Master of Puppets. First “mastered” on an acoustic with nylon strings with just the bottom three strings.
The accoustic in the second part.
… still pure magic for me 
When I was 9 or 10, I had a cassette with Deep Purple “Machine Head” album, and I was listening to it all the time. After some time I figured out that riffs from different songs are quite similar in terms of notes, I tried to pick them up on my brother’s acoustic, and suddenly it turned out to be really easy. I think the riff from “Pictures of Home” was my first.
I also had “Big Generator” album by Yes, and Trevor Rabin’s solo from “Shoot high aim low” really blew my mind, I still can remember that moment I heard it for the first time. I transcribed it (and it wasn’t easy with just an acoustic and a cassette deck), but couldn’t play it at the speed of course.
That’s pretty much how they do it in the studio.
That’s Dave Mustaine’s big criticism of Kirk Hammett. Mustaine says Hammett is a lousy rhythm player.
I cannot think of any one song which inspired me, but I can narrow it down a lot:
- Nothing Else Matters. When I was around five, I remember seeing the video, and thinking the intro, interlude (especially) and solo sounded really cool. Then later at the age of 8ish played Guitar Hero: Metallica, and liked a lot of their trashy stuff.
- A bunch of stuff my uncle was playing (fingsrstyle) at the time, most memorably Stairway to Heaven. Can’t remember if I liked the song, or whether I just looked up to my uncle so much, and wanted to copy everything about him😂; probably a bit of both.
- Asturias, Isaac Albeniz. Alright this one’s classical, but if I hadn’t ever played classical guitar, I wouldn’t have played the electric either. When I was 6, I started taking Classical Guitar lessons. My teacher, on the first lesson, started playing Asturias, and i just thought it was awesome. I always held it as a sort of target in my brain, and it helped push me to the level I’m at now…
1 Like
There is just something about that opening riff.
1 Like
And don’t forget the solo…
1 Like
Quick story,
My earliest memory of being influenced by music.
There’s a local lake/beach my family used to go to when I was a kid. I was probably about 8 years old. One time they had a band playing. So, I wandered off and found myself watching them. I have no idea which instrument I might have been mesmerized by but I stayed watching until my Mom came over and got me. The only song I specifically remember that they played was “Queen of Hearts” by Oran Juice Jones. Lol I can’t say that I was particularly taken by that song or that it made me want to play guitar. But that’s my earliest memory of some sort of music speaking to me.
Later on, in high school when I heard John Sykes playing “Still of the Night”…that was the song that made me want to play. Just something about the tone of the guitar and the groove of the song.
The first song I ever learned to play was Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark”.
2 Likes