How long have you been playing music?

[OddKnowledge]

about 15 years. My parent's bought me a guitar for Christmas, and much to their annoyance, i never put it down.

[neonblack]

9 years? I taught myself to play bass to my then-roommate's technical math metal stuff, playing an unamplified electric bass I got for 40 bucks. Did that for about 6 months till I got an amp for Christmas.

that's a hell of a crash course.

Yeah my biggest challenge was teaching myself NOT to play like that when I started playing more Radiohead-ish stuff. The guy I played that stuff with taught me what notes I was playing, and about melody and harmonies and discord, and then later on I took what I learned and applied it to my older nutso tech metal style, and that spawned my current noise punk spazz thing.

[grindonomicon]

A little over 30 years since my Mom got me guitar lessons and rented an acoustic guitar (at 14 or so). I had zero appreciation for acoustic anything at the time, so that was a very short lived beginning. It was a few years after that when I bought a bass and amp. Still can't play guitar for crap, but luv it anyway. If I practice bass regular I get good quick, but really don't keep my skillz honed like I should.

[higain617]

Over 18 years now. How time flies when you're sucking at something.

[D.o.S.]

16 or 17 years, I think.

Which is probably the same amount of time since I last 'practiced an instrument'

[leaves turn]

bedroom player vet of 10ish years

[retinal orbita]

Played bass from age 15-21 in a buncha bands, just stopped due to work and shit, picked up guitar and bass again about 8 years ago.

[Ghost Hip]

9 years. I started two months after the first Guitar Hero came out. I toyed with the idea of playing bass or guitar before and my video game obsession lead me to getting Guitar Hero first day. I was like, "fuck yeah, this is what I want to do." Two months later I got a guitar for Christmas.

[Eivind August]

Around ten years, bedroom -> cover band -> jazz band -> psychedelic stoner punk band -> bedroom.

[univalve]

I try to Play Guitar since 24 years.

[osbornkt]

I started with flute 19 years ago and followed with piano about 17 years ago...Did classical music on those through college.
Picked up bass when I was 16 when I realized playing classical wasn't always cool. Played bass in a death metal band for a while and realized I sucked.
Started on guitar when the lead guitarist in my old grindcore band couldn't solo, so that puts me playing guitar for about five years. It all went downhill from there!

[Mike]

I don't play any instruments. I collect guitars and pedals as an investment.





Kidding... I started teaching myself guitar when I was 12, so that makes it 23 years. No lessons or anything, just a lot of free time. That's what happens when you're moved out to the middle of nowhere-- you teach yourself guitar. Well, that, and consume lots of intoxicants.

I wonder how different it was for people who learned with the help of the internet, compared to how it was for me to learn without the internet... or a tuner.

Mike

[Tristan]

4 - 10:
Jumping around the living room with an orange bucket on my head thrashing a few ukelele's while listening to Frank Zappa's Does Humor Belong In Music? album that I found when I was in a cd store with my parents.
Mostly fooling around on my dad's classical guitar, my mom used to give it to me the wrong way around because she was a lefty, that's why I play lefthanded, I'm actually a righty myself.
Got a grey bass because I chose the wrong instrument out of the rack in the music store, I actually wanted the Flaming Skull ESP that was hanging on the wall a bit further but it was a righty and way too expensive.
Really didn't understand shit of the bass so my parents finally got me an electrical guitar.

10 - 16:
My dad took me to the North Sea Jazz Festival, I saw Miles Davis play there and had to get a trumpet after that.
Got shitty lessons so lost my interest but I have still kept the trumpet till date and I play and record with it once in a while.
My dad took me to a workshop with Dutch guitar hero Eef Albers and from then on I knew I just had to play the guitar, that was it for me.

16 - 32:
Things got serious, music high school, some cool bands, did some small EU tours, unfortunately things didn't really work out in the end so I don't have a band or project at the moment.
Now I'm down to collecting pedals and gear and building my new pedalboard, who knows what will happen after that.

Oh yeah, so 28 years off and on it has been I suppose.

[coldbrightsunlight]

It's probably about 16 years since I started playing violin as a kid, picked up guitar around 10-11 years ago, bass a couple of years after that because we didn't know anyone else who could play for our band. Started double bass maybe 6 or 7 years ago for the same reason.

[Moustache_Bash]

I think 10 years. I'm 22 now. Started playing bass, then I picked up guitar because no one in my area played guitar (pretty fucking shocking really). Now I just make electronic based music, and am trying to get better at piano. Still fuck with guitar, though.