The first instrument you lusted after?

Subject: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: The Shambles
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 04:26 AM

I remember pressing my nose up against the music store window and lusting after one of the only acoustic guitars that I had ever seen.
No idea what make it was but it was a huge jazz type affair with two violin type sound holes.

Way back in the days of black and white imaging of guitars and their players (the mid 50s) - I think it was the bright red colour of this instrument that really impressed me about my first sight of the real thing.

And that was just from outside this magical shop. On entering and looking up to the pianos and the guitars hanging impossibly high above my head. I was greeted with such new and wonderful smells. I have now gotten used to the wonderful smell of instruments and of acoustic guitars in particular - which is a shame - but it is a smells that is no less sweet to me now.

It would be a shame if music shops were ever to be replaced by internet shopping as many youngsters in the future will be denied the joy of pressing their nose up against music shop windows and dreaming. It is not yet possible to smell instuments online.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: MBSLynne
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 04:41 AM

Can't remember the first, but it may have been a guitar. (I still can't play one)In recent years I lusted strongly after a wooden descant recorder and a wooden sopranino, both of which my lovely husband got me for birthday pressies. At the moment I'm lusting after a wooden tenor recorder and a bombarde.

Love Lynne

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 04:54 AM

a rosetti guitar
£4.19sh.11d.
a joint christmas present from my parents and grandma - I was 11 years old.
a star is born!

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: The Shambles
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 05:00 AM

£4.19!! A bit steep and completely out of my league.

Did it smell good?

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Jeanie
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 05:14 AM

From the second I read the title of this thread, I can see it now as if it were yesterday, the blue and white guitar hanging in the window of Wells Music Stores in the Arcade, Romford - Autumn 1964. Funny you should mention the colour, Shambles, because that is what made this guitar stand out, too. It was a scaled-down size acoustic guitar (ideal for 11 year old Jeanie)and painted in a pale matt blue with white scrollwork decoration and it quite took my breath away. I visited my "friend" regularly, suggested to my parents that we went to have a look at the music shop and oh-so-casually said "See that guitar. Isn't it beautiful ?" Their murmured agreement was enough for me to start hunting out for where they might have hidden the guitar at home in readiness for Christmas. "I'm going to the shops, are you coming ?" (Music to my ears) "No mum, I think I'll stay here. I'll be alright." Cupboards, boxes, under all the beds....nothing. They must have found a really good hiding place.

I think you can guess what's coming. Christmas morning. I can't remember for the life of me what my present was....but it wasn't the guitar. I learned many lessons that Christmas, all part of the pains, anticipations and disappointments of growing up.

So I carried on with my "pretend" home-made cardboard effort, strumming and humming along to records and the radio. (I had also made myself a drum kit, likewise out of cardboard and biscuit tins, and my cousin Paul and I played in our makeshift band "Paul and Paulina").

I was 13 when I finally got the real thing - a full size acoustic this time - and then started on the wonders of "Go Tell Aunt Rody" and Bert Weedon's "Play a Tune a Day". Hours and hours, ensconced in my room, with those lengthy delays whenever there was a chord change:
"Go, tell Aunt............Rody.........Go tell Aunt..............Rody".
Fun times, then and for ever since (though my chord changing has got ever so slightly quicker. But (and I know I'm going to sound very pathetic now): it was never the same as it would have been with *that* guitar.

Thanks for jogging my memory, Shambles.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: mooman
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 06:19 AM

I had already started on guitar at 11 with a pawnshop Dallas. Then someone offered me beautiful-sounding guitar second-hand when I was about 13 (it might have been a Levin). He wanted £5 for it, however, which was way beyond my means. I did lust after that guitar! I consoled myself with an Eko Ranger 6 a year or two later, saved for out of my pocket money.

I have since owned some very expensive guitars but these days have "downsized" to a small-bodied Korean tiny custom shop luthier-made (and completely unknown brand) tiger maple-topped jazz archtop which is quite the sweetest-sounding guitar I have ever played and which rarely leaves my hands! Even my mandolin family are all one-offs by little-known luthiers. I know this will not please our friend MG.

Uncorporately and seasonally yours!

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: David C. Carter
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 06:44 AM

My guitar was in an advert,in a Brittish newspaper.It showed a smug looking guy,surrounded by happy,contented folks.He was supposed to be the life and soul of the party.And it cost around £4.19sh 11d......Don't remember what became of that guitar,or of the happy contented friends.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Polly Squeezebox
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 07:09 AM

A Stierische Harmonica - first heard in my hotel room in the Stiermark Region of Austria. I raced downstairs to see where that incredible sound was coming from. It not only sounded wonderful, it looked wonderful too. For those who don't know, the Stierische is not a harmonica of the blown variety but looks rather like a largish melodeon. I already played Anglo Concertina and Melodeon, but was bowled over by this instrument that I'd never seen in Britain. A few years, and an inheritance later my dear husband bought me one in Innsbruck - the only one available was in brass band tuning. On the rare occasions when I take it 'out' session players tend to reach for their instruments when I start playing a well known tune. The look of puzzlement on their faces when they try to join in with what looks like a melodeon is WICKED!

Polly

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: kendall
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 07:51 AM

My cousin's 1941 D-28 Martin. Playing that thing was like making love.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 09:03 AM

OK, I admit-- a used drum set in my friend's house, that belonged to her brother. I babysat all summer, fulltime, to earn the money to buy it. I was 12. It was blue pearl in finish. I kept it about a year. Can't remember who I sold it to!

~Susan

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Midchuck
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 09:54 AM

Brigitte Bardot's, I think...

Dates me, huh?

Peter.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Dani
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 09:59 AM

Do singers count as instruments?

; )

Seriously, a few months ago I lusted after a bodhran I'd never met or seen. After an arranged union, we now live together, and are just beginning to get acquainted.

Dani

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 10:04 AM

A Martin D-28. Because that's what I thought Tom Paxton played.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Lanfranc
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 11:32 AM

My friend Tony's Gibson J45. I eventually bought it from him (for £90, a small fortune to me in 1967), but became disillusioned when the bridge began to lift. I had it fixed and then sold it to buy an Aria "John Pearce" copy of a Guild dreadnought before finally settling on the 1968 Martin D-18 which I still own.

Alan

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,Duke
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 11:45 AM

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Once Famous
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 11:45 AM

A 1962 Gibson LG-3 which I bought new with my bar mitzvah money in April 1963, and served as my only guitar for the next 35 years until it was put in semi-retirement in 1998 when I acquired guitar acquisition syndrome.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: number 6
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 12:26 PM

The only instrument I ever lusted for(strong word there) is a Gibson ES-335....which I just sold a couple of years ago ... no need or desire for an electric guitar anymore.

sIx

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Nigel Paterson
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 12:29 PM

Buddy Holly's Fender Strat! Years later I managed to afford my own Telecaster, which I subsequently had to sell because I was broke...I still bear the scars!!

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: leftydee
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 01:08 PM

The first guitar I couldn't live without was a 1965 Epiphone Texan. What a guitar! It still plays beautifully and now lives with my youngest daughter.

I have G.A.S. too , Martin. I contracted it a bit before you so I hope it wasn't something contagious that I passed around. It is a curse and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. (But..... I do have a lot of cool guitars.)

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 01:10 PM

I've never 'lusted' after an instrument, but I'd sure love to get my hands on An SLG1005

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Peace
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 01:11 PM

"Buddy Holly's Fender Strat! Years later I managed to afford my own Telecaster, which I subsequently had to sell because I was broke...I still bear the scars!!"

Indeed. I had a 1961 Telecaster. Traded it for an acoustic guitar back in 1964. Ya wanna watch a grown man cry?

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Troll
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 01:48 PM

A flutophone owned by an older cousin. She finally gave it to me. I think I was about 8 years old at the time.

troll

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 02:25 PM

Oh yeh! One of those nose flutes that they used to advertise on the back of comics. Luckily my parents never got me one. I already regret too much in life.......

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 02:29 PM

a Zimmerman Concert Grand Autoharp

"The Concert Grand is a very large autoharp, measuring about 20" wide by 30" long. It has 49 strings, covering four chromatic octaves, 6 bars bearing 12 shifters (10 active, 2 dummies), and it is said to be capable of producing 60 chords. The action of the Concert Grand differs from that of the Parlor Grand. Like the "All-Chord" above, the Concert Grand's bars can be situated in any of 3 different positions, each of which produces a different set of 3 chords per bar."

I was told by a 'friend' that he had sold one...after he sold it. "Gee, I didn't know you wanted one."..As far as I know, there are only a couple still in existence. I did acquire a Zimmerman #6 model in a 2nd hand store about 20 years ago...cost me $22, rather than the $1000 the big one would have cost....so maybe he did me a favor.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Duke
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 02:36 PM

When I was about 6 years old, I discovered a guitar in the upstairs closet. It was my dad's, although I never did see him play it. It took a few years, but at last he let me use it to learn to play the guitar. I tried and tried but could not get anything happening. The palm trees on the sound board should have given me a clue. Yep! It was an Hawaiian guitar with the action about 1/2" or so. Later on after I got my martin D-18 I gave it to my nephew who said that he would convert it to a normal guitar. It got burned up in a fire when the kid was playing with matches. Today that kid can play like you wouldn't believe and he makes his living at it. I still love to kid him about the time he burned his grandfather's guitar.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST, The Banjoest
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 02:37 PM

Earl's banjo.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,JP2
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 02:59 PM

A Jeffries,ANY JEFFRIES,Anglo Concertina or maybe,just possibly,a really nice Crabb Anglo or maybe a Wheatstone Model 40 or 41!
JP2

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 03:34 PM

The Everly Brother's Gibsons.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Peace
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 03:39 PM

I always wanted a real microscope. Finally got one when I was about nineteen.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Melani
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 03:45 PM

My dad made my first guitar, also my second one, so I didn't have to do much lusting in my early years. It was only after I started playing pennywhistle that I began lusting after practically every one I encountered. The first one I went totally nuts over was a brass Copeland, after radriano let me play his. When I finally got up the money to get one of my own, I checked the website for my order number every day for seven months.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 04:27 PM

My first lust was for a Ludwig Vistalite drum kit when I was 15. My parents bought it for me and I was off an running. At 18, I was working and bought myself a Fender P-bass because I'd lusted after bass guitars for years. The P-bass was not my original choice but after comparing it to the ones I wanted (I wanted them cuz they looked cool) there was no doubt the P-bass was the better buy. That was 1977 and I still own and use that bass.

Today, I just bought my 5th acoustic guitar--a Playmate from China. It's a Dean guitar and it looks nice and handles very well so far. It retailed for $185 but had a bit of finish damage from transport so the guy sold it to me for $110 along with a hardshell case that he threw in for $75. So I took the whole package for $185 and, as far as I can see, that was a shameless steal on my part.

I figure even if it turns out not to be a great deal, it's still cheap and will serve as a nice knock-about but from what I see, it's a perfectly good guitar with a very nice tone and very good action.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Peace
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 04:29 PM

I have never cared what a guitar looks like, as long as the action and sound were great and the fretboard true.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Genie
Date: 04 Jan 06 - 11:52 PM

Hmm, the first organ I lusted after, I guess, was ...


Oh, wait.   You said "instrument."


Never mind. ;-)

Genie

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Bassic
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 12:19 AM

Hardanger Fiddle, first saw and heard one played by Rosa, Skarpi`s fiddler in his band, in Portaferry N Ireland a year ago. Nearly won one on ebay before christmas 05 but was pipped at the post.

The lust transfered itself to a C Melody Saxophone and it arrived from the US 6 days ago. My second C Melody is likely to be shipped this week! I`m hooked!

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,Anonny Mouse
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 12:42 AM

That would hafta be a Martin D28 back in '61 or so. Finally managed to snag a used one (built mid 70's) in 82. Looked the part but parted company with it cause it just sounded crummy mosta the time. VERY disappointed. If I had it these days I would know to take it to a good guitar tech or luthier and have it set up properly-maybe bone nut & saddle and make sure it didn't have an inherent intonation problem. Traded it for a 12 string (Guild). Thing always sounded like it was filled with rags even with new strings. Course now there's a lot more string choices and metal combos--but I don't think it was a string-thing. Now that I think about it, prolly why the guy was willing to sell it to me on the cheap. Told me he just wasn't a "Martin man." Hmmmmmmmmm. (Why'd he buy it then-I was pretty gullible and besides wanted one since I was a kid so I was fixated on the NAME and the look and hardly even played the thing when he got it out from his rec room).

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Gurney
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 01:10 AM

A baritone Wheatstone English concertina I played 33 years ago. He wouldn't sell, wise man.

WeeLittleDrummer, I still play a Rosetti, a cut-down 'folk 12.' Starting to come apart now, but still a mellow machine.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 01:12 AM

A nice red piano accordion. I had already been learning piano for some years. My family was unable to buy it due to financial reasons, and a newly arrived unexpected brother. I got distracted for about 40 years with something called 'life', then started to acquire some.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 08:41 AM

Played trumpet as a kid, and always envied the kids with baritones. they just looked cooler (also sound really great on the Bydlo movement of Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition). Lusted after a euphonium for 35 years. Now I've got it - thanks to ebay.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 09:14 AM

At 10 I had to learn the accordeon, but when joining the boy scouts I really lusted for a guitar (easier to carry during the hikes). I was allowed to use the worn out troop guitar for a while, then I got my cousin's 3/4 guitar with 13.
Some years later a good friend of my late grandmother dedicated me her Spanish guitar which is now over 100 years old. I played it with catgut strings because of the marvelous sound, stopped strumming and started picking Renaissance songs therefor. It is now frail and I don't play it so often.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,punfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 09:14 AM

Gibson SG

.. after seeing the Alice Cooper Band on Top of the Pops..

post pubescent unrequited guitar lust..


still have'nt got round to buying one..

..not even a good cheap far eastern copy..



then 2 or 3 years later..


i actualy started to learn to play rudimentary rythm guitar
and fell for black telecasters and Gibson les paul junior double cuts


proper punk rock guitars !!!


still my favourites 30 years later

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From:
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 09:23 AM

I lusted after my first fiddle when I was about 10 years old. It wasn't a good fiddle but it was better than the school one I had been learning on so my parents bought me it. I have lusted after many other fiddles since and even managed to buy some of them.

Recently...well for about 5 years or so I lusted after an octave fiddle which I finally had the space on my credit cards....ermm...opportunity to buy!

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 10:10 AM

I don't remember lusting after an instrument until I'd been playing guitar a few years and had decided I had progressed as far as I could on a Yamaha FG-160 and was ready to step up to the next level. Since I was playing mostly bluegrass at the time, the next level meant a Martin dreadnaught. I didn't zero in on a specific instrument or even a specific model, just a Martin.

The only problem was where to get the money. So, I made a deal with my then wife that if I quit smoking I could get a bank loan to buy the guitar and use the money I'd been wasting on cigarettes for guitar payments. The stipulations were that I had to wait two months to show I was serious about the whole deal, and that if I started back smoking the guitar would be sold. So, I kicked a three-pack-a-day habit cold turkey, waited a couple of months, got a $700 loan from the bank and bought a brand new D-35.

Unfortunately, a tight financial situation brought on by a career change necessitated selling the guitar a few years later, but I did stay away from the smokes for ten years until I got divorced. But that's another story.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Big Mick
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 10:53 AM

First guitar I lusted after was a Country Gentleman. My instructor let me play it instead of the $20.00 guitar my Mother bought at Arlan's Department store.

These days it is simple. I will have a custom built Laskin before I die. It's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Mick

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Hovering Bob
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 10:54 AM

A Fender Stratocaster, what else, after all the Shadows were gods and Hank Marvin the idol above all others!
I never owned one, not at a price of £150 and getting 5 shillings a week pocket money.
But I did teach myself the guitar, with the help of Bert Weedon's 'Play in a Day'and the Shadoows 'theme from Shane' as a first goal.
I taught my self all the Shadows leads if only because some friends and I decided to form a group and we drew lots to see who would play what. I drew 'lead guitar' and my friend Johnny drew 'drums.' At the time, he was the only one who had a guitar. Our group did get going in the end (we were awful)but did get a few paid gigs.
It was several years later when I had discovered folk music that I realised I needed to learn to play chords. My musical ability has suffered from this 'wrong way round' learning pattern ever since.
In later years I really lusted after an Ovation and to my joy made myself afford one. My beautiful black 'Pinnacle' sits in its case and rarely sees the light of day since the stroke I suffered last year denied me the ability to play at any reasonable standard. I may recover the ability to torture a few chords out of it in time.

All the best,

Bob

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Mooh
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 11:02 AM

Guitar... Gibson Hummingbird and Martin D-45 and Les Pauls until I saw Roy Buchanan, then Teles. A friend had a Yamaha baby grand piano which really turned my crank, but that would have been as unrealistic as a Rolls Royce. In the succeeding 30+ years I've never owned a Martin, and only one (not a Hummingbird) Gibson acoustic. Don't care for Les Pauls much unless it's the SG variety, but since 16 owned many Teles, among others. The early (70s) Guitar Player Magazines kept me in GAS.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Wesley S
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 11:08 AM

Mick - know how some luthiers are - you might want to consider getting on Laskins waiting list today. How long does it take him to deliver an instrument once he has your order ?

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 11:23 AM

30 odd years ago I played a Gibson J200, I've lusted after one ever since but am no nearer to buying one ......... when the lottery ticket comes up !!

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: Allan C.
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 11:34 AM

In the early part of the '60's I had no idea what a mandolin was. Then I happened to hear one played in Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass' "The Lonely Bull." I was quite taken with how much the simple addition of a phrase or two of that instrument, (having asked someone what the heck it was!) added to the tune. I vowed to get one. I finally talked my folks into going with me to a music shop to investigate further. The shop only had three of them - all Gibsons and all in the $250 - $350 range. This was by far more than my parents were willing to spend and so the project was abandoned. "After all," they told me, "you do already have a guitar."

By then I had been playing guitar for about three years. I'm kinda glad things worked out the way they did. But I still hang onto the desire to own a mandolin. Maybe someday ...

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 04:38 PM

Lusted after---yes.

A Har-MONICA Lewinski.

Bill C.

Subject: RE: The first instrument you lusted after?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 05 Jan 06 - 04:40 PM

Now I stick to the sexophone.