What got you playing...what keeps you playing?

[slomatic]

I was a teenage metal obsessive, and like most kids wS drawn to the guitar . It was just too complex though, this was the early 80s so it was stuff like Maiden, Metallics, Voivod, Celtic Frost and even the likes of Motley Crue. Fast solos and all that shit. I gave up straight away, then had a second try when I was about 16 and got into hardcore and the Stooges. It still didn't quite click, and again I gave up after a few months.
By the time I was in my late 20s I was engulfed in Kyuss/Melvins etc. my wife was at college and went on a years placement to France, I had some free time and had run into an old drummer mate from years back. I bought a Squier Jagmaster and a Boss DS1, and the drummer had a 70s Marshall 1959 head. I'd just learnt drop D tunings, and was finally making some semblance of sense out of the guitar, so we started jamming in an old punk collective room. Some punk heard us knocking out some one riff caveman shit and offered us a gig, three weeks later. I'd never even considered live stuff, but jumped in and did it, expecting it to be a one-off thing I'd look back on fondly.
I'm now 41, been gigging and playing for 12 years. I keep doing it because it's such a release, playing loud fuzz guitar is a welcome distraction from the responsibility of being a parent, husband and teacher in a school. I do sometimes wonder is it a bit weird to be still so excited about making music at this stage, but fuck it, it's part of who I am and I just love doing it. If anything, my enthusiasm just grows, and on a human being level I've come into contact with great, inspiring people and a lot of cool folk. I doubt at this stage I'll ever stop playing, whether it's live or not.

[rustywire]

An old HS buddy loaned me his Yamaha bass in early 2004.
Around this time I bought a Numark battle pack turntable kit & rediscovered the sound of vinyl, and it turned my world upside down.
Before this I had subscribed to the consensus opinion (platitude?) that "CD quality is best".
Decided that I enjoyed letting the records play, rather than scratching/mixing them as I had intended.
Really got into crate digging, hunting for records anywhere I could find them. Enter classic rock phase.

Received a handmedown fretless MIM Jazz Bass a few months later, as a very-belated bday gift.
A few weeks pass, another buddy gives me his old bass amp+cab, which is the Oliver head I use to this day.
I began hunting for old electronics on trash day, as I got into tube hifi audio after receiving a handmedown Fisher 400 receiver.
Mind = blown when turntable meets tube amp and I discover how music *can* sound, hearing things in my favorite songs for the first time...full of life.
I messed around for months, until spring 2005 when I chipped a bone in the wrist of my strong hand, skating.
Old injuries to my fretting hand had slowed my development, but this one shelved my playing entirely, for quite a while.

The next several years I went through a real dark phase from a work-related neck injury, and became a serious listener. 8+ hours of vinyl per day was common.
Thriftstore audiophile is a title I've been using for a few years now...
Found tons of new bands thanks to broadband internet, entered noiserock post-whatever phase.

After 4 solid years of listening, I started getting into samplers and drum machines. Rediscovered my old hip hop albums from the 90s & early 00s.
Realized I entered a "good music" phase where there are no boundaries.

Late 2010, sold a rare tube for $400, used the money to get an MPC60. Explored it with intention of being a 1 man rhythm section, picking up the bass again.
Began cultivating my sound and building an understanding of my taste, using the knowledge of self gained from those dark days.
Randomly made friends with a street kid from Mn, as he was playing guitar outside of the laundromat, spring 2011.
He suggests I pick up guitar. Did.


As for what keeps me playing?

I just follow my ears.
I know what sounds good when I hear it.
I want to hear how good I can sound...with anything I can use to create or capture it.
It's a rewarding journey filled with frustration, fun and wonder. Also drama, but mostly good times.
After all is said and done, it's about the sound...and how it makes me feel.

[van_muddlestein]

Hendrix and Black Sabbath made me want to start playing guitar. Nowadays I just can't not do it. It's the only thing I feel like I'm good at and when I'm on stage or wherever making music it's the only time I feel 100% comfortable and myself. I get really depressed and levels of not ok when I'm not doing music that are just unacceptable.

[darthbatman]

lot of great stuff in this thread. my thing is basically the fact that as a young kid i was good at picking out melodies and stuff i heard on tv and playing them on a small keyboard we had. that evolved into my mom signing me up for piano lessons and after a while i got bored and said i think i wanna learn guitar. early on i was just imitating nirvana and pink floyd and dicking around with my dad. after listening to a lot of primus one day i decided i wanna try bass. after falling in love with that fat sound and the potential of the bass as either a solo or 'just hang out and play three or four notes" instrument, i got into battles and reggie watts and others, decided i need to save up and buy a looper. which i did. a lot of what keeps me interested in playing is this sort of meditative process you can reach with loops that lets you improvise a theme or a snippet and expand out of it in any way that feels right at the time, embellishing on a transient sound representing an emotional state that would otherwise be only momentary. it's pretty neato. i've been recording that stuff and i agree with those here who've touched on how cool it is just to listen back to what you've done.