Influenced To Start Learning An Instrument

I was already playing recorder and clarinet when I heard my first Who album.  After that it was all about the guitar and Pete Townshend.

LMAO!!

PF's "A Saucerful of Secrets" -> the organ and the voices made me want to write music on keys, especially for the organ. Too bad instead of the classic Hammond B3 I have this lousy Yamaha church organ.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - July 11 2012 at 14:20

I played saxophone in the high school band, but when I saw a close friend of mine play in his punk band at a birthday party, and I saw how much the girls swooned over the guitarist/singer, I really wanted to be that guy. I got an acoustic guitar first, learned all the chords, then got a cheap electric guitar and continued my chord bashing through an amp. Still no girls. But I guess they were the real reason I started playing guitar. Who's with me?  

My real inspiration as a musician (if I may be so bold as to call myself one) has mostly come from punk bands (not just the three chord and shouting variety, either. there's some pretty imaginative stuff out there), and not so much from progressive rock.  I just feel like that level of technical mastery is beyond me, and I don't have any pressing incentive to prove myself otherwise.

I started drums at 12, just because I always wanted to. But fairly quickly I saw that I need to know notation and more musical theory, so I decided to go with bass. Bass was supposed to be a "second instrument" but very quickly it became my main instrument. The fact that I was starting to get into prog helped inspire me to practice technique a lot. I still do practice a lot of technique, it's one of those things that make me zone out, so it's nice. So I have pretty good technique now :D

Steve Hackett was my first inspiration for learning to play guitar. Frank Zappa was my second inspiration. I always tried to probe what it would sound like to blend their styles. Very difficult, very different. I was very good at my peak and rather experimental, lots of 30 minute improvs, lots of sound experiments, lots of music theory. I never got a band together, so I went cold turkey eventually and stopped playing. I expect to pick it up again, but I'm actually looking first into effects pedals and racks. It's amazing what is available now that wasn't around in the eighties when I was playing.