I started learning guitar in the summer of 2006—nearly twenty years ago, after my last year of elementary school. The music around me up until that point had a big influence on my musical development.

In this article, I share the five artists that made up both the background and foreground of my childhood. These artists accompanied me from the cold winters in Minnesota as a young boy to the hot deserts of Idaho, where I went to elementary school. They showed up on the radio, in my MP3 player, and in the vibrations of my dad’s guitar strings. They inspired me on my musical journey as I soaked up everything I could learn about guitar, and they’re part of my consciousness, calling up memories at the hint of a sound.

These artists are only partly in order. They defy ranking because of the great depth and breadth of their influence. I never actually learned to play some of these artists’ songs on the guitar, at least not until I was in high school or later. Other artists that didn’t make the list also influenced my musical development in ways that are hard to comprehend. In high school, when I was on a trip to my hometown in Minnesota, one fellow customer in a guitar shop complimented my playing, saying I sounded a lot like John Scofield, an artist whom I’d never even heard of at that point. Listening later, I realized that it was true, there was a certain similarity, and so I gained a new guitar hero to listen to.

Though small coincidences like this happen often, I’ve done my best to select the biggest influences. There are yet others who are simply inescapable parts of my cultural makeup, like Van Halen or Pink Floyd. While I salute them, I’ll stick to the five artists below. I’ll write about all those other artists another time!

5. Queensrÿche

Queensrÿche’s album Empire was my favorite, especially the song “Della Brown”, which had a cool bass groove.

One of my earliest memories of listening to guitar was my dad playing the song “Silent Lucidity” on his nylon string. He had an old copy of the magazine Guitar for the Practicing Musician with a transcription of this song, from which I later learned the song myself.

I loved how musical Michael Wilton was with his guitar. My dad and I once went to see Queensrÿche live. After the show, we waited by the back door for them to come out. I asked Michael Wilton to sign my Ibanez JEM guitar (Steve Vai’s signature model). My dad, a knowledgeable painter from his auto body days, lacquered over the signature to keep it in pristine condition. (I’d share pictures of it, but my guitars are in the US while I’m here in China. When I go back, I may take a few pictures and update this article.)

4. Rush

One of my earliest musical memories is the song “Time Stand Still” by Rush. I remember sitting in the back seat of my mother’s burgundy Jeep Grand Cherokee and hearing this song whenever we went out. Alex Lifeson’s ultra-clean guitar sound really stuck with me.

It wasn’t until many years later that I saw the absurd music video they made for the song. I can only imagine how much I would have laughed had I seen it. I’d recommend listening to the song before you go and watch the video. For all its surreal goofiness, I think the song actually merits musical consideration.

This is also one of several songs that use a 7/4 time signature in part of the song (“Silent Lucidity” does, as well, though only briefly). As I learned more about music theory, I gained a greater appreciation for Rush’s musicality. Today, it’s one of my favorite bands.

There’s a lot to say about why I like them now, but one thing that stands out to me is Neil Peart’s thoughtful lyrics. He’s a good role model because of his solid work ethic and introspective nature. Beside that, Rush is a power trio, and I’ve come to appreciate the sonic breathing room that this format gives each band member to express himself.

3. Steve Vai

While not my first guitar hero, Steve Vai was my favorite guitarist for many years. I first started getting into his music not long after I started learning guitar, in about 6th grade or so.

My introduction to Steve Vai was his album Passion and Warfare. My dad learned “For the Love of God” from the tab book, so I scoured it for songs to learn. Most of them were (and still are) too difficult for me, but I learned a lot of fun, rhythmically complex riffs like the one from “Erotic Nightmares”. My favorite was “Answers” because it was so energetic. It was also a short song without a difficult solo, which I appreciated as a young learner.

What’s more, the tab book had all the synth horn parts transcribed. In 8th grade, when I joined the school jazz band, I had the absurd idea of arranging the song for us to play. I spent an inordinate amount of time learning how to use the music notation software Sibelius so I could accomplish that. I tried to convince my band director for us to do it, but in the end, it never happened. The silly things I did when I was young make me smile, though.

After that, I started looking into his earlier work. Flex-Able was so weird and quirky, but it suited middle school-aged me perfectly. This was the album that sent me down the rabbit hole to learn about polyrhythms and odd time signatures. I was already so absorbed by the crazy sounds you could make with a guitar, and Steve Vai was so adept in that department that I just soaked it all in.

In high school, I would put on songs like “The Boy/Girl Song” or “Little Green Men” driving in the “Cowboy Cattlelac” dualie pickup truck on our way to school. My sister was quite tolerant of my musical tastes, but we had our laughs about it now and then.

2. Joe Satriani

One of the first songs I learned on guitar was “Always with Me, Always with You” from Joe Satriani’s second album, Surfing with the Alien. Like with so many other songs I’ve mentioned in this article, it was from one of my dad’s tab books. I hadn’t even heard the album, at first. Instead, I just flipped through the book, looking for something that didn’t seem absurdly difficult. “Always with Me, Always with You” was the fourth song on the album and the first one that slows down a bit and offers a more relaxing melody. Learning this song became a summer project after sixth or seventh grade.

From Surfing with the Alien, I moved on to Flying in a Blue Dream, where I learned “Day at the Beach,” a two-handed chordal tapping solo guitar piece. I played this song as a contestant in the eighth grade talent show. I played it almost perfectly, with only one mistake—the last note of the piece. I felt so embarrassed.

I recall my parents recorded the show, but the video has since been lost to time, if it ever existed.

I also loved listening to and learning his other two-hand tapping pieces, like “The Forgotten, Part 1” and “Midnight.” What I love about “Midnight” is how it builds tension so well throughout the song. And just as soon as the song ends, it segues perfectly into the last song on Surfing, “Echo.” This song is in 5/4 but fits together so well that its odd time signature doesn’t stand out. It was a fitting song to wrap up my listening sessions in bed when I should have been sleeping. It captures the loneliness and uncertainty mixed with hope that I felt at that age.

What really blew my mind, though, was Satriani’s first album, Not of This Earth. The guitar work on the title track was so provocative that I couldn’t stop listening to it. Every lick feels like it’s on the edge of spinning out of control, but each note is nonetheless perfectly in its place.

I learned the second song from that album, “Memories.” The solo starts with a classic Satriani lick and never slows down. Like all of his work, it maintains a good balance of technical skill and strong melodic phrases.

Despite the song’s relative simplicity, the playing speed required was really challenging for me. It took me many months of playing all the time to get it down reliably well.

1. Ozzy Osbourne (with guitarists Randy Rhoads and Jake E. Lee)

I put Ozzy at the top of the list of artists who influenced my childhood because of the huge number of songs which I remember listening to from him as a child. What made his music special for me was the amazing guitar work. I also loved the unique quality of his voice. For me, there was no one who really sounded quite the same.

I probably learned the most Ozzy songs from those he recorded with his first guitarist, Randy Rhoads. His name may have just a little to do with why I liked him so much. But like the other guitarists on this list, his playing displayed a strong melodic sensibility that he never let his chops get in the way of.

Songs that I learned included just about every song on the albums Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman. Stand-out favorites for me included the obligatory “Crazy Train,” “Goodbye to Romance,” “Dee,” and “Mr. Crowley.” “Dee” was a great classical style piece that got me interested in learning other classical guitar music, including a Bach Chaconne transcribed by Andrés Segovia.

My personal favorite of Ozzy’s work is The Ultimate Sin. Jake E. Lee’s guitar playing is consistently excellent throughout. He came up with so many fiery fills to break up his awesome riffs.

To my young mind, the intro to “Killer of Giants” was supercharged with magic. It was what The Lord of the Rings would feel like if it were a heavy metal song. The song reminds me of driving through the woods of Minnesota when I was a young child. It’s a fuzzy memory, filled as much with mist and fog as what the song itself conjures.

In sixth grade, I remember getting up before dawn in the winter to make my lonely mile walk to school. I had a cheap MP3 player that was basically a glorified thumb drive. “Killer of Giants” was one of many songs that accompanied me on the way.

Another song that stands out to me is “Bark at the Moon.” I had the transcription in a tab book and liked the pressing tempo and the mythical theme.

One thing that Jake E. Lee does really well in his solos is use chromatics to add tension. With the final two phrases of the solo on “Bark at the Moon”, he builds the line that climbs rapidly to a peak, adding more chromatics as he gets closer to the top.

Honorable mention: my dad

One of my friends came over to my house one summer day in sixth grade. We were hanging out in my room when, in a quiet moment, he heard the sound of music coming from the other room.

“Is there a radio on?” he asked.

We got up to investigate, and the sound’s trail led us to my parents’ bedroom. It turned out to be my dad playing “Crazy Train.” My friend thought that was incredibly cool. I felt incredibly proud, and though it’s been many years since, I believe this is the moment I decided I wanted to play guitar.

Maybe my dad’s not technically an artist, at least not a professional one. But his influence on my choice to learn guitar cannot be understated. All the artists in this article are ones that my father also listens to a lot. Most of the artists made it big in the 1980s—when my parents were teenagers and when electric guitar reached the height of its popularity.

My mother likes these bands, too, although she prefers seventies music, like Journey, ABBA, and Fleetwood Mac. Seventies music focused more on melody and smooth vocals, while eighties music included a lot more musical acrobatics, like four-octave vocal ranges and 1-million-note-per-second guitar solos.

It’s been nearly twenty years since I first started learning guitar. While I never quite reached the level of technical ability of my guitar heroes, I cherish the hours spent with them as I listened to and learned their music—even though I sometimes used my guitar playing as a crutch to avoid dealing with social anxieties. Having a deep understanding of a hobby like playing guitar has changed my life. For one, my attention to pitch and melody almost certainly had a big influence on how well I learned Mandarin Chinese. Learning Chinese, of course, brought me to China, and introduced me to my wife. All the experiences of my adult life would be totally different today if not for these.

All these go to show how important these artists are to me, and not just because I like them. They form a big part of who I am today and I have especially my dad to thank for that. It’s been a wonderful journey so far, and how much duller it would be without music!