I started playing guitar when I was 14.
I didn't take it very seriously until I was almost 17.
That's when I made time for at least an hour of guitar a day.
Now, six years later, I literally play about eight hours a day when I can.

My exposure to playing music before guitar was the Piano, but I rebelled when it became forced. That's just how I roll. I'm grateful for that musical icebreaker, though. I want to get back into playing keys. For now, I'm focusing on making the guitar into even more of a playground.

I use a 150-watt Ibanez Tone-Blaster head on a 4x12 cab. It's on the clean channel with the levels at 5 and the Overdrive on, with a gain of about 4. The hue is cranked, though. Gotta love that brightness.

I have a Boss ME-70 multi-effect pedal.
I must say, those types of things are great for sampling different sounds, or having watered-down versions of lots effects available at any time. But, if you find one tone you really like, you're best off buying or building the individual pedals to provide you with a higher quality version of your preferred tone.

Anyway, I have the hall reverb at about 5, and some 'classic' overdrive set to 5 for level, tone, and gain. That's all I need. I sparingly use light chorus or uni-v, or maybe a wah for certain parts. I believe simplicity is best in terms of effects.
Although, tasteful delay makes an alright solo into a ****-dampening solo.

I have many axes:
1 nylon 6-string
1 acoustic 6-string
2 Washburn electric-acoustics; a 6 string and a 12 string
2 B.C. Riches (Beast, Stealth)
an LTD KH-602 Superstrat
an Ibanez 'Artcore' series semi-hollow electric Jazz guitar
then, I also have a Roland Ax-Synth keytar.

In my opinion, guitars sound better tuned down.
So, naturally, I tried out drop-D, which was cool.
Then, I wanted all the strings to be lower, so I tried Eb-Standard.
I liked that. There was more body to the sound.

Of course, I tried playing in a drop-style tuning from there and discovered Drop-C#. This tuning stole my heart for a while. That is..
..until the voluptuous redhead D-Standard came along,
arms linked with her **** black-haired sister: Drop-C.

Tuned a step down, bends and vibrato are much more wild beasts.
However, this lower tension will trash your harmonics and stuff,
so I play 10-52 strings: 10, 13, 17, 30, 42, 52. Typically called 'LTHB,' or Light-Top Heavy-Bottom. This helps to keep the tension more similar to as if it were strung with normal strings in standard tuning. That translates into more overtones, which, in turn, means better tone.
More overtones means more pinch harmonics, too. Aww, yeah!

I need to get my hands on a decent electric baritone.
Maybe I'll just make one.

Oh, and another thing:
I just got some brass nuts. ;)

When you play your guitar, I was entranced by your mysterious melody.
Your calloused fingers,
Plucked and caressed,
the copper string of your old mahogany guitar, Ibanez.
The one you had since you were a child,
The one you were now playing for me on the dew drop grass of this frigid 4th of July night.

Gentle tremors shake my heartstrings.
I watch you so closely.
Watching your face as you play.
You look up at me for a second and what I saw was more beautiful than music.

Belle is a scarred girl, shes been hurt and bruised by this cold cruel world.
Now, She left me, so if she got my attention then the ball's in my court, so to speak
I don't think she would even consider wanting me back though, so maybe i needed to be alone again i think.

So the day after she left, i walked to work, as per usually
I stopped in the guitar shop to play on my next investment, a lovely Candy Red Ibanez Jem you see.
I sat in the shop for a good few hours, letting my heartbreak out through flat strings that were starting to sound sour.
I got up and saw someone beautiful having some trouble at the counter.

I got my first guitar when I was 10 years old.
It was a navy blue Ibanez from guitar center.
It was used and when I played it
It sounded like a shriek more than anything of music, but it was mine.
I’ll never forget the first time I sat in a soundproofed room at that music school
With Jimi Hendrix posters on the wall, playing the riff of “Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones completely off beat
and thinking to myself that I had found magic.
Back then, metal strings still made my fingers bleed
and I used to forget song formats and my rhythm was horrible no matter how often I used a metronome.

My second guitar was a matte black Jackson with a sharp headstock.
I drew flowers on it with a white sharpie and took out springs in the back
Which made the bridge float until it was almost unplayable.
But I didn’t notice and I didn’t care because it was mine and
I still played with my eyes closed and sang off key
I used to scream the lyrics to Green Day songs and I felt like I knew who I was
I used to be unafraid and though
Posters on the walls were replaced, white walls were painted dark gray somehow that school still felt like home
With music blaring through practice rooms

I think I’m always going to miss the sound of music
Not professional, produced
Not crisp and clean, but raw music played by teenagers who could eat 6 boxes of pizza in 20 minutes.
I remember walking in the rain to the CVS across the street
Joking and laughing
I remember growing up with friends that became a family

My third guitar was a Fender Stratocaster, sea foam green.
I bought it used and the fretboard is chipped but its mine.
Now my hair is its natural, bleak dark brown and I prefer indie to hard rock but I am still me.
And I don’t think I’ll ever become the musician I once wanted to be
But I know that music is seared into my soul
And that’s the only thing that hasn’t changed.

sometimes a movie comes along,
and it just has a blistering soundtrack,
matched with a simplistic element
that enthralls with its quirks,
and i've never seen jake gyllenhaal
in a toilet-paper script,
that said, the soundtrack?
   probably as good as the soundtrack
for blow...
    besides the point:
even though b movie by gil scott heron
is on there...
   did i tell you about gil penning
the ****** factory?
   ah, but when he talks, he talks,
when he writes, that's just second hand
oxfam material.
on that note, or rather: to untune a piano
and play a ***-note on every turn..
how do you tune a guitar,
with only 5 strings, hole in the back
you can peer through, and the most necessary
string (D) missing?
oh yeah, used to play,
then i did a nirvana echo of smashing
it on the garden patio...
        **** me, it felt good...
the acoustics of the area improved...
     anyway...
   you know how punk was beaten in
terms of 3-chord minimalism?
ha ha... i still can't believe that
mungo jerry's song in the summertime
beat this song...
    2 chords... 2! two chords!
  that was all that made this song...
now, if paul kossoff wasn't the genius
of rhythm minimalism,
then i don't know who was...
   well...
      there was the spirit guitarist
randy california (sounds like a pornostar
already) - but that song
when i touch you on the album
twelve dreams of dr. sardonicus?
   three chords? i can't remember,
but the songs that can be played by toddlers
are the songs you treat as dogma...
forget deep purple's smoke on the water,
**** it, i once held
an ibanez iceman in my hand once,
while you still had a ****** megastore
on oxford street, before megashithead
branson pulled the plug...
always wanted that guitar...
but i gave it up: why? after a while playing
a guitar on your own feels
much worse than jerking off -
lucky me, unlucky women -
still playing with a part of ken and
barbies...
   by now it probably feels as soft
as performing ****...
      so... yeah... what's the problem?
it has become so routine that i sometimes
forget to brush my teeth...
wipe my *** i do dully -
  but if i'm not in a close range to someone's
nasal duct: pea-sized smear
(rather than dollop) - can't remember
when i last had a dentist appointment...
anyway... but that's the truth!
paul kossoff went far beyond
punk minimalism of the 3 chord progression...
and it still, to this day, sounds:
so much better...
          i still don't understand
why in the summertime made it to no. 1
and free's alright now did;
bugs the **** out of me;
then again there's black sabbath's three note
rhythm on black sabbath -

D)               3
A)                            2
E)    1

i do remember using my pinky finger a lot,
yeah, i managed staircase
   and under the bridge -
  
but i settled for the piano, with letters and
punctuation marks on it.