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Joined:
April 2003
Posts: 557
Location: Burbank | I was very fortunate to have a father who was very supportive of my musical interest. When I showed improvement my he would encourage me even more by buying me a better guitar. Starting with $20 Del Ray, and finally with a 1981 Gibson Les Paul. Well, the Les Paul spent the last 3 years under the bed gathering dust, so I decided it was time to part with my old buddy for some new friends I would actually get some use out of. After a couple months I finally sold the Gibson and over the course of a week I acquired a 1975 1124 county artist in great shape and a 2001 6751 12 string, in mint condition. Now my 1627 has some new friends to hang with. Thanks to Al for your help/advice, too bad you didn't have exactly what I wanted (maybe next time). I will post pictures when I can borrow a digital camera. Oh yeah, Thanks Dad! | |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15664
Location: SoCal | Interesting post. It's interesting how parents "encourage" or "discourage" us in our pursuits when we are young.
My father was convinced that I'd never stay with playing the guitar in high school. Yet, when I put my first good guitar on layaway (Ovation Artist, model 1121-4), he co-signed with me for it so I could take it home early, while still making payments. That was 31 years ago and I'm still playing (well, I'm still picking up a guitar and making noises with it).
Any other stories about parents? | |
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Joined:
February 2003
Posts: 299
Location: Netherlands | I was a huge Kiss-fan when I was 9 (1979) and especially Peter Criss (drummer) made a big impression. My parents didn't want me to bang the drums all day, so I decided guitar would be my choice. Unfortunately, my mother insisted she does not like guitars (though my father does), and guess who's the boss?? So I ended up playing the clarinet for 7 years and at 15 finally decided to call it a day and start playing guitar. I was very much into Steve Vai and Joe Satriani at the time and practiced about 6-8 hours a day (poor parents... I guess they had better let me start with a classical guitar). After some years i decided it would be nice to have an acoustic guitar, bought one and didn't play it too much until i lived somewhere in an attic of someones house where i couldn't make much noise. That was in '96, if memory serves. I changed electrics and acoustics quite a lot for 6 years and only since last november the acoustic is my main instrument. I moved (for the 7th time since) to a new house, got a cat and the animal loved my ovation ultra (he even sits on my amplifier when i play it!). He runs away though when i play electric, so does my girl. So now the acoustic is my main instrument, though I have to play my old Ibanez now, because I sold my Ultra and my new guitar has not yet arrived. I even play in an acoustic combo now and i'm planning to take some music theory and fingerpicking lessons (as former electric player i use a pick most of the time, eventually combined with some fingers).
So much for my parents. Mom still doesn't like stringed instruments, dad still does though, but she's still the boss...
I hope not to have bored you all too much with this loooooooooooooooooooooooong story.....
Martin | |
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Joined:
August 2002
Posts: 623
Location: Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey | My parents were supportive in my younger years, and still try to be. Mom still comes to my most of my shows if it's not too late or too far.
She had me in piano lessons in first and second grade, but third grade came around, and I heard KISS alive, and begged to switch to guitar. She said ok, as long as I still took lessons. Luckly, dad had a '59 strat from his younger days stashed in the basement closet. Good thing, cuase we were never rich, and I wouln't have been able to buy a guitar.
Couple years ago, my father did something really cool. As a surprise birthday gift, he picked me up from work and took me into the city...on the way I learned that we were on our way to see Les Paul play live. The coolest was that he had my girlfriend hidden in the back seat, and my Les Paul guitar in the trunk. We got the guitar autographed by Les, and had photos taken. A very memorable night, and very thoughtful of dad.
Parents can be pretty cool.
Johnny | |
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Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 69
Location: UK | My dad encouraged all three of his children to play musical instrument, my brother still plays the trumpet and my sister the piano. Because I had a good singing voice, I decided on the guitar.
He bought my first one, off a colleague at work, for 10 quid just before my eleventh birthday - that is nearly 37 years ago now. That was followed by a pretty good classical guitar a year later, and then a couple of years after that an Eko Ranger Six.
Finally, when I was about 17, and at the time doing regular floor spots in folk clubs around where I lived he bought me a second hand Gibson J-45 for 100 quid (I put some of the money for it up myself, as well, from my summer job).
As I got older and could afford to buy guitars from my salary, my father still always showed a great deal of interest in the latest instrument I bought.
As a father of two, I've tried to do the same and while my oldest boy has resisted my attempts, my youngest is now a keen drummer. He's even trying to live up to his idol, Dave Grohl, and is teaching himself guitar.
I learned a long time ago that about the best thing you can give your kids is an education - and if that includes a musical education, that's even better. | |
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 10582
Location: NJ | I wanted to play guitar as far back as I could remember. It was the instrument of choice of cowboys and the prominent instrument on American Bandstand.
when I was in first or second grade after a few ukes and toys including a maccaferri plastic guitar, my parents tooks me to the local store and bought me an acoustic guitar made in Holland that was the worst instrument known to man.
A few years later after begging for an electric guitar my dad surprised me with a Fender Princeton Reverb (they only came black face back then) and a Marvel elelctric guitar which was some of the best that Japan offered at the time. The guy in the music store told me dad that if he bought a good amp and I did not continue to play he could always sell it for him and get some of his money back. I still have that amp to this day.
Later when I was in high school after suffering through a Kapa minstrel (teardrop shaped) and a hofner violin shaped 3/4 scale guitar with built in fuzz, I saved my paper route money for a Les paul, just like Duane Allman's. I had about half the money saved and asked my dad to take me to the music store so I could drool. He did and I got to play my dream, a cherry sunburst les paul deluxe. I handed it back to the salesman and told him sorry I would have to come back when I saved the rest of the money. I left the store, my dad stayed inside and after about 5 minutes I went back in to get him, he was not a musician and could care less about going to music stores, well he made the deal on the guitar while I was out waiting in the car and put up the other half of the money. I never paid him back. | |
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Joined:
March 2002
Posts: 15664
Location: SoCal | I have no doubt Al, that your father considered himself paid back with interest. Great story. | |
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Joined:
February 2003
Posts: 299
Location: Netherlands | Al, your first guitar must have come from the infamous Egmond factory. I had one of them. Unplayable guitars, but great to start and build strong fingers with :) You could shoot arrows with those necks, though.
BTW in addition to my first story, both my parents have always supported me in playing instruments. My -disabled- father even came to see a gig of my trashmetal band back in the eighties in his wheelchair! Imagine him in the slamming pit in suit and tie!
Martin | |
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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Great stories
I've been on both sides of the story, when I was a kid in my early teens my parents were very much into big band music and very opposed to anything that included a guitar. My younger brother Johnny (who went on to play with the likes of Jesse McReynolds as a fiddle player) and our buddy Bill Adams (who played guitar with Johnny all his life on an old Martin flat top) we used to get together in our barn and play Mac Wiseman, Hank Snow, Hank Williams in the very early 50's. Through many deals we ended up with a 120 bass accordian that Johnny played quite well, a lap steel that I could barely pick and I was the chosen vocalist, as I could do a very credible Hank Snow between my Steel "steals". Anyway, our parents relegated us to the barn and had no use for our music, in th 50's music was a very important indicator of social status, and country/bluegrass wasn't going to invite you to the country club. But, and that is a big word, we didn't care. We milked cows 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, we chopped and cleared trees and brush, we worked a thrashing machine and travelled from farm to farm, we also worked a combine, bagging grain as fast as it comes out of the chute, tying one bag, while the other was filling. All this took place in 30 seconds and you had to throw off the full bag while you were tying off the new one. Two times a day you had to milk a bunch of cows seven days a week and shovel out their manure, and still go to school and try to be cool even though they could probably smell the cowshit on your country person.
Bailey | |
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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Back again
The reason I did it this way is because when I try a long post I am dropped off the board and lose all the things I have laboreally typed.
The theme was parents, my dad worked as a machinist, but wanted to be a farmer like all of his family, the solution was for Johnny and I to farm and milk the cows, haul out the shit, husk the corn, put up and bring down the hay and feed those cows, put that milk out every morning, and milk 20 or so cows, Johnny broke his wrist and couldn't farm any more, so after a reasonable time, I joined the Army at 17 because it was too hard running a farm with no help, I don't think my dad ever forgave me for leaving, but there was no way a bunch of kids could run a farm, I felt safer headed for Korea, It all worked out, my dad died, my brother Johnny became a local and area hero, and I travelled all over the USA. | |
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Joined:
May 2003
Posts: 69
Location: UK | Bailey, that sounds like a tough but character forming early life!
L | |
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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | That's the way things were. We heated our house with with a pot bellied stove, crapped in an out house, pumped all our water by hand, cooked on a wood stove (each morning I started a fire and heated water for oatmeal before I went out to milk the cows. Sounds primitive, but we came back to this after living in Cleveland during the war and having all the modern conveniences available at the time. My dad was determined to be a farmer as his family had always been, even though his first cousin was Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet when I joined the Army. (Admiral Felix Stump was a carrier Admiral during the most significant battles in the Pacific, and was awarded the Navy Cross for Battles in the Marianas and Phillipine Sea and became Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet the same month, July 1953, that I joined the Army). Fat lot of good it did me as I never had met that Naval hero.
Bailey | |
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Joined:
June 2003
Posts: 16
Location: Long Island, NY | When I was 7 and decided i wanted to play guitar, my parents told me that I would have to buy it myself... I guess that is one of the many reasons I stuck to it... and 43 years later I still have to buy my own guitars! Boy that 32.00 took a while to earn.
PS gave that same first guitar( Tempo 6 string) to my son when he started playing guitar at 4 and he is still playing as well... would now make a sentimental piece of wall art however my ex threw it away.... and so it goes
Dave | |
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Joined:
May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | Dave
Good story, at least your ex did the bad deed. I destroyed a Gibson SJ in the 60's in a temper fit, (I gave the pieces to an acquaintance, who glued it back together), I've also given away a few instruments to nephews and others, causing my wife some irritation, as we sacrificed for every guitar we owned. In the end (now), I have more instruments than I can play at one time, and they are the best ones as they have proven themselves over many years. The only problem is that someone on this board predicted that acoustics will suddenly turn to mush at about 40 years, what a chilling thought. Maybe he meant the players would turn to mush, but that has to be in the 80's, Does'nt it, huh, huh? | |
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So long old buddy, hello new friends!