Howard Emerson Howard Emerson is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by random works View Post
About 8 years ago, I got rid of everything guitar and stopped playing for a year or so. When someone asks how long I've played, I don't subtract that year because it was so unusual. My wife said little to me about this ( wise woman) but came home one day with a very low end student guitar ( classical), you know the kind, had to tune one string with pliers until I got a set of tuners to put on it...I think she got it at the ocal Goodwill store. I played it off and on, then, wham, I really started playing that little student 3/4 size guitar. Several months later, unannounced, she presented me with a black Johnson dread. Well, it sounded like heaven compared to the 3/4 student guitar.
I got back in the groove and stayed there. I just wondered if anyone else totally quit and had someone else help?
Rand,
I totally stopped playing in the late 1980's for a few years while I was running my own business building bathrooms.

One day I decided to stop into the local music chain store to say hello to an old friend. He no longer worked in that store, but one of the newer managers knew me and my playing.

He was shocked that I hadn't played in years, and basically begged me to take part in a monthly program they had where they featured 'older' players doing free shows after store hours.

I told him I would think about it, but he persisted in calling me and eventually I acquiesced and said I would do it.

It took me about 3 weeks of playing a little every day before I was back up to speed, and the show went wonderfully! About 60 people showed up and it was a real wake up call to me.

No matter what's going on in my life, guitar is a part of it, sometimes more, sometimes less, but it's always there.

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Old 10-05-2008, 02:15 PM
zombywoof zombywoof is offline
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I stopped playing in the early 1980s cuz after 15 years of gigging somwhere along the way it had stopped being fun. Sold everything - acoustics, electrics, amps whatever but one old Tele which I kept for sentimental reasons and stashed it under the bed.

What got me back was in the early 1990s I used to do minor repairs and setups on the guitars that came into a friend's pawn shop before they went up for sale. One day he got in a 1976 Guild D-25. I went over to see what it needed. Took it home to do a few things on it and couldn't put it down. The owner let me have it for $200. Although I still had bandophobia, I started backing folk and blues singers and sitting in with bands. Never looked back.
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Old 10-05-2008, 02:28 PM
Andromeda Andromeda is offline
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I started playing when I was 18...I'll be 45 on the 22nd and I have never stopped playing. If you heard me play, that might not be a good thing.
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Old 10-05-2008, 02:46 PM
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Gutch Gutch is offline
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My Homeowners Association did it to me... Honest!

I had quit playing in 1985 after meeting my wife a year earlier. The band was going nowhere in its current state, and I was tired of the standard band issues so it was a fairly easy decision to make. Sold all the gear and never looked back.

My wife & I were married a couple years later and the "Real World" took over. I was transferred from Chicago to Cincinnati in '92, and decided at that time to pursue Ham Radio as a hobby. Set up a shack in the basement, had a minor antenna farm in the backyard, and spent my Saturday nights lulling my newborn son to sleep with the melodious tones of Radio teletype (RTTY) or trying to chase down rare countries.

Well, we were transferred back to Chicago late in '97 and bought a house in a development that didn't allow any outside antennas. This can be a major problem for a Ham Radio operator, antennas are an integral component of a successful radio system. I tried a couple alternatives with little success. It was time to find a new hobby...

About the same time, I discovered a fledgling new service on the internet called... eBay! This was back in the day when you could sell stuff at a minimal expense, and also find some good bargains. So, the radio gear was all sold off and I picked up a red Silvertone acoustic from Fred's Music in Pennsylvania. It was great to get back into playing! The added bonus was chasing bargains on eBay -- Double fun!!!

Ten years later, I'm back into gigging on my own, writing and recording, and I haven't looked back once. I do keep a morse code key on top of one of my studio monitors as a reminder of my radio days...
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Old 10-05-2008, 03:06 PM
TjthePhD TjthePhD is offline
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I started playing (electric) in high school in 1981. I never really stopped playing altogether, but I would say from 1985 to 1997 I did nothing serious other than an occasional bit of noodling. I even gave away my amp to a fellow graduate student, though I kept my 1981 Epiphone Sheraton.

Around 1997 or so, a friend who was a much better and more serious player would occasionally pick my Epiphone up and noodle on it when he visited, and that gave me a drive to play again. So, with his advice, I bought my first acoustic guitar. We progressed from informal blues jamming to open mikes, and from there to new electric and bass guitars and two performing bands in Washington DC (one of them named "Lust Puppy") ... which is a good way to mess up a friendship. Fortunately, I bowed out of playing in public (I'm basically an introvert), our friendship was largely repaired, and I moved away to follow jobs.

Since then, I have completely gotten away from playing the electric - in fact, I don't even own one, and have no desire to. I prefer using my limited practice time on the acoustic guitar. Occasionally I wish I had an electric if only because there is so much you can do with one, but when those urges strike, I just convert a favorite electric tune to acoustic, and that drives it away.
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Old 10-05-2008, 04:04 PM
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Bill Cory Bill Cory is offline
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After a bad experience with a Pastor, I quit worship leading, sold my guitars, and quit paying for 12 years. Dumb of me, but it's in the past.

What brought me back? My son's interest in music. Now he's 'way better than I ever was as a singer, but has zero interest in guitar.

Gee, you can raise 'em right and they still go astray!

Bill
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Old 10-05-2008, 04:34 PM
catdaddy catdaddy is offline
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The person who got me back into playing is my wife of 35 years.

About seven years ago I had pretty much stopped playing guitar. For several years I operated an independent project studio and I was spending all of my "music time" working as a producer/engineer for local artists doing demos and regional releases.

Then in 2001 my wife and I decided we'd had enough of the urban environment, bought some land on a small lake in central Florida and moved to our new rural homestead. Most of our time was taken up with clearing land and working on building a new home on our property. One evening as we were preparing dinner she asked me if I was ever going to play guitar again. I said I wasn't sure. She told me she really missed hearing me play and asked if I would just give it a try. Well seven years and six new guitars later I'm back into playing and enjoying it like never before!! Boy do I owe her

What kind of woman is my wife? I shoulda known when I first saw this picture of her in her family album!!

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Old 10-05-2008, 04:54 PM
Ken C Ken C is offline
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This seems like a personal question...and I have a personal answer.

I played guitar from about 1949 until 1986 and sort of "gave it up." I put all musical instruments away and thought nothing else about them.

Occasionally, my wire would ask me to get one out and play for her, and to my shame, I always had a reason why that was not a good idea.

Then on a model airplane newsgroup, I was telling the different ways to use guitar strings in scale model building. Someone said that if I knew that much about guitar strings, I ought to go to rec.music.maker.guitar.acoustic newsgroup.

I did and basically those guys got me to dig out the guitars and start playing again. I blame them for creating the monstor I have become.

And they caused me to realize why I had quit playing. I did not do it on purpose -- but I lost my son in a motorcycle accident in June of 1986...and I put all the music away.

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Old 10-05-2008, 05:20 PM
ewalling ewalling is offline
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Like some others, it was my wife. After a hiatus of around six years I began playing again in 2005 when my wife insisted I play something for her. With great reluctance I did so. The next day I picked up the guitar again, and that was it; I've barely gone a day without playing since.
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Old 10-05-2008, 06:21 PM
yammieplaya yammieplaya is offline
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Well I had never really played - a few lessons
as a kid and then an occasional week or two
of learning a song or two. But my fingers would
hurt and I'd lose interest.
In 1992 my brother bought a new Gibson J-45.
He never played it and would lend it to me for
a few weeks at a time when I'd visit. About 3 years
ago he gave it to me. I didn't play it for about
a year, until I started watching YouTube.
I bought a webcam, opened a channel and started
making videos. I had thought to make mostly talk videos
with occasional cover songs, but it turned out to be a lot
easier to play a song then to think of and remember
5 minutes worth of stuff to say. So I played everyday
and learned about 100 songs and made videos of me playing
and singing them.
So it was my brother and YouTube that got me to finally
start playing regularly after wanting to all my life.
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Old 10-05-2008, 06:46 PM
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I had an industrial accident where an incompetent electrician managed to jam 277-volt 3-phase through my arms and shoulders. There was some temporary loss of large-motor control, but I kept all small-motor control, and there's still constant pain(but you can get used to that).

Made me realise that the function could stop any time, and I should start enjoying it while I could. So I stopped being afraid, took voice lessons, and stopped watching teevee - it's amazing how much time you have for hobbies when you cut out TV.

Now playing music is an integral part of what goes on around here, and I like it that way.
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Old 10-05-2008, 07:11 PM
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Interesting question, and some interesting responses.
My story is like a lot of other "boomers" out there.
I played when I was a kid, and gave it up completely back in 1973.
Took a short 30 year break.

I had been thinking about it and told my wife more than once if I could ever find a good acoustic that I could play anything on, I wouldn't mind taking it back up again. One night at a local street festival, I hear this music. Go check it out. And here are two guys with acoustics, guitar and bass, playing some of the best music I have heard in years. Their sound is actually heavily processed, but still an acoustic guitar. I watched and listened, and bought one of their CD's. They DO make acoustics you can play anything on.

So for a 50th birthday present to me, I bought me a new Taylor acoustic.
That was 2003. And the rest has been quite the journey. Trying to make up for 30 lost years of music. Not knowing ANY of the great players that people I met talked about, or anything about acoustic guitars.

Been real expensive too.
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Old 10-05-2008, 07:13 PM
macfawlty macfawlty is offline
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My break was around 25 years between. It was my daughter taking me to a music store to rent a flute. They had guitars. I got GAS bad. It just took the one visit. Surprising I hadn't been in a guitar store in all that time.
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