007
C.O.G.
Posts: 2,601
My main instrument is: 1965 Hagstrom H45E
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Post by 007 on Oct 18, 2013 17:53:00 GMT
I thought it would be interesting to find out how people on the forum got to preferring acoustic playing rather than 'leccy.
I suspect that some of the older ones would admit to starting on the 'leccy side of things watching Bert Weedon and Hank Marvin of the Shads is said to be a strong influence on us olduns
What about you youngsters 20 and 40 year old's who were your influences.Knopfler, Bragg?
For me it was Hank and I have to say Johnny Cash as well but I liked Pete Seeger, Peter Paul & Mary to
Over to you guys
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Post by jackorion on Oct 18, 2013 21:31:23 GMT
Long story short - When I was 16 I liked Oasis and wanted a guitar and after nine years of playing electric guitar in bands that varied from Oasis-a-like, to Nirvana-a-like, to 60s Beat covers, someone in a band I was in when I lived in London (the 60s Beat band) mentioned someone called Bert Jansch.
I went and bought his first album and that was it - I couldn't believe it was just one player and I went and bought a lot of his other albums, as well as Nick Drake's. It was about a year or so later that I left that band and moved out of London down to Devon to stay in my parents caravan for the summer and I spent the whole summer learning to play Angi, finally getting it after about 3 months and I've really been an acoustic player ever since.
For some reason I just seem so much more dedicated to getting good with the acoustic, and it just works for me - with electric I could never get the sound I wanted and I was never interested in solos, but with the acoustic it's just there when you pick it up.
I still have an electric guitar and an amp but, as each day goes past, I think more and more about selling them and using the money towards another acoustic - a certain Andy Manson has caught my eye recently...
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Post by earwighoney on Oct 18, 2013 22:13:24 GMT
Jack Rose.
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Welshruss
C.O.G.
Posts: 477
My main instrument is: Turnstone, Wandering Boy & Santa Cruz
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Post by Welshruss on Oct 18, 2013 22:53:59 GMT
Elliott Smith and Nirvana unplugged for me in the 90's then I discovered Kelly Joe Phelps, Eric Roche (who I did a few guitar weekends with), Nick Drake, and Bert Jansch. The Telecaster was put away and eventually sold.
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stringdriventhing
C.O.G.
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Post by stringdriventhing on Oct 19, 2013 0:54:22 GMT
Started on acoustic aged 15. Got a cheap and nasty electric soon afterwards and tried to play rock music for a year or two with my pals. Went to Uni, took up busking and flogged the electric for a better acoustic. Really only played acoustic since. I absolutely honk on the electric. I think I press down too hard which makes it sound out of tune half the time. Recently been playing a wee bit of electric on my daughter's Squire Strat on stuff we've been recording and I'm getting a bit better, but they are completely different instruments I find. Less is more on the electric and you have to be a lot more precise.
I love Drake, Jansch, Renbourn, John Fahey, Blind Blake, Robert Johnson etc, and I suppose those guys have influenced my acoustic playing most, but strangely 90% of the music I listen to tends to be on electric guitars.
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Post by peterh on Oct 19, 2013 7:29:54 GMT
When I was only about 12, my elder sister's boyfriend, now my brother in law, used to have a nameless arch- top, and would bring his Joan Baez records, and they used to chat about who was the best between her and Julie Felix.
Later like most people I guess, I heard Fairport, Steeleye and "Alice's Restauraunt" and then had Tatra nylon string.
OH dear.... regs Peter
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leoroberts
C.O.G.
Posts: 24,532
My main instrument is: probably needing new strings
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Post by leoroberts on Oct 19, 2013 11:01:49 GMT
I'd messed about with a nylon string guitar for a year or so until, when I was 14 or 15, a schoolfriend gave me a Ralph McTell songbook ... that was that.
I've never wanted an electric guitar and wouldn't know what to do with it if I had one (admittedly, the last bit could be said about acoustic guitar)!
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Post by fatfingerjohn on Oct 19, 2013 11:47:51 GMT
I missed out on the electric phase as a teenager (too much sport and no money!) and didn't try guitar until mid twenties with a cheap nylon strung guitar. This was to give me something to do in the winter instead of just going to the pub all the time. Then 'upgraded' with a holiday purchase in Spain to a steel strung acoustic which had a funny fingerboard. But that got me going until family and work caused a gap of about 30 years. Took it up again after earlyish retirement and wish I'd not missed those 30 years.
Never played a leccie although have now bought an acoustic amp and am playing around a bit with one or two pedals, but with acoustic guitars still. Too much to learn, not enough time.
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brianr2
C.O.G.
Posts: 3,053
My main instrument is: Brook Lyn guitar
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Post by brianr2 on Oct 19, 2013 11:52:04 GMT
Seeing Nic Jones live in 1971 planted the seed. It germinated in 2011 when I quit work and at last had the time to start to play. Forty years wasted.
Brian
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Adrian
C.O.G.
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Post by Adrian on Oct 19, 2013 11:55:55 GMT
I became interested in music, and especially the guitar, around the mid to late 70's. As a teenager TOTP was compulsory viewing. So my parents bought me an acoustic guitar (Ibanez) and enrolled me for lessons. About two years later they bought me an electric guitar. Then came the 80's and MTV, with all those great rock bands of that era and I was hooked. Eric Clapton released an album titled; Unplugged ... the rest is history. I still dabble with the leccy
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2013 12:44:50 GMT
I honestly had no preference between acoustic, electric or keys.
I saw The Beatles on Thank Your Lucky Stars and was genuinely awestruck. Later I started playing on a cheap acoustic since it was there, playing Beatles tunes and things like Daydream Believer and Something In The Air in a school group, but I always hankered for an electric. As I sank deeper into psychedelia and the Grateful Dead in particular I needed that electric, and got a Columbus Les Paul copy that someone had fitted with some nice humbuckers, and which sounded rather good. About the same time I got into banjo and the country music and folk scenes, the latter a direct reaction to glitter shite like T Rex.
Before long I escaped from the family home and got a piano, a mandolin, a dulcimer and a Telecaster, the latter of which was my main instrument until a personal crisis in the early '80s. I then sold or loaned out most of my instruments and had long hiatus playing nothing but piano until my son was born and I began a period as a househusband to care for him. Following that I added a few guitars, mandolins, a new dulcimer and a dobro, and got back into electric on a borrowed instrument.
I've now stopped playing anything at all, as I can't see the point. Whether I'll ever get back into it remains to be seen.
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Wild Violet
Artist / Performer
Posts: 3,556
My main instrument is: Symonds OM-14
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Post by Wild Violet on Oct 19, 2013 13:03:56 GMT
I only ever wanted to play acoustic. I saw David Bowie playing an acoustic version of "Space Oddity" in the early 70's and the seed was sown. My brother introduced me to Neil Young's music and that was it - I had to learn how to play the guitar.
I've never had any intrest in electric.
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alig
C.O.G.
Posts: 1,059
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Post by alig on Oct 19, 2013 14:14:02 GMT
Hmm. Had to think about this...
Played clarinet at school but then got into Neil Young and, frankly, struggled to play his stuff on it. Then the 'school band' (see my intro thread...).
Various dabblings with electric, including a rewarding and informative couple of years playing jazz at 'pizza gigs' with an accomplished chum. I was disappointed during this time as I found I was 'unlearning' stuff about chord fingering. A bit miffed that I'd spent so long doing unnecessary, as it were, fingering.
Only ever really enjoyed playing acoustic. I like to give material an acoustic twist, feeling that a good song will stand various treatments. A voice and guitar always seemed a pure form of music.
What amazes me is that, after more than thirty years, I still do it.
Happy days.
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Post by sigmadel on Oct 19, 2013 22:41:09 GMT
I'm a big metal fan particularly Iron Maiden and Metallica but I grew up listening to the likes of Johnny Cash , Don Williams , Marty Robbins as well as the Furys , The Corries , The Dubliners etc .. So I've always had groundings in roots music . In the mid 90s I saw Martyn Joseph for the first time and that was it . Although I've gone back and forth over the years I always end up back with a box with a hole cut in it ;-) . Favs being Martyn , Bragg , Cash , McTell and a new one in Luke Jackson who I honestly feel is the best new talent in roots music .
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Post by grayn on Oct 20, 2013 6:41:22 GMT
I'd alsways had an acoustic around, for songwriting. But they were mainly cheap classical guitars. In the later 70s, I splashed out on an Ovation, which seemed like a great guitar, at the time. When I switched from electric to acoustic music, I mainly played bouzouki, then octave mandola, just having one, lower end acoustic steel string. My first good acoustic was a Martin 0015. Wow! I had a Martin! What a buzz. Then I went the next step and got a Lowden. An F35, I think. It was one acoustic after another then and some great times too. I've gone back to "leccy" more these days but you can't beat a good acoustic intrument.
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