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What Was Your First Musical Instrument?
- Thread starter Bassquest
- Start date
Oddly, I was completely useless with RH fingerpicking, despite being a fingerstyle player on bass ...I gave up after a few months. Wanted the "ring" of the metal strings...
acoustic guitar, last year when i was 24
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same! i kinda just got started on keys, it always felt alien to me but i wanted to learn it. i kinda wish it was my first instrument instead of guitar, which i don't really play anymore. that being said, when i finally started, it wasn't as insurmountable as i was mentally making it out to be. not to say that it's been easy, but starting is the hard part sometimes
Horses for courses. I'm likely a better acoustic guitar player - fingerpicking style - than I am a bassist...or so I've been told more than once in the past...
I was 11 yrs old and in middle school band, Clarinet (football season / fall) & Contrabass Bassoon (concert season / winter). I wanted to play sax, but they had enough sax players already. I got a bass guitar later that year as well.
Guitar. Complete with Beatle wig. That was Christmas 1964. Later in 1965 my mother started me on piano lessons.
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First instrument was an old, cheap mahogany ukulele pretty much like this when I was maybe 10. By 12, my brother had gotten a really cheap "Kent" acoustic guitar from K-mart. Then when we were about 13, my parents bought us this weird Japanese-made (Teisco-rebrand?) guitar and a small amp from the Sears catalog.
My brother (who would go on to be a pro guitar player) really got into the electric guitar. Maybe in relative despair, I started playing pseudo-basslines on this guitar, One day, when I was about 14 my Dad (bless his heart) brought me home a Harmony H-22 bass that he'd bought at half-price for $75 CDN from the local music store. The rest, as they say, is history. Rather ancient history these days!
- Oct 22, 2015
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Not sure it was an instrument... more of a parent torturing device
A toy xylophone like the below image. My recollection is that it had a wood chassis instead of plastic, but I could be mistaken.
First instrument where I received actual instruction: Viola. It was left at the house by one of my older brothers, so naturally I had to play it.
I banged on pots and pans and a beat up piano prior to that. At some point in elementary school I sang in a childrens choir. Pretty sure this occurred before I played viola...but I am not 100% certain. The children were auditioned and filtered into four groups. Each group was taught to sing one of four lines...so we actually sang 4-part harmony. Very cool IMHO. I remember the teachers being very concerned about whether they would be able to pull it off, but they did and from what I remember it sounded awesome!
I pestered multiple orchestra teachers to let me try bass. Took about four years and permission from my mom, but it eventually happened.
I banged on pots and pans and a beat up piano prior to that. At some point in elementary school I sang in a childrens choir. Pretty sure this occurred before I played viola...but I am not 100% certain. The children were auditioned and filtered into four groups. Each group was taught to sing one of four lines...so we actually sang 4-part harmony. Very cool IMHO. I remember the teachers being very concerned about whether they would be able to pull it off, but they did and from what I remember it sounded awesome!
I pestered multiple orchestra teachers to let me try bass. Took about four years and permission from my mom, but it eventually happened.
A Hondo electric guitar that had a built in speaker. Traded a Powell & Peralta Lance Mountain stick people skateboard for it. Wish I kept that board 
"failed" piano - sort of.
My mom was a piano teacher, but I pretty much refused to practice - wasn't cool to take piano lessons from your mom. (or so I thought). No idea how I got away with that.
I could bang out a few things (that start in middle C of course)
So, I got signed up for "String Bass" before 7th grade.
Band director; "I notice you're always last"
Me: "I'm pacing myself, sir"
It was the only instrument left....
My mom was a piano teacher, but I pretty much refused to practice - wasn't cool to take piano lessons from your mom. (or so I thought). No idea how I got away with that.
I could bang out a few things (that start in middle C of course)
So, I got signed up for "String Bass" before 7th grade.
Band director; "I notice you're always last"
Me: "I'm pacing myself, sir"
It was the only instrument left....
