Stupid things you did when you first started playing

Hello,

First of all, an introduction. I've been lurking here on TDPRI for a couple years now - I can't even remember what brought me here. It was probably a google search on something related to a Peavey amp, if my vague recollection serves me right. Recently, I came across this forum again while searching for info on custom decals, and this time I got sucked in full force. I've been enjoying the different build threads (Buckocaster and Ron Kirn come to mind) here, as well as the wealth of knowledge you guys all have. Awesome. :)

I was setting up my latest strat a couple nights ago (more on that here (http://www.tdpri.com/forum/stratocaster-discussion-forum/108103-happy-new-guitar-day.html)) when I recalled my first strat. I have no idea what it was, just that it was blue, and might've been Squier, might've been Fender, can't remember. And it have a tremolo. Of course, at the time I had no idea what the saddles were for, and one night, I noticed that they were all staggered, and I thought it looked odd, so I decided to get a screw driver and line them up, so that they were all even and made a nice straight line.

Oh, I've learned so much since then... but it was a fun memory. I can remember wondering why it was so difficult to get my guitar to play in tune with chords, when the open strings were in tune to each other. Now I know....

Another stupid thing I remember is wanting (and getting) one of them pointy-headed Charvel guitars, but that's a memory lane I'd rather not go down...

What other stupid things do you remember doing when you first started playing?

My first Fender strat was an eighties USA strat with a beautiful sunburst, three single coils and KAYLER FLOYD ROSE STYLE TREMOLO!
!
I was just enamored with the Fender name and didn't know about tremolos.

I now play hardtails or block down my trems.

The bright side of the story is that I soon heard that guitar's scream for a humbucker and installing that pickup was my first mod which has led me to years of great enjoyment refinishing, modding and assembling guitars from parts. Even did a couple fret jobs this year.

Hmmm.. the first stupid thing I did when I started playing.. was to start playing :) It has been all downhill from there...

I often wish my first instrument had been piano :wink: Really !

I guess putting my ear next to a speaker every day whilst learning tracks wasn't the brightest thing I ever did , but lets face it , that's how we all learned in those days .

It really isn't what I did when I first started playing. I got off to a great start.

It is the stupid things I've done in the many years since!

I remember my first electric was a stratocaster and my father and I took it back to the music store several times swearing the intonation or something was bad, turned out we were both just used to that old '70s 12 string Martin and were pressing the strings down too hard....:oops:

I started on piano when I was six. I hated it and wanted nothing to do with it, but my parents were bigger than me, so ... I had to take lessons. For the next six years. I might have been forced into lessons, but I refused to learn to read music. It was the only rebellion available to me.

Boy, do I regret that.

And to add insult to injury, I now have "the piano" in my house. It's "sold" for $100 to the first sucker who shows up with the cash.

Yeah ...

Anyway, I'm making great progress learning to read music. But when I think of the years and years (and years) lost ... it's depressing.

My first git was a Tiesco Strat copy from Sears and a Sears Silvertone amp. I still wish I had that old amp. I have never learned to play really well but I have tons of fun. My mistake was I probably should have asked for lessons!

:lol:

when buying my first electric i asked if the guitar came with distortion:oops:

never did anything stupid that damaged any instruments although my early punk rock strumming with ultra hard picks cracked my first el cheapo strat's middle pup cover up pretty nicely

Not too crazy, I believe some guitars DO come with distortion, and Stew Mac sell that black ice thing for guitars.:wink:

About a year after I got my first electric guitar I was tightening screws and whatnot on the instrument one night and decided to screw the pickup screws down into the body as far as they could possibly go. A few years later I learned that the height actually affected the sound of the pickups, but by then the foam underneath them had compressed so much that they wouldn't raise up anymore even after loosening the screws.

It worked out though, as the guitar actually sounded pretty good that way.

Oh, and my first amp, which my mommy bought me for my 17th birthday was a 15W solid-state Crate which she paid... $250 for :shock:. In 1997 :shock:.

Not a bad practice amp by any means, but they really ripped us off that day.

i was and am still really happy with my first dodgy solid state, a little 25watt kustom amp with reverb, still sounds preety nice

never learned to take time to tune

my first electric (1969) was a '65 Strat ... after tinkering with it a little, i realized the strings were a lot easier to bend if i ran the saddles all the way to the back of the bridge. then i noticed ... hmmm ... sounds a little funny on the high notes!

of course, everybody else was so out of tune, it didn't seem to matter much (this was before electronic tuners hit the scene). yikes!

When I first started playing guitar, I would get stoned first. It wasn't until I recorded myself, that I realized just how bad I sounded. :)

growing up, my dad had many guitars over the years (although he never really played them), but the first guitar i ever bought for myself was a fender American Deluxe. Boy, how my life would have been different. Now I can't seem to stop buying expensive USA Fenders. I wish I would have started with a used 60's classic or a baja or something - those MIM's sure sound like they're nice...

my mama always said i had expensive taste. maybe someday I'll get over it...

Sold my Ampeg Reverbrocket to $20. I let my DeArmond 30 watt tube amp rot to hell.

Did not not buy either one of two Gibson LP Gold Tops in a pawn shop for $160 each in 1975 (neither had a full set of strings). God only knows what year they were or where they are now.

Failing to apply myself.

Didn't practice, didn't learn licks, didn't take lessons. Just fantasised.

Still angry about wasting all those years but happy to have started getting it together over the last ten years.

Young ones... are you listening?

I can remember getting the smart idea in high school of changing all my strings on my Mustang at once instead of one at a time. Got them all off only to find I couldn't get the tremolo bar/bridge up into position anymore. Learned a painful, but valuable lesson that day.

As a kid, I had some cheap nylon strung guitar to start with and wanted to convert it to electric. Never got to the point of actually buying a pickup, but screwed on a trapeze bridge and strung it with steel strings. How the neck stayed on or didn't actually snap, I'll never know... :roll:

I started music playing trumpet. Here is my stupid thing: when you play this kind of brass instrument, il becomes "hot" and the brass becomes a little bit bendable. At the end of a music session at music school, I've catched my trumpet by the mouthpiece and played around with my buds as the trumpet would be a blade. And the brass pipe twisted, next to the mouthpiece !
thirty years later, I still remember my father's blind rage (it was his trumpet...)

In my first band me and the bass player decided we would buy some speakers and build cabinets for the P.A. There was an electronics store that sold speakers. 8-inch speakers were $8, 12-inch were $12, and 15-inch were $15. Anyway, we could only afford 4 12-inch speakers so we spent 3 days building cabinets out of plywood, covered them in mac-tac, attached grill cloth with tape and took them over to our rehearsal space and set them up. After we got everything plugged in we switched on the amp and heard a POP! Blew all four speakers before we even got a chance to say "testing". That's how we learned about the difference between musical instrument speakers and stereo speakers and ohms and all that technical stuff! :mrgreen:

Failing to apply myself.

Didn't practice, didn't learn licks, didn't take lessons. Just fantasised.

Still angry about wasting all those years but happy to have started getting it together over the last ten years.

Guilty as charged. Wish I'd shown Mr George my first guitar teacher far more respect all those years ago... :sad: And I'm still fantasising!

The stupidest thing I did was not pick up the bass instead of the guitar.

Stupid act #1: Mercilessly pressured my parents to let me quit piano lessons at about 12, regretted it right away but was too proud to admit it to my parents. (I later did retain enough, and learned enough, to gig on keys for a time in the '70s.)

Stupid act #2: Sold my first guitar, a cheap Suzuki flattop which my sister had given me. Now I don't have the guitar or my sister (cancer). Two things which mean so much to me gone.

Stupid act #3: Selling '70s Tele Deluxe, matching Tele Bass, and matching Fender lapsteel, essentially to feed my lazy ass. I should have gone hungry and worked harder.

Stupid act #4: I should have struggled more to get pro lessons as a beginner. I would hitchhike to the ends of the earth for strings but not for lessons. What was I thinking? This is from the perspective of a pro teacher now. Lost time and opportunity.

However, I found true love, raised two great kids, have a great extended family, been reasonably healthy, and found true lust in Telecasters. What more is there?

Mike Bruce

My stupid mistake was abandoning the guitar for almost two decades to focus on grad school and "adult life." I actually remember the last time I played before "retiring"--laid down some guitar tracks for a friend and left my Gibson Explorer there in his home studio, knowing I wouldn't see it again for a long time.

I thought that leaving guitar behind would make life easier. Stupid.

Epilogue: Recalled my two axes ('83 Exlorer and '78 "lawsuit" Ibanez V) from their long-term borrowers, sold them (they were too rock'n'roll for me), and bought a Taylor dread and oly white American Standard, with enough left over for a bunch of gear. Time will tell if getting rid of the Gibby and Ibanez was a stupid move, but I'm loving life right now.

When I was about 17 years old I read an interview with Pat Martino. He mentioned that you have to spend years learning music theory and how to apply that to the guitar. Then when you're performing you have to forget all that and play music.

I (being the typical teen-aged genius), decided that if I didn't learn all that stuff I wouldn't have to forget it! 30 years later, I'm not as good as I could be.

This one still hurts...

I went to one of my friend's friend to buy his Roland Cube-100 (orange one) for 100$. And he offers me at the same time a Boss DM-2 (analog delay) for 20$. At this time (early '90), everything that was digital was cool!!! I even have a Digitech RP-1 at this time. So I say "No thanks!".

I still have regrets, especially when I look the price on E-Bay these days...


Another mistake when I was young: I was playing using the headphone out of my Peavey Backstage 110 for quiet practice, but the speaker was still active (an annoying!!!). So I simply disconnect the speaker!!! After 3 minutes of playing, the amp suddenly shuts down... God bless the thermal protection!!!

I've only been playing for a couple years, so I guess I'm still starting out.

But the dumbest thing I've done so far? I took my cheapo Ibanez acoustic, that did not have an adjustable truss rod, and tuned it to open E. Poor neck...

And I still want to get lessons, but I have no time during the school year (which sucks cause I bet I can find a good teacher in friggin Austin!), and the local music shop back here at home closed.

When Les Paul Juniors were cheap in the early eighties, I bet I went through 5 or six of them, all from '58 to '60. I wish I had kept at least one of them.
I had a beat up '59 that was truly magical as far as tone goes.
Oh, and a friend tried to sell me a Lake Palcid Blue '64 strat for $1400.

the first stupid thing I did when I started playing.. was to start playing

I'll rip a page out of that book. better make it a whole chapter.

too many dumb things to mention, how about just one, instead of practicing and patiently learning the songs, just glossing over them enough to fool people and spending the rest of my time drooling over guitar magazines.

and I wondered why I didn't get girls...

Being new here and relativly new to the guitar in general, I figured I'd post some of the horrible things I did to my first guitar.

I didn't know any better, was into heavy metal, and wanted an ESP. I couldn't afford one and again, didn't know better, so upon seeing the First Act value package at the local ToysRus, I had to have it.

Tuning? I didn't know what that was or how to do it. I don't think I ever did tune the thing.

I ended up breaking all the strings, throwing it across the room several times and putting it away. Then I bought more strings, strung it up to the best of my abilities (using a keyboard for referance) and proceded to beat on it in some form resembling bad music. Then, I pulled off all the frets to make a fretless guitar. :lol:

After that, I set it drew a smiley face on it with lighter fluid and set it on fire. Then I took it completely apart and put it away.
I got an Ltd. (subsidiary of ESP) guitar, a tuner, and actually learned a few songs. Got another guitar, progressed, etc.

I finally got around to putting the old First Act back together about 3 years ago now. I hammered all the frets back on, made a new pickgaurd for it in Machine shop at school, made a radiusing block and sanded the frets down, used files to get rid of all the sharp burrs and generaly brought it back to life somewhat. I painted the headstock black and about a year ago, thinking upon all the abuse it took, named it "Zombiecaster", with gold and glow in the dark hand painted lettering.

It is now tuned to Drop-B and is rarely used.

But, now that I've wised up and grown older, I understand what kind of work needs to be done to it to make it useful again. So, it'll most likely be my first "project" guitar that I post about on the forums. When I scrounge up enough money to "waste" on it anyway. :grin:

I started playing in high school...bought a Fender princeton amp....a brand new (original) tube screamer....a washburn A20-v (from Chris Kinman)...and later found a '71 Strat for $250 bucks in a pawn shop....finished high school and sold all my gear thinking my music days were over....and I sold it all cheap....needless to say I took it back up again 5 years later...still miss my original gear and lost 5 years of practice.....what a dipsh!t.

it's gonna hurt telling this story..... in 1984 i got my first strat, a 1962 USA vintage reissue. (part of the first run) against the advice of all the guys at "music city" (the store where i bought it) i had a fender locking nut installed on it. locking trems were all the rage back then and i thought i was missing out. ohhhh to be 13 and so stupid. those guys at "music city" were always on the level and honest to the nth degree. i took the locking nut off about 2 years later and it still sits in my toolbox. anybody need a genuine fender locking nut with fine tuners???

I changed the strings on my first electric (Recco) because I broke one---I put on medium gauge acoustic bronze!
I was using this guitar professionally at age 14,and would wonder why guitar was do hard to play.
Also ,traded an original '72 Thinline tele for an Electra MPC Les Paul---the one that you could stick module effects in the back.:roll:

I was just reminded of another stupid thing I used to do in the early days - I would turn all the tuning keys so they all lined up nice and straight. :)

Failing to apply myself.

Didn't practice, didn't learn licks, didn't take lessons. Just fantasised.

Still angry about wasting all those years but happy to have started getting it together over the last ten years.

Young ones... are you listening?

=========================================


Man, you and me both!

SRV influenced days with non-detuned 12-56s and 'playing through the pain' in my forearm cause I was da man...

Luckily I grew out of that before incurring any damage :oops:

When I first started playing, I'd fret notes right one the fret wire, rather than between them. Buzzed like hell and didn't feel too good, either.

I took the advice of my HS guidance counselor who told me NOT to choose music as a career. :mad:

mud

I replaced the original tuning pegs on my '67 Strat with mini-Schallers in an effort to keep the tuning more stable on stage. Aggh! Decades, later, I had the original tuning pegs put back on, but the guitar now has conversion bushings on that don't look "right." My repairman didn't recommend putting dowels in and re-drilling, etc.

I will say, though, that the guitar had a little more sustain and string bending was a little easier with the Schallers on. I've read over and over again in various forums that lighter tuning pegs provide better sustain, but this was NOT my experience with this guitar.

I had done some other mods to the '67 over the years--brass sustain block, brass bridge sections, Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound Strat pickup--but those were all reversible.

Bought a 1994 American Standard Tele, and a 1994 Blues Deluxe. The Tele was $500, and the amp was $350... now I can't find anything better to spend my time or money on. : P

Failing to apply myself.

Didn't practice, didn't learn licks, didn't take lessons. Just fantasised.

Still angry about wasting all those years but happy to have started getting it together over the last ten years.

Young ones... are you listening?

Yeah mate, you and me both!

I "kind of sort of" practised, and I really wanted to be good, but it never struck me to sit down with a metronome and really apply myself.

I am now making up for lost time.

The biggest mistake I've ever made is try to build a guitar.:neutral:

Nothing terrible, but... I blocked the bridge on my Ibanez Strat with a piece of wood (because in the 70s, it was all about susssstaaaaiiiinnnnn). I realize I probably would have liked that guitar a LOT better, with a floating bridge.

Secondly, I paid people to set up my guitars, rather than learning to do it myself. I have since learned that I care a LOT more about MY guitars than 95% of the repair guys out there (no offense to any repair guys here, of course), and I CAN do a good job, and I WILL take the time to get it right.

Well, when I was a sprout I took a nice maple necked two tone sunburst Strat apart with a steak knife just to see what was inside.

I cut the wiring with the knife to get it apart, and when I put it back together I tried to solder it with matches.

I had the worst time figuring out why the pickups didn't work.

Considering the time frame, it was definitely not a reissue... :roll:

All things considered, though, having lazy practice habits was far more stupid.

My first guitar was a sunburst solid body from Lafayette Electronics. This was in the late 60s and the first thing done was to sand it all down and paint it up in a "SICO-DELIC" scheme. Looked like a Janis Joplin album cover from those days. Next thing was reccomended by my bass player (he played a homemade six string bass that he had filed the frets down on, was called the fretless wonder), so with #10 bastard file in hand (same one used to sharpen dad's mower blades) away we went. First amp was built by dad. It was a metal chassis with the tubes and transformer mounted on top, no cover and two long shaft pots (no knobs) sticking out the side. This was married up to a 10" EV cabinet and the speaker leads were mounted to the amp via screw terminals.

Wish I still had that old stuff!

I remember only using the bridge pickup or the bridge and center pickup on a Strat (22 years ago). I thought the neck pickup was stupid.


???

In 1963 I was a young kid in a 2 guitars, bass and drums band. The bass player had a 62 jazz bass, the other guitar player had a 56 strat and I had a jaguar - all sunburst finish models.
We got the bright idea to have matching guitars, so we had them all painted baby blue. When I say painted, I mean painted - not refinished.
Next to my first 3 marriages, that was the dumbest thing I ever did.
Some people thought it looked cool, they were dumb too.

Now I have an extreme aversion to refinishing any guitar . .

Always more the acoustic player, ....

#1 .. When I was young, I listened to the person who said, "Using capos is just cheating."

#2 .. When I was young, I listened to the person who said, "Led Zeppelin III is terrible. Don't buy it."

#3 .. When I was young, I listened to the person who said, "There is only one way to tune a guitar."

#4 .. Traded my 1976 Stratocaster for a 1975 LesPaul.

I have a nice Tele now. I have a line on a like new 2000 American Deluxe Strat for cheap (sign of the times).. I may get a nice Strat back after 31 years!!!! :)

Traded in a '57 reissue Strat (at a loss) plus cash, check and charge for a low end Gretsch that I lost money on when it sold.

Taking things apart without diagraming their original state, then having to guess how it all went back together. Oh, and turning one guitar into a fretless by filing painstakingly down the frets flush with the fingerboard without realizing the differences between a fretted and non-fretted instrument. Needless to say, that neck was a goner. Fortunately, it wasn't a strat! :wink:

After my dad taught me some chords and stuff, I wanted a new "ROCK" guitar...... so... I put up his '55 tele:shock: and bought me a pointy head Charvel !!!!:rolleyes: DOH !!!!! I still get to play the '55 when I want, but I think alot about how stupid I was !!!!!!:mrgreen: :shock:

After my dad taught me some chords and stuff, I wanted a new "ROCK" guitar...... so... I put up his '55 tele:shock: and bought me a pointy head Charvel !!!!:rolleyes: DOH !!!!! I still get to play the '55 when I want, but I think alot about how stupid I was !!!!!!:mrgreen: :shock:

Well at least you didn't SELL his '55 to get your Charvel.

Tried to make a new body for my tele out of mahogany. Routed it without any sort of plan and the wood caught fire. :shock: I do not trust myself with a router anymore.

Lessons I have learned over the years:

1. I thought that buying a high-end guitar was necessary if I was going to be a "serious" player. I spent many thousands on high-end acoustics before I learned the hard truth that the skill of the player matters more than the cost of the instrument.

2. When you get over a certain price-point on guitars, you're not paying for sound or build-quality; you're paying for bling and a famous name.

3. Custom-made guitars from small luthery shops may look cool, but they often play like crap.

4. Practice. I spent way too much time early on reading about guitars, talking about guitars, studying guitars, etc. I didn't spend enough time playing guitars.

5. I didn't know how to listen to music when I was younger. It finally dawned on me that if I wanted to play certain kinds of music, I had to listen to it. Really listen. Get the structure, the feel, the tempo. (You can't play a song if you can't hum it, I discovered.)

I didn't do too many stupid things other than not enough practice and putting a humbucker in my strat.