How old were you when you started playing?

The Boogie Board

Help Support The Boogie Board:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Red Barchetta

Well-known member
Boogie Supporter
Joined
Feb 22, 2005
Messages
575
Reaction score
0
Location
New Orleans Area
Just a little curious...I was reading the "First Axe" thread, and was noting the disparate ages of some of the first guitars we all had...so, naturally, it got me thinking....how old were you when you started playing? What year was it? How old are you now?

Also, maybe contrast your first guitar and amp then to your main guitar and amp now...let's see how far we've all come.

I'll start:

Started playing around 12 years old...I'm 44 now. First guitar and amp was a "Memphis" brand...strat shaped body, Les Paul style headstock, and a single blade humbucker. No saddles, just a bar with slots on it for a bridge. First amp was a Multivox 8" speaker, volume, tone, and tremelo controls.

Main guitar now is a 2006 PRS McCarty, quilt 10 top, solid rosewood neck. Amp is a Mesa MK IV combo.

Meandmy1stElectricandAmpsometimein8.jpg


PRS_Full-1.jpg


DSCN2094.jpg



Peace, Love, and Underwear

RB
 
Love that PRS! That neck has to feel awesome!

Started playing when I was 13. I was 15 when I got my own, non-borrowed. I had an 85 or so SG with a repaired headstock, and a Deluxe Reverb I got on the cheap (saved up my own dough, parents would not support it). I still remember my Dad's reaction. Somewhere between disgust and disgrace that his son was a dirty headbanger/hippie (retired Marine Drill Instructor). Played in a punk band until I got out of control with substances, and took off to Texas (Seriously, don't mess with Texas). My amp and guitar were sold by my parents, as the Half Way house I ran from at 17, to Texas, wouldn't allow that type of stuff. My mom was so pissed I just disappeared, she sold everything I left behind. Didn't touch a guitar again until I was 34.

I'm 36 now (about to be 37). After some adventure, a divorce, and other things, I still play Gibsons. Play a lot blues, rock, old metal, punk, and thrash metal. Just jam with friends right now. No name.

My main guitars are my Gibsons. I love my ES-335 the most. So versatile. I use the Fenders when they are needed. I play through a Mesa Single Rec Solo - Mesa Rec 2x12. I got a Fender Vibro-Champ for practice. Various pedals, use them when needed.

I got diagnosed with a rare cancer this summer (not too serious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatofibrosarcoma_protuberans), and quit smoking tobacco, and have really taken back on the guitar with a vengeance (after a bunch of surgeries I am clear now). Have fully committed myself to finally learn theory, and with idle hands, I always have a guitar in my hands. Music saved my life. I am a systems engineer by trade.


Guitars
P2102443C.jpg

Amp
P2112445.jpg

ShortChain
P2112446.jpg
 
I always feel really young when I find out everyone else's ages on forums... I started playing in 2003 when I was 10, and I'm 19 now. As I said on the "First Axe" thread, the guitar I learned on for almost the first year was a craptastic Squier strat that my older brother loaned to me since he had upgraded and didn't use it anymore. The first guitar that I technically owned was my Gibson SG Special, which I got about a year or so after I started playing. I still have my first amp, a little fender solid state 15 watt combo. Now I've moved on to a Gibson Custom 1962 reissue Les Paul/SG Standard, and hopefully I'll add something along the lines of a jackson or ibanez to collection in the near future. As for the rig... oh boy. It's shocking to see how far I've come in only 9 years. I went from a cheap SS combo to numerous iteration of pedalboard rigs, gradually promoted myself to rack gear and now I've eliminated pedals entirely - from my main rig that is. I still keep all of my pedals on my furman pedalboard as a nice little B rig. I'm too lazy to type it out, so my main rig is pretty much everything in my sig.
 
Started at 13. Kent Les Paul Copy through a Fender 15w. Added a Boss Overdrive shortly after. :lol:

Now 43 and a *few* guitars later.

Took about a 10 year break along the way to get married, finish grad school, start a career and have 3 kids. One day about 5 years ago I was cleaning my house and decided to pull a guitar out from under my bed and got hooked again. (less a great deal of youthful dexterity!)
 
8) 1972, age 14. My uncle had been stationed in South America and brought me a handmade classical guitar a year or two earlier. Was already playing piano. I broke my left arm in an Evel Knieval style bicycle accident. They couldn't set the break because of the type it was. They casted my left arm at a 90 degree angle from the shoulder to the wrist, leaving the hand open. Had to sleep sitting up for 8 weeks. The angle was perfect for holding the guitar, so my Dad bought me a Mel Bay chord book and I sat there for 8 weeks learning the basics. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...LOL!

ty
 
1971, age 8. I had a 3/4 Harmony acoustic (I still have it). I quit after a couple of years and picked it back up until '78 or '79 when I was 15, playing a Yamaha acoustic (which I also still have). I've played pretty much everyday I could since then.

I didn't have an electric until my parents bought me an Ibanez Destroyer II as a high school graduation gift. I played it through a Pignose 30/60 solid state amp for a few months until I bought friend's Fender Concert II 4-10.

Now, I play a variety of guitars, mostly a couple of Carvins, a Gibson ES135 and a USA Custom Guitars Tele clone that I built through a 1966 Vibrolux Reverb, a tweed Deluxe 5E3 clone and a Mesa Express 5:50.

All these years and I still feel like I'm on the steep end of the learning curve (and love it)!

Me in 1971-
guitar_71.jpg
 
I started playing back in mid-2004 at 13, with a cheap, tiny acoustic that I got for 30 bucks outside of a Filipino market near my house. My parents had gotten me a $130 Squier acoustic, but I was too small to play it, so I taught myself to play on the cheap dink I had.

When I turned 14, my parents took me to get my first electric; an Ibanez SA series paired with a Crate XT15R.

I've focused more on my writing and playing, rather than gear, only upgrading here and there. My second guitar was an Ibanez SZ720fm, which I still play on occasion. My third guitar was a classical-style Fender acoustic, which I play when girls ask me to sing to them :wink: . My latest guitar is a Fender Baja Tele that's seen more despair than glory due to my dad dropping boxes of old toys and stuff on top of it, and leaving it there. The neck is in pretty bad shape, but I'll admit, it's a trooper. I plan on throwing some of the Barden Tele pickups in there along with a custom Warmoth neck on it, but that's after I save up enough.

As for my amps, I got a 60W Roland Cube in 2005, which I used until about 2008, when I got a Line 6 Spider III. I still have the Line 6, which I find useful for late night playing because I can plug headphones right into it and play along to tracks without anyone hearing more than my pick scratching away at my guitar. In early September 2011, I bought an '89 MkIII blue stripe shorthead along with a 1x10 Thiele. I'm planning on switching out the tubes because the dude I bought it from didn't seem to know much about the amp other than it's price (He used packaging peanuts and left the tubes in for crying out loud). I also want to get the R2 mod, but alas I can't afford any of my reparations due to my being broke and in college.

Eventually, I'll get a vintage Mesa 2x12 slant, and a Cry Baby 535Q. As it is, I'm 21 and I've been playing almost 8 years now, and I stick to Punk and Blues mainly. I used to pretend to do modern Metalcore stuff, but that was just for learning triplets.

Sorry for the long post; I just thought I'd share with all the nice people on this board :)
 
Age 14, some time in the later Cenozoic Era.
Fender Duo-Sonic (used, $135).
Deluxe Reverb (*new*, $244.50).
Darn I wish I still had 'em.
 
End of high school, age 18. Picked up a guitar after hearing Metallica's ONE. Some Ibanez GIO guitar and Ibanez practice amp.
 
I was about 5 or 6 My aunt Rosemarie had a Micky Mouse guitar and that was it.. My first song was OH MY PAPA by Eddie Fisher...(UGH)...Followed my Marty Robbins...Elpaso...Much better. My first real guitar was a Gibson L50..a 1961 SG , Then a 1965 Guild 12 string...1968 black Les Paul Custom..and so on....first amp was a Sears Silvertone..,..2/12... Then a 1965 Fender Super Reverb
 
I started learning guitar at age 20 and I'm now 33. Goodness, 1998, was it?

My first guitar is a Godin LG that I still have to this day. I used my brother's Peavey Bandit 112 until I could afford my own amp. I picked up my Dual Rectifier used back around 2000 and I've had it ever since.

Right now I play a Gibson Les Paul Standard with a 60s profile neck and that Godin LG.
I still have the Dual Rec and I now have an Electra Dyne as well. I might sell the Recto and get a Mini but I'm not sure...
 
I started playing guitar at 15 (well I believe I was nearly 16). Now I'm 27. The first electric I played was my dad's 70s/early 80s Cimar by Ibanez (I did not even know he had an electric guitar at the time). One year after, a Fender Stratocaster arrived home (I was so excited for finally owning a "double horned body" electric guitar, the Cimar - sort of Les Paul body - did not even seem a real electric guitar to me :wink: ). Then I came into metal and needed an Explorer :D

Here's a pic with me (16?) doing some comedy on a school trip (not trying to be the cool guy, just making fun of myself :wink: ).

378043_2846739164207_1131263440_3104793_927712405_n.jpg



And here it is me now...

00000000.jpg
 
Started playing when i was 14, that was 2003.

i feel like, it has been like 50 years since then :lol:

My first axe was a Johnson Strat copy and a Axl 30 watt amp.
I still own both, but dont use them anymore, since i got my two mesas :D
 
It's funny I got my dad back into guitar when I started playing :lol:

Started playing on February 14th 2008, age 14, a little after my friend who introduced me to this wonderful instrument. Bought a Yamaha Eterna ET112 fat strat and my parents bought me a Yamaha GA15 15W combo.


me and my pops jamming... he's playing a Jolana Galaxis guitar through an even shittier Gitakord amp... the guitar is Czech and the amp Yugoslav made... basically his stuff when he was young.

Now I play a homemade Explorer and various other guitars (Yamaha SG2000, Gibson SG '61RI, Ibanez RG370DX, Squier CV Tele...) through a Marshall JVM410H or a Mesa 2:90/TriAxis rig through a 1960A cab w/V30s, BOSS GT-6 on MIDI switching and occasional FX duties... quite a jump, I think :oops:

sourock111.jpg


The cool thing is that me and my pops made a guitar (old ESP Explorer type) ourselves and we used the neck of the Eterna for it, so I'm basically still gigging my first guitar('s neck) :mrgreen:

x5.jpg

My explorer in a roughly cut form (didn't take any pics of the whole process and I'm VERY sorry I didn't now)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top