Just an off-hand question for everyone here:

Who was it you were listening to the moment you realized "I need to learn to play an instrument so I can sound like THEM" the first time? I'm sure everyone posting here has had such a moment, even if you've never followed through on it.

Personally, the first time I stopped and realized that I was going to explode if I didn't put down the trumpet I'd been handed and choose my own instrument was the first time I heard Opeth's 'Blackwater Park' album in grade 11, marking the first time I'd listened to a real metal CD. Although I must admit, I haven't been playing nearly as much lately, I'm making more time for it now that I've started listening to 'Accelerated Evolution'.

So enough of my self-involved rant. Who was it that made you want to play?

[djskrimp]

David Gilmour got me started. Very graceful notes, yet some aggression when the song called for it. Awesome guitar player, and still my favorite.

Ty Tabor: got me into tone and note choice. Much like David Gilmour, but in a more aggressive nature. Awesome guitar player.

Devin Townsend: made me see that the music must fit the song, not the flash of the players. Saved me from the shred noodleheads, and made me appreciate the song as a whole again.

The musicians that made me want to pick up guitar were Evergrey and Eric Johnson. When I first heard their music, I was completely amazed. I had never heard the tasty melodies or blazing fast solos like the ones they could pump out...I just had to find out how they could do it.

My story is probably a hell of a lot weirder, simpler, and anticlimactic than most.

Back when I used to watch the two or three channels we got on our TV now and then, there was some commercial with a Jamaican dude playing some kind of four-stringed instrument, a mandolin or a ukelele or something... I can't remember exactly what it was. Anyway, I thought it sounded and looked really cool (not to mention a unique alternative to the guitar), and pretty soon I had a Fender FM-52e electric/acoustic mandolin that I began to practice on. I still have it actually, it's a great instrument... But eventually I somehow migrated over to the guitar, despite telling myself I'd only play mandolin at first just so I could be different.

So yeah, some random dude on a TV commercial made me pick up an instrument and play. How's that?

Great story Josiah! Whatever makes you inspired I guess.

Me, I knew I wanted to play the drums when I saw some live show with Europe on the telly as a kid. I think the drummer did a snare-only drumsolo, which really impressed me.

First of all:



Second: Trumpet is cool too! Although not very metal (it can be done: Ephel Duath's The Painter's Palette) it's a great sounding instrument.

Third: I bought a guitar some years ago because I wanted to be like Hetfield (say what you want about Metallica but Het used to be the king of rhythm guitar). But I sucked so I put it down
I should try again really. And be like Dev this time.

[djskrimp]

First of all:



Second: Trumpet is cool too! Although not very metal (it can be done: Ephel Duath's The Painter's Palette) it's a great sounding instrument.

Third: I bought a guitar some years ago because I wanted to be like Hetfield (say what you want about Metallica but Het used to be the king of rhythm guitar). But I sucked so I put it down
I should try again really. And be like Dev this time.

Be yourself, Biert. It's a skin that best suits you.

I bought my first Beaverboard Plywoodcaster during my Nirvana fascination period. Don't listen to Nirvana anymore, but still suck at guitar.

Guns 'n' Roses, Green Day, Oasis, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrikx


All 5 of these kind of influenced me at the same time. They made me pick up the guitar and say: Hey, now I look cool, even though I'm a geek
This was in 1996, so I was 12.

ministry for guitar. and it was more about the loud sounds as a solution for my teenage angst/anger/frustration than about playing good.
i dreamt about making the heaviest music ever for a few years until i got the city album.

then devin became my main inspiration and i decided the heaviest album ever had already been done, so i changed the direction.

for drums, it was gene. who else but it's vinnie ludovico i can benefit most from listening to, as he plays stuff i can actually play, too. gene's something else

@ josiah: not only your source of inspiration is wicked, the instrument is, too! you're a weirdo, my friend

Hm, I guess Hammett and Hetfield for my part. Then guys like Michael Angelo Batio and Tony Macalpine finally gave me the motivation to try and become much better technically. The instructional video of Malmsteen just made me think : I can never do that

Sepultura - Beneath the Remains

Daron Malakian from System Of A Down did it for me...i still love to play those songs, i should listen to their cds more often haha

I started playing because of Tenacious D actually, especially their older stuff and unreleased bootlegs, some genuine great acoustic music. Songs like Exploding Bras and Cosmic Shame I really loved. They manage to be overrated and underrated at the same time.

Somewhere between seeing Hetfield and Hammett rock out in the One video and seeing Jack White do some crazy improv solo/slide stuff at a White Stripes show, I began to think to myself: "I HAVE to do that!"