Mostly I wanted to hear from people outside of musical family's and "dynasties" , pepole who started playing when their friends dont or their is nobody in the area playing, for me it was classes in primary school and the Tulla Ceili Band coming to do a show in Clonmel that got me intrested
Well, I'm kind of from a musical family, my mom was a violinist but she quit playing when I was small.
When I was very small, a toddler, I heard my mom playing violin in the hallway of our house. It was beautiful, and I never forgot it. Many years later when my school started offering orchestra classes, I signed up for violin.
I hated playing in an orchestra and didn't care for the music, so I quit playing when I went to college.
Years later my mom passed away, and her old violin went to me. I wanted to play it but I didn't want to play classical, so I started fiddling.
What else would a reprobate like me do? Aint gonna be a rocket scientist or a priest. No other options. It was a life of crime or playing music.....come to think of it it's been a life of crime AND music....oh well...sorry mom....
I fell in love with the sound of uilleann pipes, which emboded an eerie emotion that i knew i wanted to control. And that lead me into Irish music. The thing with music, for me, is that it's like pure emotion. You can't really describe it, but humans for some reason understand it. The kind of music you make, and the way you make it, is like saying something about your self that can be said in words.
My father and his father were both highland pipers, and I followed suit. From birth, I had never heard any other music in our house but the pipes. One day I was out on a schoolboy adventure in the back of an old Commer van, and somebody played a guitar. I couldn't believe the sound that came out of that wooden box (enhanced no doubt by the accoustics of the van.). Half a century later, I still remember that astonishment whenever I pick up the guitar.
I loved to sing from a very early age. Started singing along to my parents' Dubliners and Jim Reeves LPs. I think I always sang - irish, pop, country, whatever.
Started learning tin whistle, didn't keep it up. It was impossible to get a chance to practice in a busy house!
A friend asked me along to a session, and my mother allowed us to go to a pub (aged 15, drinking soft drinks) where I learned to love the music, especially the bodhran. I learned to play the bodhran there too (very quietly, which has stood me well since!), and developed a hatred of the piano in Irish music! I've gotten over the last of these - almost.
We first got electricity installed in our house in 1946, and that was soon followed by a radio. I kid you not but up to then my sister and I use to listen to our neighbour's battery radio by pressing our ears to our bedroom wall, so any music I learnt had a sort of muffled sound! Around that time an elder brother gave me his mouth organ and I learnt to play a few tunes on that. However I really wanted to be like Gene Krupa,(Google him if you're too young to remember) so a pair of drum sticks was next on the list. Then into the local fife & drum band to learn the rudiments(photo). A natural progression to ceili bands and dance bands followed and already I had one up on Krupa. He never played drums with a Ceili Band. Fell in love with the accordion and now I really, really, wanted to be Paddy O'Brien or Jimmy Shand so a box (on hp) was next on the list. Then back to a ceili band, but this time out front with the fiddlers. Over fifty years later I'm still feckin around and trying to learn tunes, but 'what the hell'...., I'm still above ground!.
I started playing music on Monday, February 10, 1964, the day after the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, and my Dad brought home a guitar that afternoon. I was almost 13 years old.
My mother was a music teacher. Her piano students would come to our house for their lessons. After the lessons were over, I would sit down at the piano and try to imitate what I heard my mother and her students playing so my mother decided to teach me how to play the piano properly.
In addition, both of my parents listened to a wide and eclectic variety of music. I grew up in a musical household listening to almost anything and everything.
I'm not from a very musical family, but my mother started me off playing irish music at an early age, around 4 or 5 years. I gradually began to fall in love with the music.
My earliest influence was Lonnie Donnegan and I started a skiffle band with other 10-year-olds in the 1950s. We were just messing around but we did have a tea-chest bass and a washboard. My dad cobbled together a sort of guitar for me out of plywood, with frets too, in his garden shed. I don't know what he used for frets. It was just made out of bits he had lying around.
I was sent off at 7 to recorder class and a couple of years after
I quit, I discovered I liked it. I'm playing fiddle and concertina now
because I'm a masochist.
It was something I really wanted to do from a young age. My parents didn't play any musical instruments themselves, but did provide lots of noisy musical toys like weeny toy pianos, recorders, melodicas, ukeleles etc. Good for them. Both my brother and myself ended up doing music, but he learned 'modern' and I did classical.
Started violin in 4th grade and soldiered on in orchestra just so I could get out of class. Then my uncle took me to see the Irish Rovers - no kidding - and I liked the melodies. So I learned fiddle tunes.
Then I heard the whistle and fell in love. Alas, it is unrequited...
Funny enough, I know more than one musician who gave up rock music for Irish because there was money in it!
On a local level, in London (before restrictive licensing), you could get paid to play Irish tunes and songs in pubs, whereas you'd have to pay to play with a rock band playing original stuff.
You don't need a drumkit or loads of heavy amps and cables and stuff, and if you're any good at all, people love it!
I've tried playing dead, playing for time, playing for keeps, and of course, playing dumb - all with varying degrees of success.
Playing music was never something I had any choice about. How well I have succeeded it would not be modest in me to say, but I love it, that's for sure!
Why did you start playing music?
Why did you start playing music?
Mostly I wanted to hear from people outside of musical family's and "dynasties" , pepole who started playing when their friends dont or their is nobody in the area playing, for me it was classes in primary school and the Tulla Ceili Band coming to do a show in Clonmel that got me intrested
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by premier
Re: Why did you start playing music?
Well, I'm kind of from a musical family, my mom was a violinist but she quit playing when I was small.
When I was very small, a toddler, I heard my mom playing violin in the hallway of our house. It was beautiful, and I never forgot it. Many years later when my school started offering orchestra classes, I signed up for violin.
I hated playing in an orchestra and didn't care for the music, so I quit playing when I went to college.
Years later my mom passed away, and her old violin went to me. I wanted to play it but I didn't want to play classical, so I started fiddling.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Marklar
Re: Why did you start playing music?
My mum had a very firm finger and thumb grip on my left ear and if I tried to escape she'd twist it. How I hated the piano, the piano teacher, music.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by mcknowall
Re: Why did you start playing music?
because.
Why did I start to eat solid food? same reason
Why did I start to walk? same reason
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Wyogal
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I was always mesmerized by musical instruments at an early age. (5 or 6)
Wanted to attend Woodstock in 1969 but I was only 8 at the time. Now I just play many styles of music and sit in mud puddles when it is raining.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: Why did you start playing music?
What else would a reprobate like me do? Aint gonna be a rocket scientist or a priest. No other options. It was a life of crime or playing music.....come to think of it it's been a life of crime AND music....oh well...sorry mom....
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by shanty
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I fell in love with the sound of uilleann pipes, which emboded an eerie emotion that i knew i wanted to control. And that lead me into Irish music. The thing with music, for me, is that it's like pure emotion. You can't really describe it, but humans for some reason understand it. The kind of music you make, and the way you make it, is like saying something about your self that can be said in words.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Piping Crow
Re: Why did you start playing music?
That CAN"T be said in words, sorry....
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Piping Crow
Re: Why did you start playing music?
That's hilarious, mcknowall.
So is this payback? - making bodhrans?
Good luck to you.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Why did you start playing music?
Sometimes I ask myself that very same question. I really do.
Then I just shake my head and get back to it.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by John Galt
Re: Why did you start playing music?
Because it was there, and it had to come out. No other possibility.
And also because I heard Torrest, er, Forrest Tucker at our local session.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by ayedbl
Re: Why did you start playing music?
My father and his father were both highland pipers, and I followed suit. From birth, I had never heard any other music in our house but the pipes. One day I was out on a schoolboy adventure in the back of an old Commer van, and somebody played a guitar. I couldn't believe the sound that came out of that wooden box (enhanced no doubt by the accoustics of the van.). Half a century later, I still remember that astonishment whenever I pick up the guitar.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by gam
Re: Why did you start playing music?
Now, ayedbl, you can't blame me for your obsession--you started playing about 20 years before I slunk into my first Irish session.
And you better watch out [evil grin] -- I know where you live!
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by John Galt
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I loved to sing from a very early age. Started singing along to my parents' Dubliners and Jim Reeves LPs. I think I always sang - irish, pop, country, whatever.
Started learning tin whistle, didn't keep it up. It was impossible to get a chance to practice in a busy house!
A friend asked me along to a session, and my mother allowed us to go to a pub (aged 15, drinking soft drinks) where I learned to love the music, especially the bodhran. I learned to play the bodhran there too (very quietly, which has stood me well since!), and developed a hatred of the piano in Irish music! I've gotten over the last of these - almost.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by RockyRoader
Re: Why did you start playing music?
We first got electricity installed in our house in 1946, and that was soon followed by a radio. I kid you not but up to then my sister and I use to listen to our neighbour's battery radio by pressing our ears to our bedroom wall, so any music I learnt had a sort of muffled sound! Around that time an elder brother gave me his mouth organ and I learnt to play a few tunes on that. However I really wanted to be like Gene Krupa,(Google him if you're too young to remember) so a pair of drum sticks was next on the list. Then into the local fife & drum band to learn the rudiments(photo). A natural progression to ceili bands and dance bands followed and already I had one up on Krupa. He never played drums with a Ceili Band. Fell in love with the accordion and now I really, really, wanted to be Paddy O'Brien or Jimmy Shand so a box (on hp) was next on the list. Then back to a ceili band, but this time out front with the fiddlers. Over fifty years later I'm still feckin around and trying to learn tunes, but 'what the hell'...., I'm still above ground!.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3637/3373305076_14cc05d4d1_o.jpg
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Why did you start playing music?
.... To try and impress a girl....
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by camwebby
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I started playing music on Monday, February 10, 1964, the day after the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, and my Dad brought home a guitar that afternoon. I was almost 13 years old.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Why did you start playing music?
My mother was a music teacher. Her piano students would come to our house for their lessons. After the lessons were over, I would sit down at the piano and try to imitate what I heard my mother and her students playing so my mother decided to teach me how to play the piano properly.
In addition, both of my parents listened to a wide and eclectic variety of music. I grew up in a musical household listening to almost anything and everything.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I'm not from a very musical family, but my mother started me off playing irish music at an early age, around 4 or 5 years. I gradually began to fall in love with the music.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by laveylad
Re: Why did you start playing music?
The judge said It was either play the box or do 3-5 in medium security. I took the jail time. No, wait. . .
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by Martin_BC
Re: Why did you start playing music?
My earliest influence was Lonnie Donnegan and I started a skiffle band with other 10-year-olds in the 1950s. We were just messing around but we did have a tea-chest bass and a washboard. My dad cobbled together a sort of guitar for me out of plywood, with frets too, in his garden shed. I don't know what he used for frets. It was just made out of bits he had lying around.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by RichardB
Re: Why did you start playing music?
To pick up guys. Why else? Who wouldn't want a girl playing the bagpipes.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I was no good at anything else.
# Posted on August 8th 2009 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I was tongue-tied and wanted to annoy people.
# Posted on August 9th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Why did you start playing music?
Chicks.
Babes.
Honeys.
Wenches.
Gurrrrrls.
And the money, it's always been about the money. That's why I pursued Irish Traditional - the money and the perks are so much better.
And the respect on the street.
Gotta have the horsepower with the peeps, Dude.
Rock on.
# Posted on August 9th 2009 by Piece
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I was sent off at 7 to recorder class and a couple of years after
I quit, I discovered I liked it. I'm playing fiddle and concertina now
because I'm a masochist.
# Posted on August 9th 2009 by Hup
Re: Why did you start playing music?
It was something I really wanted to do from a young age. My parents didn't play any musical instruments themselves, but did provide lots of noisy musical toys like weeny toy pianos, recorders, melodicas, ukeleles etc. Good for them. Both my brother and myself ended up doing music, but he learned 'modern' and I did classical.
# Posted on August 10th 2009 by Bredna
Re: Why did you start playing music?
Started violin in 4th grade and soldiered on in orchestra just so I could get out of class. Then my uncle took me to see the Irish Rovers - no kidding - and I liked the melodies. So I learned fiddle tunes.
Then I heard the whistle and fell in love. Alas, it is unrequited...
# Posted on August 10th 2009 by Fiddlephilia
Re: Why did you start playing music?
Funny enough, I know more than one musician who gave up rock music for Irish because there was money in it!
On a local level, in London (before restrictive licensing), you could get paid to play Irish tunes and songs in pubs, whereas you'd have to pay to play with a rock band playing original stuff.
You don't need a drumkit or loads of heavy amps and cables and stuff, and if you're any good at all, people love it!
# Posted on August 10th 2009 by RockyRoader
Re: Why did you start playing music?
All true, Rocky - I know of a few, and have heard of more, who went for the traditional tunes when the pop stuff wasn't making them any loot.
Sometimes it works out -
that list might be said to include Robin Williamson and Mr. Paddy Keenan.
(It also would include me, but there you go. *sigh*)
Cheers.
# Posted on August 10th 2009 by Piece
Re: Why did you start playing music?
Pure pleasure (because it felt so good the first time I blew into a harmonica).
Because it was a good way for an extremely shy kid to make friends.
# Posted on August 10th 2009 by Bob himself
Re: Why did you start playing music?
I've tried playing dead, playing for time, playing for keeps, and of course, playing dumb - all with varying degrees of success.
Playing music was never something I had any choice about. How well I have succeeded it would not be modest in me to say, but I love it, that's for sure!
# Posted on August 18th 2009 by Ailin