Smith began taking classical guitar lessons from the age of nine with a student of John Williams, whom he said was "a really excellent guitarist". However, he said, "I learned a lot, but got to the point where I was losing the sense of fun. I wish I'd stuck with it." He has said his guitar tutor was "horrified" by his playing. He gave up formal tuition and began teaching himself to play by ear, listening to his older brother's record collection. He was 13 or 14 when he became more serious about rock music and "started to play and learn frenetically". Up until December 1972, he did not have a guitar of his own and had been borrowing his brother's, so his brother gave him the guitar for Christmas. Smith said of this gift, "I'd commandeered it anyway–so whether he was officially giving it to me at Christmas or not, I was going to have it!" Rock biographer Jeff Apter maintains that the guitar Smith received for Christmas of 1972 was from his parents, and equates this item with Smith's notorious Woolworths "Top 20" guitar, later used on many of The Cure's earliest recordings. Smith was quoted in several earlier sources as saying he purchased the guitar himself for £20 in 1978.