I started on Violin when I was 3 (suzuki method)
Piano when I was 9.
Quit piano AND Violin when I was 11. (quitting violin was a mistake)
Scottish great highland bagpipes when I was 12 (still play now)
Fell in love with Guitar when I was 12 and it's been my major focus ever since.
Mostly "self" taught via books, videos, magazines etc. until I was 24 when I decided to go study guitar formally at Berklee College of music.

I've been in love with the Stick since I was about 16. Could not afford one when I was younger (and parent refused to buy me any more instruments) Plus living in rural northern Canada doesn't exactly lend itself to buying a stick! ha!

Now that I'm older, established and can afford it - it's time to buy a Railboard. The high-desert climate of Calgary doesn't treat wooden instruments very well -so the RB will be the PERFECT instrument for this location.

=)

Guess I will add my two cents here, as was mentioned in the similar topic in the Introductions board.

Growing up I was somewhat into "academic music"... I started with piano at 5, and stuck with it until I was 15... couldn't find any good teachers who played anything except classical or ragtime or other stuff I didn't have interest in. Though I do have a stack of good marks from competitions at the time, that whole world was a bit stuffy for me. I also played viola throughout secondary school.

I switched over to guitar (and synths) in a couple garage bands in high school and early college but found I wasn't enough of a showman for that world.

Then got a full time job in technology and didn't look back.

As I said in my introduction post, a friend of mine introduced me to the Stick while I was living in Oregon, I think he got his sometime around '98 as I recall. Of course at the time it was ASTRONOMICALLY out of my price range, whereas now it's merely "painful."

So now I'm here.

Been playing guitar since I was a teenager, off and on over the past 40 years, and can hold down a bassline when needed. Started learning fiddle about 15 years ago - mostly Irish trad, some Scots/Cape Breton, tunes and a few European tunes from Blowzabella’s repertoire. Can also find my way around a keyboard, and need to improve on that as well.

ok... I'll do this by decade:

1980s: played a short scale electric bass - which years later I found out the bridge needed to be moved back to increase the scale length by a solid 2 inches so it would intonate properly and eventually converted to fretless, but in it's original state, that instrument with 4 low electric guitar E strings, a recorder through delay units, various found percussion and junked instruments, including a cello with a broken headstock and found acoustic guitar - this was all during my stint as a very minor player within the downtown NYC experimental art/music/noise scene when I was involved with the performance art project Third Uncle.

1990s: proper electric bass guitars, including Steinberger, Fender, Rickenbacker, and Ibanez - also two Ovation Magnum bass guitars set up C G D A also keyboards Roland JX3P with controller, Yamaha DX-7

2000s: interest in aquiring a Stick started around now, converted/set up various instruments to bass/melody tuning of my own choosing, including a 6 string Tune, also a 5 string Syme Guitar, and both Ovations mentioned above [logic being - if I can't do it on 4, 5, or 6 stings I certainly won't do it on 10]

2010s: interest in aquiring a Stick really peaked now, as I was done with playing in bands and wanted to focus more on doing compositions like I was doing in the mid/late 1980s, and also see about doing soundtrack work.

Within the last few years: aquired a Warr Phalanx after missing out on an Ironwood SE had for sale, but found the Phalanx unplayable due to table top sized neck - since converted to a blaster beam, with actually works quite well and took very minimal work to make happen !! then got two M. Megatars one the Toneweaver originally tuned in major 3rds but now in an open tuning, and a regular M.Megatar set up in classic Grand Stick tuning.

At this time - I really got into very simple - primative celtic instruments, and gave the folks at Musicmakers a ton of business buying lutes, table top hammer dulcimers, small folk harps, etc... then I pushed things even further and aquired an auroharp and regular zither - those I play with mallets.

Just this year, in March I took delivery of an instrument Grace turned me on to, the Stickbass set up as two bass guitars, one in 4ths one in 5ths - which I seem to recall being Graces idea for me right after I missed out on that original Ironwood I wanted [I since did aquire 2 of them] and that - the Stickbass realy opened things up for me from a rythym standpoint.

Today, I focus on a Bajinn tuned to [I think] a C major scale.

Since I never learned how to properly play any instrument, which I still consider a mixed blessing... while I love my Ironwoods - there's no way I could ever do anything worthy of presentation here within this community, I'd be laughed at for all of eternity - however - I do find the Sticks to be very beneficial for my own medative compositions, something I do with my various harps and the Bajinn quite well with my own style of repetitive playing.

So, that's it - how I came to the Stick.

Again, I'm not sure if instruments played properly would apply to me, since I am horribly self taught [*and that's even stretching it!!] but then again, what I did pull off in the past people still talk about, however I'm confident with various differing opinions !!