What Was The First Song You Ever Played

on your favorite instrument?

For instance, out of the six instruments I play, guitar is my focus, so I would then tell you all the story about how my aunt gave me her beautiful acoustic Ibanez and proceeded to torture me the rest of the afternoon by teaching me the minefield of hammer ons and pull offs that is the intro to Led Zeppelin's Over the Hills and Far Away. I didn't like it much at the time, but in hindsight, that lesson was perhaps more valuable a gift to me than the guitar.

How did you get into your instrument, and what was your first song?

 

My Mum got me a cheap nylon string Spanish guitar for Christmas,and naughty thing that I was I crept down to the hidey hole under the stairs where it was hid,fished it out and started playing a kind of freeform jazz,having never picked up a guitar before in my life.I quickly picked up vibrato as if by osmosis.The first song I learned the chords to was Lennon's "Imagine".I'm still a pretty lousy guitar player.

 

The intro to the redemption song by bob marley

 

Thats very interesting. this too was the very first song I (tried to) learned on guitar..

 

I can't even remember the first song I learned but it was probably something with G-C-D or some other simple progression. I remember when I started....slowly trying to make my fingers go to the correct places for each chord. I had a friend who played guitar and he let me borrow an acoustic until I eventually got my own. I still have that guitar and it's the one my son learned on as well. I also remember having to try to figure songs out by ear because we didn't really have the internet yet so if you wanted to learn a song, you had to buy the music book or figure it out on your own.

 

One night about a month after I started making noise on guitar a guy was over and we were jamming. Unknown to him I had dropped a couple hits of acid... I went off for awhile and then realized he wasn't playing, he was just sitting there with his jaw on the floor.

I said "What?"

He said "What the fuck were you just playing?"

I said "I donno... I was just playing what the drapes were doing"


So, Yeah... First song, Drapes blowing in the breeze.

 

My first guitar was a Fender Squier strat. It went out of tune so bad and had such bad action that I could only play crappy sounding punk stuff on it. It was fun, but I wasn't in love. Then I traded it for a Yamaha Pacifica that had DiMarzio Tone Zones in it. The neck sucked though and it was black and pointy so I felt like a tool with it onstage. I played a Fender DuoSonic at the music store, not realizing it was a student scale. I thought it just played super easy. I gave them $30 and put it on layway. It was $170 brand new.

A week or two after putting it on layaway, my girlfriend died in a car accident so I arranged a benefit show with 14 bands, hoping to raise some money for her medical bills. I almost...like missed it by a few days.... got Fugazi to come play. Guy was totally down and psyched but Ian had just made plans to go to europe or something. Anyway, we'd just started our set and my mom walks up and hands me the DuoSonic. I played it for a few songs but the strings were brand new and there are no detents on the saddles on a Duo so the strings started popping off the saddles. I played so hard my knuckles bled and I even got my hand stuck under all the strings at one point, ripping a few of them off. Punk Rawk! I picked up my crappy Yamaha and finished the set. I loved the neck and soul of that little Duo but hated the pickups and saddles.

The next day, I thought that I'd never find the right guitar and was bummed, for other obvious reasons as well. Then I got the idea that I could take the Tone Zone's out of the Yamaha and put them into the DuoSonic. I got out a butter knife and some bandaids, used the butter knife to hack away the pickguard and the insides of the cavity, and used the bandaids like electrical tape. Then I put it back together and carefully used the butter knife to grind notches in the saddles. I plugged it into my 70's 100 watt solid state Marshall combo and at that moment, the Duo and I merged. I could easily play stuff that I'd struggled with for six months. I played This Love by Pantera and my hair stood on end! I was addicted!

Over the years, I've been homeless a a few times and each time, I left with nothing, including the DuoSonic. The first time, I pawned it and walked/hitchhiked from OKC to San Diego. My room mate went into the pawnshop after I'd left to pawn something else. When he saw my guitar there, he traded his crap for it instead and ended up bringing it to me out in OB. I couldn't keep it though so I asked him to give to my mom when he went back. Mohawk John, If you're out there, I love you man!

When I got back to OKC, there it was waiting for me. Then I got all behind and homeless again and pawned it so I could eat. Again, I only got $30 for it but couldn't raise the money to get it out in time so I lost it. Four years later, at a music store in Lincoln, NE, there it was! For $170! I put it on layaway and eventually paid it off.

Later on in life, the shit hit the fan again and I had to leave it at someone's house. Again, years later, a different friend saw it sitting collecting dust at a guy's house and bought it....for $30!

So now it's back in my life. I've started to wear the finish off the fretboard and every punk or fender lover that sees it drools over it.....and it's a $30 guitar!

 

That's a pretty awesome story!

 

My grandma bought me my first electric guitar which was a Gibson, it's my favorite instrument but I got a G & L legacy now which is my favorite guitar...

First riff I learned was probably Smells like Teen Spirit- Nirvana

First song I learned all the way through was probably Knocking on Heaven's Door- Bob Dylan.


First song i learned on the keyboard was Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles

 

Ernesto, that's a friggin LOVE STORY!

Tyrsonswood, I got a good laugh out of that

Orison, that's a real cool connection... I never did learn the parts after the acoustic intro, you know

Thanks everyone for sharing so far!

 

"Red river valley" or something like that...it was on a cheap yamaha classical. I took formal guitar lessons when I was 8 yrs old, 1968.

 

Frére Jacques or Mary had a little lamb.

 

Cute.

 

I don't really play one, but I've taught myself to play 'Hey Jude' by ear on a piano in one day once

 

Starting out with formal piano lessons, everything I was assigned to play was classical. My first unauthorized attempt at pop/rock on the piano was ABBA's "Waterloo".

Waterloo was a piece of cake for anyone who had any natural rhythm and could learn four chords.

Years later, the first piece I performed in public that was the slightest bit demanding was the long version of Barry Manilow's "Could It Be Magic" with the classical intro and coda from Chopin's Prelude in C Minor.

 

I started learning guitar by just strumming random chords while in middle school. Then I decided to learn some songs, side by side the first ones I learned and mastered were
•The Beatles - Blackbird
•Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven

I suppose I should add piano as that is what I'm doing now
•Yann Tierson - Amélie

 

Horse with no name on guitar, stairway to heaven on keyboard, and love me do on harmonica.

I have no "focus" instrument, I am terrible with them all.

 

Hot cross buns. Haha. I think the first song I learned that wasn't a nursery rhyme was the Sarabande (movement two?) of Bach's Coffee Cantata Suite. To this day, it is the first thing I play when I want to hear what a bass sounds like, whether it be upright or electric.

 

On the guitar, it was A Banda, by Chico Buarque, I think.

But on my favorite instrument, it was Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Oh, boy, now I feel like playing it!

On the piano, it was Chopin's Prelude op.28 n.4.

 

It was an old acoustic guitar. The song was "Dust in the Wind."