I had absolutely no interest in guitar or playing music whatsoever.
In the summer of 1978, our next door neighbour gave me her son's old Raven Les Paul - he had moved out and gotten married and took his good guitars with him. She gave me my choice of the two he had left behind. I suspect that I chose badly, but I'll never know for sure. It also came with an amp that I'm pretty sure was built from a kit.
That fall, my parents signed me up for lessons. I actually practiced, so before long my teacher talked my parents into buying me a better guitar - a used '78 Fender Strat that I still have - and amp - a Yamaha G30-112 that I also still have.
When I was fifteen, I went away for a summer job and really missed my guitar, so I bought a new '81 Takamine acoustic to take with me the next summer. That summer I got tired of playing the first eight bars of 50 songs, so I started to work on singing. I would play the melody on my guitar and then try to match the notes with my voice. I didn't know it at the time, but I was a baritone, so most songs were out of my range, but eventually, I could at least carry a tune well enough for around the campfire.
In my third year of university, I actually started having conversations with my friends that weren't centred around either school, beer, or women and found out that quite a few of my friends played. We eventually decided that jamming 'til the wee hours in the living room was way more fun than hanging out in dance bars in the vain hope of getting picked up. During the last two years of University I learned a tonne of songs - or at least the gist of them - and sang a lot. It was all pretty sloppy, but we had a ball.
Guitar took a back seat for several years of apartment living, but after getting married and then buying a house a few years later, I got back into it a bit and joined the Worship Band at our church. When kids arrived, we decided that I would stay home as my wife had a great job with normal, predictable hours and good benefits and I was self-employed as a freelance audio-visual technician. I didn't have time to play with others, so I started working on fingerstyle while the kids were napping. My guitar teacher had taught me a bit of fingerstyle, but at the time, I was more interested in playing power chords - but the fundamentals of playing fingerstyle (and about 3 tunes) stayed with me.
Shortly after my daughter was born, three people I knew approached me, all in the same week, wondering if I would consider teaching guitar. I took the hint and started teaching one evening a week. Once my youngest was in school, I transitioned to teaching during the day and I now teach three days a week and I am seriously considering teaching a fourth day next fall.
Last fall, I took over hosting a local open mic, so now I get paid to sing too! Also, this past winter I took on a gig playing instrumental fingerstyle tunes for Live Music Yoga and it has resulted in three more bookings so far.
Right now, music is my only source of income. I'd be pretty hungry if my wife didn't have a good job, but the the hourly rate is pretty good and I have a lot of time for household chores, etc. so it makes for a pretty good part-time job.
Life is good!
