sun 29 mar 09

[ElaineDiMasi]

So, for years I defiantly stated that I will never learn to play a guitar. Why should I? I'll always suck. If I practice my other stuff, maybe good guitarists will hang out with me. That's it. And yes, there's a couple "borrowed" fenders in my basement, but those are just for my friends to play when they're here without their gear.

Then, well, a couple weeks ago I bought a guitar for myself. It's a Rodriguez classical guitar and it's so pretty I've even been practicing. My first ever guitar.

QotD: what's the first instrument you bought yourself? What's the first instrument you bought yourself that you practiced? That you didn't ever practice?

[Steve Durand]

QOTD: The first instrument that I bought for myself was my Rhodes Seventy Three electric piano in 1978. I've practiced it off and on over the years. The instrument that I bought for myself that I didn't practice was a Takamine acoustic guitar

[Billy's Little Trip]

The instrument that I bought for myself that I didn't practice was a Takamine acoustic guitar

One of the best acoustic guitars I've ever played is my bass players Takamine. I've played some of the most famous guitar names in the world, but his $1,600 Takamine is the most precision, most beautiful sounding guitar I've ever played. He knows how much I love it, so he put it in his will for me. Now to figure out how to kill him without getting caught. 8)

QOTD: I bought my first real six string, down at the five and dime. I played till my fingers bled, that was the summer of 75.
Bought it for $5 at Clark's Drugs. It was some no name brand and I'd go there almost everyday with my friends on the way home from school to get an ice cream cone (German Chocolate Cake). I'd play it every time we were there. I didn't know how to play, but I'd play these one string jams that my friends thought rocked. One day I went about my routine and notice that the guitar was broken. Some dill hole dropped it and the top of the headstock was broken. I knew my way around wood, so I went to the manager and ask him for some wood glue and I'd fix it. He told me they can't sell it in it's condition. I asked if I could have it, he said I could for $5 bux. I borrowed the money from my friends and took it home where I could nurse it back to health. It would be about a year before I ever got an amp to plug it into. By then I learned how to tune it and knew a bunch of great song "intros", lol. I was the master of the intro.
*in my best Cassandra voice from Wayne's World* It was a tobacco sunburst Fender Stratocaster style with triple single coil pickups and a whammy bahh.

You know, thinking back to my self teaching. When I was learning how to play guitar, I played by ear as most of us started, but I didn't go after the guitar parts, I mimicked the vocal melody when trying to play a song on my guitar. It wasn't until I learned bar chords that I'd start learning the rhythm guitar parts of a song.

[jast]

QotD: I bought an Ibanez steel string acoustic guitar for what's probably about $200, in late 2007 (I think). I'm undecided on whether I ever practiced on it. My practicing, if you can call it that, involves making up things I can barely play and then playing them a lot. Typically when I'm finished I submit the result for a Song Fight (though most songs I submitted were too rushed to allow for any amount of practicing). I learned strumming and basic fingerpicking of chords years before I bought that guitar; I've had a custom series classical guitar since about 2001 and I used my dad's cheaper classical guitar before that (and a 3/4 size and even cheaper classical guitar before that).
So if that's practicing, I have never bought an instrument that I haven't practiced on. I'm pretty sure I won't ever buy instruments that I'm not going to use and to a certain extent, I believe that using instruments is equivalent to practicing them.

[JonPorobil]

First instrument I ever bought for myself, with my own money, was a harmonica. Hohner Bluesband G. $20. Woot.

I practice all my instruments with varying degrees of frequency.

[Märk]

First *new* instrument I bought myself (as opposed to the countless pawnshop "specials") was a Yamaha nylon string classical guitar. This was, oddly enough, while I was learning fingerstyle, so yes, I practiced on it a lot. First new instrument I owned was bought for me when I was about 14, it was a cheapo black superstrat style which was actually kind of cool, except you could flex the neck like an inch. I don't think there was even a truss rod in that thing. I learned Smoke on the Water and Iron Man on it, then sold it to a friend from school and used the money to buy a used Series A strat copy which was actually a pretty good guitar.

Thinking back, while I was in the music store looking at that Series A, there was a late 70s Les Paul Junior for like 200 bucks, I even tried it out, but it wasn't "metal" enough for what I was interested in... god damn, I wish I'd bought it instead.

[ujnhunter]

QotD: Samick Bass Guitar... I have never practiced. I don't know how to "play" any of my instruments... I only know enough to record them... I love the trickery of recording.

[HeuristicsInc]

the first instrument i bought was this roland juno-106 (yeah, that's very different from most answers in this thread!).
a while later i bought a yamaha acoustic guitar, but i don't play that much so i guess that's the one i don't practice. i like having it for when its sounds are necessary but wow does it need new strings.
-bill

[roymond]

QotD: The first instrument I bought was a steel string guitar in 1969, which is now in my barn in VT. I don't know what make it is. I practiced on a lot for a few years, then bought a Carlo Robelli Les-Paul knock-off in 1973(?), which I played until I got a Gibson SG in 1976(?).

[Spud]

PAIA 2700 synth kit. I practiced it a lot. However, practice mostly consisted of figuring out how to make it make various noises.

[nyjm]

ooooh, instrument stories.

The first instrument that I owned outright was a clarinet. I was in marching band for all of middle school and freshman year of high school. But the HS band director was a dick, so I quit - and my mom bought me an acoustic guitar. Some random Czechoslovakian thing that she found at a pawn shop and got ok'd by my youth minister at church - which was cool, he knew his way around guitars. It had an action from hell, but it was great to learn to play on because now I can make any kind of chord on any kind of instrument. I bought my most recent electric because of its high action. You can hear that guitar on a few of my Songfight submissions, but most of them are either a Yamah that I picked while I was in France or my current Oscar-Schmidt.

QotD: Some cheap ($200 with 18" amp) Fender knock-off with a whammy bar at the local pawn. I was 18 with my first real job, so I finally had the money to blow. It was white and shiny and I could crank up the gain and wail away to make silly noise rock. But it fell out of tune about every 45 seconds and when I moved into the dorms in the Fall I almost never played it. I bought a 12-string that same summer. It was really nice, but a bitch to tune. I didn't play it too much, either. I kinda went guitar crazy that year - ended up with the electric, the 12-string, my old Czech and 1 or 2 other random acoustics. I ended pawning everything but the Czech guitar at the end of the year. Got jack because that's what they were worth.

I actually played my first guitar into the ground - I wore down the frets to almost nothing in some places. Before we moved to Atlanta, I gave it to the local Salvation Army store. Hopefully someone out there picked up a nice-sounding guit for a song, gave it some love and it's still playing.

[ElaineDiMasi]

the first instrument i bought was this roland juno-106 (yeah, that's very different from most answers in this thread!).

Oddly enough I think this is my answer too. My parents bought me my high school used woodwinds. I got a cheap casio keyboard in college but it didn't seem real, and I think I gave it to a cousin. I got bitten by the mutli-tracking bug when I was in grad school, thanks to my younger brother and his 4-track, so I went to the classifieds and found a tascam 488 tape recorder and a ten year old juno-106. My first real equipment bought with money from a real job. The juno is no longer playable, I gave up on it a year ago, but it's a beloved decoration in my living room.

[Ross]

Here.

5 days till spring break.

QOTD: I think the right answer is my Fender Telecaster. My parents supported music well throughout early life, purchasing the French horn that was my entree to music. and Purchasing my first guitar as a combo x-mas/birthday gift (a hondo les paul style thing). In 1984 or so Fender ran a thing called "The Fender Deal" a tele or strat with which you received either a little practice amp or an acoustic guitar. I wanted the tele (Billy Squier played one) and my buddy needed an acoustic - so we went in together. I think I got the tele for about $199 in the end. It is a standard american made tele - I love it!

[HeuristicsInc]

I got bitten by the mutli-tracking bug when I was in grad school, thanks to my younger brother and his 4-track, so I went to the classifieds and found a tascam 488 tape recorder and a ten year old juno-106. My first real equipment bought with money from a real job. The juno is no longer playable, I gave up on it a year ago, but it's a beloved decoration in my living room.

Well, cool that we have the same answer. Mine still works, I use it especially when doing improvs but not as much with SF works. I got mine in... let's see... college, year 1994-95 sometime. At that time I was recording onto reel-to-reel
I had played trumpet in 8th grade but that was a rental.
-bill

[Teplin]

Attempts to sign me up for lessons (accordion and piano) were ill fated and didn't last long, because I was far more interested in making noise. I was very interested in musical instruments, though, particularly a green plastic sesame st. harmonica that I'd record myself playing on one of those huge 80's cassette recorders. My version of "practicing" is just screwing around with an instrument until I get sounds I like out of it, and that's how I teach myself to play everything.

The first instrument I bought for myself, I was maybe 12 or 13, was a software synth for my Amiga 500 called Aegis Sonix. It was AWESOME.

The instrument around here that gets the least use is a cheap, broken cello I got as a gift. I just don't connect with it, so I haven't put in the time screwing around with it. I can't make much music with it, but it can make some pretty terrific noise.

[Billy's Little Trip]

It is a standard american made tele - I love it!

So you still have it? That's awesome. I've never been a fender guy, but I loved my Telly. Such a great tone, plus you can do the cool pinky trick on the volume knob.

[Ross]

It is a standard american made tele - I love it!

So you still have it? That's awesome. I've never been a fender guy, but I loved my Telly. Such a great tone, plus you can do the cool pinky trick on the volume knob.

Yep - it's my go to electric.

[irwin]

First instrument I ever owned was a cheapo electric guitar I got for christmas one year. I took lessons for a few months, but I wasn't so into the whole practicing thing, so I shelved that for a number of years before picking it back up again in college.

First one I bought with my own hard-earned money was a Casio CZ3000. Almost a year of saving paper route money to buy it. I still have it, too. Turns up now and then on a Songfight! submission. It's the boopy tick-tock noise in Kasper's Green 11 and also the "droopy Megaman solo" and pad in The Narcoloungers' Wedding Song.

[JonPorobil]

Hm. That actually reminds me that my answer was wrong.

I paid for my first keyboard with my bar mitzvah money. Casio CTK-520, $200. It has supplied the majority of instrument tones in my Songfight songs throughout the years -- It's the "piano" tone in all but three of my Songfight entries that have piano, it's the "drums" on most of my tracks from from "Level Best" through "Elegy for Industry," and the "bass" on pretty much everything from "Bad Attraction" through "Stairway to the Moon." It was the fake Rhodes in the IRC All Stars' "Need Stilts." It was almost all the synths in Biggie Shite's "Need Stilts" as well.

Not to mention a ton of live gigs with my band in college.

I'm aware that it's a crappy little keyboard, and it's seen better days, for sure, but when I think about how much mileage I've managed to get from it, I can't help but feel it's one of the best purchases of my life.

[fluffy]

I don't remember if my first instrument purchase was the $75 crappy pawnshop acoustic guitar or the $480 (at the time) SIDstation. I think overall I got more benefit from the pawnshop guitar.

(I'd had many other instruments purchased FOR me before that, but those are definitely the first two I paid for with my money.)