What Inspired you to pick up the Guitar for the very first time?

[Andrew Fernandes]

For me, it was bat country harmony. That was back in 2006 I think whenever I saw it on MTV cause the music video was in the charts. but only like 4 years later decided to play the guitar lol.
How about you guys?

 

[AGA]

I have always wanted to play guitar and be a musician, I don’t even know where it came from. I just remember me as a little girl, riding in the back seat of the car and listening to the radio. Whenever a guitar solo would come on, I would imagine it was me playing. :3

 

[Jak Angelescu]

O this is a very cool topic! My dad is an incredible guitarist and music was always in my family. He started teaching me my 1st chords when I was 10 but I didn’t take much of an interest in it. When I started hearing more pop songs that I wanted to sing and play guitar at the same time, I started asking him to help me learn the chords for it. That was around when I was 11. However when I was 12 years old my sister died. I began writing poetry to help cope with my loss but it never seemed like the poetry was enough. I started trying to write songs with the handful of chords that I knew. And from that moment on it just bloomed. I saw actually have some of those poems

 

[Ed Seith]

I’m not young, so this will date me a little. The bug bit me in around 1981. It was a combination of the guitar solo in this song, with the massive amounts of reverb and the giant pick scrape:

And literally everything about this song:

I think I finally talked my Mom into renting me a Fender Mustang and a little Peavey amp in the summer of 1984. I took two lessons from a local jazz teacher and hated playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” I walked out of the second lesson, grabbed an Iron Maiden tab book and went to work on my own. The first song I learned was “Flight of Icarus.”

 

[Clem Dec]

May sounds stupid but, Guitar Hero III.
I thought it was super fun to play on a plastic guitar, so why not on a real one?

 

[idssdi]

When I was like 14 I was starting to get into guitar oriented music a little bit more like Bon Jovi(check out the stuff they did in the 80s and the 90s the guitar work is pretty phenomenal). Then my stepbrother introduce me to A7x and particularly City Of evil and this guitar solo

That made me want to start playing guitar.
Ooh and there is a girl I liked back then who said playing guitar was cool so I started playing guitar(I’m like 100% sure she never actually saw me play)

 

[Adin Shepherd]

For me it was because of a friend at school. He was learning drums and suggested I learn guitar so we could jam. It took a bit of convincing the parents but they eventually came around to the idea.

 

[Ed Seith]

@clem, you would be AMAZED at the number of people with your answer.

 

[Ed Seith]

@Ids – Richie Sambora is a BEAST of a blues-rock player. Check out his first solo album, Undiscovered Soul. For Bon Jovi, the solo in Dry County gets me every time.

 

[The Raven]

Saint Rhoads.
I was 6 listening to Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley in the car on my old MP3 player my dad got me and the guitar work on those songs is the thing that got me into rock and metal. As well as wanting to learn guitar.

 

[Filip Tomiša]

When i realised what I’m actually studying at highschool and what my future was going to be like if i don’t start playing music so at that moment i grabbed the 2 drum sticks that i caught at two different concerts and started learning some patterns that i would play on my leg but i soon realised that this wasn’t gonna cut it cause i don’t have drums so i picked up my sisters old guitar that was collecting dust and fast forward 5 years now i’m still playing the guitar and studying at the music production academy.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

Probably about.. 17 years old? It wasn’t avenged that got me playing tho it was more alice in chains. And some saves the day. But.. yeah.
Didnt actually play until my first girlfriend left me. Had to fill the void somehow.
Then theres the on and off times where I played WOW over guitar. Although I learned a bunch from that game..kinda regret not spending it all on guitar.
Now my motivation is this site.. and my closest friends.

 

[Firsty Lasty]

For me it was 100% on a whim. I saw an epiphone strat for sale dirt cheap (iirc $80) and I just decided on the spot, with no prior desire or intent, to have a guitar. Of course I already had the opinion that guitar music was cool as hell; the Crazy Train solo was probably my favorite thing in the universe at that age.

 

[Dan Shipway]

I saw a flyer for a local music school
My exact thought process:
“Why not?”

 

[Keshav Mohadeb]

I have no idea. I was always a fan of hard rock and stuff. Plus when I first discovered Synyster Gates, I wanted to be to play solos like him so bad. And here I am

 

[Eric Kane]

SLASH!
All those videos on MTV back in the day… He was so cool, and still is. When I went off to college, I met some guys that were messing around on guitars, so I went and bought a cheap Squire Telecaster and a cheap little amp and started teaching myself. But I started saving up, and a couple years later, I got a Les Paul because of Slash.