I started by climbing up onto the bench for the organ that my aunt had and making as much noise as possible with it. I figure I was about 4 years old or so. She also had a piano but I just wasn't all that interested in it. I liked the organ better right from the beginning because I wanted something portable and you could alter the sounds and do cool things with it. Even at 6 years old I kinda realized the value of this for me. It didn't get much more portable than my 2 octave magnus chord organ. I could pick the thing up and move it at from room to room at will.

I stayed with organs until I got my Hohner Clavinet back in about 1977. A few years later, and after a trip or two to Sam Ash and a thorough cleansing of my bank account, I was playing a CP25 and a Poly six. The Poly6 immediately clicked with me when I realized I could alter the sounds in it. I loved that setup and it served me through the 80's and into the early 90's, although occasionally I'd added and subtracted a couple of Casio synths here and there. Then I got an M1 and was just in awe at the time.

Had synths been as widely available and affordable in the 60's when I began to play,
I would have immediately set out to be a synth player. I tried drums way back when too, but I was so into keyboard / organ that I never really tried to develop any real skill at it. Today, armed with a little better knowledge of drum beats and patterns, thanks in large part to midi technology, I have rekindled my interest in drumming a bit.

AJ