Jazz musician Courtney Pine recalls his friends "laughing their heads off" when he tried out his first saxophone, while Pink Floyd's Nick Mason remembers saving up his shillings for his first drum kit.

It is part of a campaign organised by Blues musician Matt Schofield to raise money for the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy charity, which uses instruments to help sick or disabled children and adults

A music retail website has agreed to donate 5% from pre-Christmas orders to the charity appeal.

Courtenay Pine's saxophone boosted his confidence

My parents bought me my first musical instrument - a saxophone, of course - for Christmas 1979, when I was 14.

I had begged for it for weeks and weeks, and had even promised to pay for it with my paper round. I don't think that my parents made me stick to this offer. I used to keep it under my bed in my room, and practised obsessively as soon as I got my hands on it.

Even though my friends laughed their heads off when they first heard me play my saxophone, I think having this instrument proved a great tool for my personal development, and my confidence grew in tandem with my proficiency with the instrument.

Evelyn Glennie got a mouth organ for her sixth birthday

My very first musical instrument was a mouth organ which was bought for me as a present for my sixth birthday by my father - at the time I was living on the family farm in Scotland.

It was a sort of a surprise, as I wanted a toy banjo but they would not let me have one - something about it making a "racket"! I used to keep the instrument close to me at all times in my pocket.

I think that musical instruments make ideal presents because they allow children to be creative, and to show others what they have learnt.

Nick Mason played drums in his first band too, The Hotrods

At 13 I had my first long-playing album - Elvis's Rock 'N' Roll... Within a couple of years I think all my friends had discovered rock'n'roll, and it seemed an excellent idea to put a band together.

The fact that none of us knew how to play was only a minor setback, since we didn't have any instruments.

We all asked for cash that Christmas, and armed with thirteen pounds, ten shillings (�13. 50 these days) I acquired my first kit from Syd at Chas. E. Foote in Denman Street, Soho.

Included in a job lot was a Gigster bass drum, a snare drum of indeterminate age and parentage, hi-hat, cymbals, and an instruction book on the mysteries of flam paradiddles and ratamacues (which I am still attempting to unravel). Armed with this devastating kit I joined my friends to form The Hotrods.

Although I would now be cautious about encouraging anyone into a career in music, every kid should be in a band. It's great to play music, but even better to understand the necessity of working together to get the result. ..and it's a lot less arduous than football.

Darius - played the A-Team tune on his bongo drums

My first memory of playing a musical instrument came at four years old when my father brought me back a set of bongo drums from a trip to India.

I think dad was fed up with me banging away on the pots and pans. I quickly put them to good use playing the theme tune to the A-Team and, from that point on, I knew music was the only thing I wanted to do.

Music is a tool which can help express the inexpressible and instruments are part of that. They can drive children's creativity and imagination in the most unbelievable way.

Julian Lloyd Webber escaped piano lessons by opting for the cello

I was bought my very first musical instrument, a children's-sized cello, by my mother in 1955, when I was just four years old.

To be honest, one of my principal motivations at the time was to get out of piano lessons. I liked the look of the cello because I had seen it played in an orchestra. I kept the instrument in my bedroom.

Coming from a very musical family, it was a natural option for me to be encouraged to play an instrument, and to learn an instrument that I liked.

If a child is interested in an instrument, then it can really keep them occupied, and... it is beneficial to their thought processes - it makes a child self-sufficient, because in order to master an instrument, you have to spend a long time playing it on your own.

Matt Schofield organised the fundraising campaign

I was seven when I got my first guitar - a three-quarter size Spanish-style acoustic which my mum and dad bought me. I taught myself to play with that guitar right up until I was fourteen.

It was a really important time for me, at that age, to be able to immerse myself in music and learn to play a musical instrument.

It provided a real degree of focus, but most importantly, gave me something that allowed me to hear the results of my hard work...learning a musical instrument does help put a great many things in life into perspective, and teaches you about yourself.

A 13-year old Patrick Moore performed at a charity concert

I have never had a music lesson in my life, and I taught myself music, but was not very good at playing the piano. When I was nine years old, a friend of the family visited with a xylophone, and I fell in love with it straight away.

When I was 13, my mother put a shilling on the pools for me, and we won about �30. After going on holiday, I had �7 pounds left, and my mother recommended that I should invest it in something that I really wanted so it was then that I bought my xylophone.