Who inspired you to play music?

[dmandude123455]

We all have those guitarist's that inspired us to pick up a guitar. But who really inspired you to play and write music?

Mines the guys in Mastodon, Dimebag, Van Halen and Rush. It really started with VH after hearing VH2 but the music writing really took place after listening to Mastodon's "Crack The Skye". The album just hit me in the face and took me for a joy ride. Just everything about it is awesome and proggy. Dimebag really showed me how different the guitar could be and re-lite the fire that EVH started. And Rush. just....Rush...you can't not feel inspired after listening to ANY Rush song.

[TheProphet]

To be honest, no one. I was creating/writing music in my head long before I picked up a guitar. I picked up a guitar to try and get that music out, that and I read that chicks dig'd guitarists. I really didn't listen to music that much when I was picking up the guitar either.

If I had to say, it'd probably have to be the stuff my mum was listening to that I liked as well ... The Beatles, the Stones, Small Faces, Swinging Blue Jeans, Beach Boys, Jan and Dean ... stuff like that.

[ImmortalSix]

SRV for me.

I used to hear this song in my dad's '82 Bronco all the time, and I remember thinking that it was just, so...far away. Hearing it took me out of wherever I was at the time and put me in this kind of in-between space.

And from there, I wondered - if it feels this good to listen to music, what must it feel like to make it?

And also, my dad, really. He would bang out some cowboy chords on his '74 Yamaha D28 copy, and I always thought - man, it's just so damn cool.

I about wore this cassette tape out before I was 10.

[Redmist]

Sabbath.

[Kam]

Girls.

[jcthejester13]

Building a guitar with a friend.

[phil_104]

Girls.

&#$%!!!!!!

Beat me to it.....

[lpmarshall]

Kurt Cobain. I started taking lessons and my teach turned me on to SRV, Hendrix, and so on. Went a completely different direction from there.

[Powdered Toast Man]

My buddy. We met in Grade 12. He was in a band, and I didn't know how to play anything. His was also the only band in school, so it was super cool. Just hanging around those guys, listening to the songs they wrote made me want to start. After his band broke up, we started playing together and we still are today.

[SirJackdeFuzz]

G'NR . . . 1988

[SteveAlysis]

David Gilmour...

[Chris of Arabia]

I've actually no idea, but whoever it was was a real lazy bastard when it comes to practicing...

[uOpt]

Blackmore.

[ItsaBass]

No recorded musical artist that I can name made me want to be a musician. But I do know exactly the PART that made me want to play. One day when I was a kid...must have been almost 10, as we had just moved into the duplex in Alhambra, CA...I got a wild hair, I asked my dad to show me how to play a standard goober country bass line, which I called "The Happy Music." Basically, 4/4 ll:C-G-CGAB:ll. Probably heard it in some cartoon or whatever else.

So I had a '77 Music Man fretless bass in hand, and he had a '68 SG, both of which I still have. And he taught me everything he knew about music theory right there.

He showed me how to move the same goober country part to the IV and the V, and to follow two basic blues patterns (regular and with the quick IV). He showed me what the visual/fingering relationships of the chords in a key were. For instance, this is a major scale. This is what the pattern for going from a root to a third looks/sounds like. From a root to a fifth looks/sounds like this. Going from a root to the II chord looks like this. Going from a root to the II involves the same movement as going from a IV to a V or from a V to a VI. Etc. Then, this is what a major triad looks like. This is what an octave looks like. Then he did the same thing for minor, and then for mixolydian, then pentatonic major, minor, and minor with a flatted 5th.

He then showed me how the nut acted as your base ("zero") fret, and how any of those patterns could be moved anywhere on the neck (i.e. could be played in any key) while keeping the same relationships. That blew my mind the most at the time...couldn't wrap my head around it at first, the whole nut being equivalent to an imaginary "zero" fret thing.

He then showed me which chords in a certain key are naturally major, and which are naturally minor. For instance, in a major key, using no accidentals (though he did not know the term accidentals), I-IV-V chords are major, II, III, VI chords are minor, and the VII is diminished. That way I knew whether to generally play a major or a minor third when the song was on a certain chord.

Then he showed me relative major and minor keys and how modes interweave.

Then he showed the more common major and minor "Beatles chords," which is what he called suspended chords. Sus. b7th, 4th, 9th, 13th, maj. 7th, etc. I was on bass and he was on guitar, but the theory was the point.

Then he told me that most of the time rock-n-roll, blues, etc. doesn't stick to one scale, but uses a mix of all the scales he taught me (major, minor, mixolydian, pent. major, pent. minor, pent. minor w/ flat 5th). I can remember telling me how often Mick Taylor utilizes the mixolydian, and how the natural 7th is fairly uncommon in rock-n-roll or blues unless being used as the third of a V chord; most of the time on bass I would be playing a b7, not a natural 7.

He taught me how to take care of his bass. He told me I had to put it in it's case each time I was done with it, and to wash my hands before and after playing. Showed my how to use a power and standby switches on his amp, and said I could never go past 2 on the amp unless he was home. Then he pulled out a selection of records and told me to play along with whatever ones I wanted, and that I had to put away each record in it's proper place before I played a new one. I had listened to music a lot before that, but I had never had the full run of his record collection. So I basically discovered music and playing music at the same time.

In short, because I asked a random question, he sat me down for several hours and spilled his guts about pretty much ALL the musical theory he knew. That was just how my dad was. And then...nothing else, ever, except reinforcement of the same stuff if I asked, and suggesting albums to check out. It was literally ALL he knew how to teach me. I just played along with records when I got home from school, and if I couldn't learn the songs, he would show them to me when he got home from work. The first thing I learned was the Cosmic Thing album by the B-52's. Then Never Mind the Bollocks. Stones, Beach Boys, Hendrix, Beatles, etc. once I got the hang of it. As long as it was fairly simplistic rock/pop stuff, I got to the point where I could eventually figure it out.

It was a few years later in high school that I was able to sign up for school music classes, and lo and behold the teacher was a sax and ELECTRIC BASS player! She was COOL enough to let me choose electric bass instead of a horn or whatever else, even though it wasn't technically an option. She brought in a Peavey combo to keep at the school. She got me a Mel Bay book for tuba, so I could play along with the class, and a basic technique book for bass. She showed me all the technique of playing the bass, while my dad had shown me the theory. Then she signed me up for jazz band because she had been covering the bass part herself. Then she convinced me to learn a horn so I could join marching band, because I was failing PE for ditching. (Band members got PE credit.) Unfortunately, the reading never really took, probably because I started too late. I am a terrible reader. When my dad saw I was really getting serious and playing in jazz band, he basically gave me the Music Man, and I have had it since.

Anyhow, my journey to being a musician was basically due to asking a random question about some stupid country bass riff, and happening to have an awesome dad who answered by literally teaching me everything he knew in one sitting...followed by an amazing music teacher in high school. Luck, all the way...plus a bit of curiosity.

Sorry that got so long. I just started typing and all of a sudden it was a book.

[jalguitarman]

Gosh, that is a tough question. I had always been fascinated by music ever since 3 or 4 years old (yes I can remember back that far). I would say the answer would be different through each stage of life.
I think one of the first when I started learning keyboard was Tears for Fears. Later I would say Dream theater and Ray Adler era Fates Warning. right now it's Pat Metheny and various electronic artits like Arthur Deep. there are likely afew throughout the years that i can't think of right now

[Diego]

Deep Purple.

I remember being around 10 years old, listening to the Highway Star solo over and over and thinking "I have to play THAT!!".
And then I listened to the Burn guitar/organ solo. My mind exploded right there.
And it's still on fire, after 15 years.

That's why I'm drawn to SSS Strats.
Still lacking the loud Vox or Marshall though!

So yeah, Mr. Blackmore is the reason why I started to play music.

Then came Hetfield & co, Marty Friedman and others, but Ritchie Blackmore was my starting point.

I didn't give a **** about girls liking if I played guitar or not back then.

[Andrew Lamprecht]

I have a few...

but nail in the coffin was iron maiden.

[Hurricane]

My Dads Gibson was my first encounter with any instrument .



I was hungry to learn so pop showed me three chords G-C-D

Next to my bassinet as a baby there stood on the chest of drawers a radio that played music constantly as laid in my bed , I remember most of all the music of Louis Armstrong , he's been the one I have studied the most since I began my musical journey in 1954 . Since then the list is so long it would take me hours to post them all .

Easy , nice post man .

Hurricane Ramon

[JonnyG92]

Opeth. After hearing Patterns in the Ivy I & II, I HAD to learn to play.
After playing some of their songs and learning new ones on the acoustic, I dabbled on the acoustic here and there but with no avail until I heard Muse. Those guys had so much energy on stage. It was kind of like, they just go on and BAM, it's their own little world and everyone is welcome to watch.
They really drew me in and made me want to buy a fuzz pedal and just go nuts.

[speed2dirt]

Tourniquet (Psycho Surgery & Pathogenic Occular Dissonance) turned me on to metal. Metallica (Ride The Lightning & Master of Puppets) made me want to play guitar.