Eddie started another discussion which alludes to this question. So's not to highjack his thread, I'll start a new one and ask it straight out. I played a rented violin in the school orchestra in the third grade and a rented trumpet in the fifth. But that's not what I'm asking. What was the very first instrument you could call your own?

Mine was a $10 acoustic guitar from White Front, a California mass market discounter in the mid 1960s. It looked like it had been dipped in resin. It was originally bought for me and my two siblings, but it disappeared into my room at age 13. I discovered that I could wiggle the neck and get a decent vibrato, which was great until the top pulled loose. (I fixed it with epoxy.)

The strings were the proverbial mile above the fingerboard. The originals were replaced with Black Diamonds, also from White Front, which I used until I discovered actual music stores and better brands several years later. My fingers never bled--I wasn't into that much pain--but they were green and ragged for about a year until I developed some serious calluses.

Two years on someone showed me a fingerpicking pattern and I was off to the races. I didn't know that bands sometimes had more than one guitar, so I tried to play what I heard while maintaining the groove. I didn't end up a virtuoso, but I do have a unique style that pleases me.

The thing wore out just as I realized I needed something more. I went through a succession of inexpensive guitars (a Lyle copy of a Gibson Dove, a Decca 12-string, a silk-and-steel-strung folk guitar) until I ended up with an Alvarez-Yairi D-41 copy which I have to this day. There's a story there, too, but that's not what this is about. What's yours?

Richard

"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."