current single: “PAPER UMBRELLAS” featuring Parker McCollum

Tim McGraw got his first guitar in high school, but it wasn’t until college when he found himself with some free time and a ring on his hands that he got serious about teaching himself how to play.

Tim McGraw – learned to play guitar :43

“You know, I’d had a guitar in high school, but I didn’t mess around with it much because, you know, I was an athlete, so I was always playing ball, so I didn’t mess around with it much. But when I was in my first year of college, the first summer of college, you know, I had some roommates and everybody had left for the summer, and I had a job, so I was still living in the house and all my roommates had left, and so I had some free time on my hands. So, I actually went to a pawn shop and pawned my high school ring and bought an acoustic guitar. My grandfather found out about it and went back and found my high school ring and bought it back for me later on. So, I got lucky there. But set there all summer looking at chord books and watchin’ CMT and seein’ where they put their fingers, and over summer I learned about 50 songs and I started playing by myself, playing for tips at a catfish house, and that was really my first gig.”