Guitar Quotes by Warren Zevon, Buddy Guy, Les Paul, Ally Condie, Sam Palladio, Austin Butler and many others.
I have no guitar technique.
My first love was the sound of guitar.
You have to break your fingers to learn how to play guitar.
I’ve always considered transcribing to be an invaluable tool in the development of one’s musical ear and, over the years, I have spent countless glorious hours transcribing different kinds of music, either guitar-oriented or not.
Guitars are fun. There are plenty of different kinds to play. They look cool. They sound cool. Don’t you want to play guitar?
If I could sing, I wouldnt be a guitarist.
[Commercial radio] is owned by one or two corporations now, and they’re not in the music business. They’re in the advertising business…. So let’s not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.
If we are going to list guitar influences, the biggest one by far is Wes Montgomery. Also, Gary Burton was obviously huge for me in a number of ways. But beyond that, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard.
I enjoy listening to Olla Bell. There is also this young guitar player, John Duke Lippincott, he sometimes goes by Johnny Duke. He is the most brilliant guitar player from right here in Wilmington, DE.
I guess that somehow I’ve survived as a professional guitar player. I’ve made it 16 years now and I feel like I’m just getting started. Variety is a secret to the success of that.
I always thought the good thing about the guitar was that they didn’t teach it in school.
The guitar’s not all that expensive either, when you compare it to gettin’ a toothpulled or something.
At some point, I had to make a decision: I could practice more and become a really great guitar player or I could work on writing better songs. There are only so many hours in the day, and I found writing songs more fulfilling than working on becoming this virtuoso guitar player.
I’m a Christian, a wife, a mother, a homeschooler, a conservative, a citizen journalist, a talk radio host, an insatiable music nerd who plays a poor rhythm guitar, a blogger, a proud granddaughter of a sailor, and a proud tea partier in awe of the potential and the people in this movement.
Back then, I didn’t have a big organization around me. I was just a kid with a guitar, traveling around. My responsibility basically was to the art, and I had extra time on my hands. There is no extra time now. There isn’t enough time.
I just want to play guitar and be in a band. Same as I always did.
I’ve always been into guitars. We want to put keyboards on, but keyboard players don’t look cool onstage, they just keep their heads down. There has never been a cool keyboard player, apart from Elton John.
Well, Steve Vai joined my dad‘s band right around the time when I actually started playing guitar. So he gave me a couple of lessons on fundamentals, and gave me some scales and practice things to work on. But I pretty much learned everything by ear.
When the intellectual part of guitar playing overrides the spiritual, you don’t get to extreme heights.
I throw down a lot on paper and on tape. Sometimes while I’m practicing on the guitar, I’ll think of a song.
I actually learned the guitar with the help of a Pete Seeger instructional record when I was 13 or 14.
Rock and Roll is simply an attitude. You don’t have to play the greatest guitar.
Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.
I practice more than ever … mostly scales and arpeggios … and anything I can’t do.
How could I have not known about Ume? An Austin trio fronted by a whirling dervish of singer guitarist who in the standard PR band head shot looks like she wouldn’t hurt a fly; yet give her a guitar, a Marshall stack and a mic and stand back, way back. She shreds. File under – Do Not Overlook and Go Tell Your Friends
Sometimes I don’t pick up the guitar for six months or so,” “Other times I get away, go to a hotel or something, to write songs. Or go stay with a friend and bring the dog and do stuff away from my normal routine. Then I sit down and play guitar at night. I do it differently every time . There is no set way.
I started writing when I was 17. I got an acoustic guitar for my birthday after I discovered Bob Dylan and James Taylor.
My father was a guitar player, and I was raised with a super high standard of what good guitar playing was.
I preferred not to be laden down with a big instrument. If you’re behind a guitar, you get used to being behind a guitar, and you don’t really perform because you can’t. I wanted to be able to just hold on to the mike and sing.
I don’t consider myself a skilled enough instrumentalist to be able to create the atmosphere that I want with just my guitar by myself.
The guitar to me, from the classical/gut-string guitar right through to Hendrix, et cetera, has all the range [of sound]. Within those six strings it is incredible what one can get sound-wise. It’s just down to imagination, really.
I started playing with a group of young people when I was 13. I turned professional when I was 15 and I played dance halls, this on bass guitar.
I played guitar in a band from when I was about 20 for three years. Then I sang a little. Then I started getting really busy as an actor and forgot about it.
Listen, the story of the United States is this: One kid, without anything, walks out of his house, down the road, with nothing but a guitar and conquers the world. And we’ve done that again, and again, and again – Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Rogers, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters.
I was trained at classical piano as a youngster back in PA. To rebel, I bought a drum set and played in some rock & roll bands. In college I picked up a guitar and became obsessed with practicing which led to playing guitar in indie rock bands in the mid 90’s. Which led me to Los Angeles.
With music, I’m comfortable singing to people but I’m not that comfortable playing the guitar.
,,, all around it would have to be Eddie Cochran, because it wasn’t just music with him; it was his guitar playing, his look, his singing, I’d say that, all things considered, he’s probably my favorite “cat” of all time
My mother and father didn’t know anything about instruments. Me just see a man in the country play guitar one time and say, ‘My, the man play that guitar nice.’
My guitar playing has not developed as much as I think it could because I never practice. I only play when I’m writing or recording or when I’m playing on tour. When I’m sitting around at home, I never play.
To be a good artist / letterer / designer / guitar player it takes practice. A lot of it. More than you can even fathom when you’re starting out.
Bowie‘s ‘Hunky Dory’ influenced me. ‘Ziggy Stardust‘ influenced Johnny Ramone a lot, especially his guitar parts.
I play guitar and I love the Beatles and melodic music.
I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland. And when we moved to America, it was just the typical thing except I was really good at it; so was my brother.
When I was 13, I asked for a guitar. And that’s how I really started explaining my point of view.
Back when I was in high school, I came out onstage with my guitar and had four guys playing behind me. We were just playing a dance, but I was standing in front of an audience rocking out. I’m still rocking out like when I was a kid. I haven‘t changed.
Sometimes you’ve got to draw a line between having all the options and being a slave to the things, using them every time you play the guitar. I’m trying to keep a real inconsistency to the pedals so that it is something new every time.
The future of punk rock has nothing to do with guitars. Everything interesting that I’ve heard in years has been nearly all electronic.
I started playing heavy-metal guitar because that’s what I liked. And then I got into classical guitar because it was so technically complicated.
Although I dig my guitar playing, I think it’s kind of an obvious situation; I play what I want to play within my own restrictions.
I listened to classical guitar and Spanish guitar, as well as jazz guitar players, rock and roll and blues. All of it. I did the same thing with my voice.
Most things in my life I had before leaving home. Values, support, great family. I was shaped at an early age. A musician playing guitar, I wanted to be a folk singer.
I can communicate far better on a guitar than I can through my mouth.
The first time I tried to write was when I was 14, after I got an electric guitar. I put a song together, and it wasn’t that bad! The writing came natural to me.
Cool things happen. Ace’s guitar flies through space, goes through a hole, and blows up. I throw drumsticks and they come flying at you.
Reading a book about management isnt going to make you a good manager any more than a book about guitar will make you a good guitarist, but it can get you thinking about the most important concepts.
My second record was all about big ideas – I was trying to make big statements about the culture, about life. I think in a certain way, I was a 27 year old kid with a guitar.
One of the things that was crucial for me I got from Rory Gallagher, which was the idea of, like, being a guitar player for life and living it.
I had an edge in ‘Andhadhun’ because, being a musician, I knew how to play a guitar, so it was not difficult for me to learn a musical instrument.
Technically, I’m not a guitar player, all I play is truth and emotion.
I love the subtlety and tonal range of the acoustic guitar.
I can’t say I feel influenced by today‘s guitar players.
Musically, I am still hooked and just hypnotized by the sound of the guitar itself. I mean, a guitar sounds good if you drop it on the floor.
Each acoustic guitar has its own character and personality. On a particular day, I might pick one up and start noodling around, looking for some emotional content in the chords.
It’s annoying when you’ve got a guitar and you’re working on music and then you have to go and do the shopping or someone calls your mobile and you get distracted or you have to go out and do something. So it’s nice to just concentrate on it one hundred percent and give your all to it.
EverTune is, without a doubt, the most important advance in guitar playing since the electric tuner. Using the EverTune, both onstage and in the studio, has completely changed the game. It’s almost impossible to explain how amazing this innovation is. Pure magic!
I had this big thing about guitar harmonies. I wanted to be the first to put proper three-part harmonies onto a record. That was an achievement.
I’m starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar.
The first song I wrote, in fifth grade, was totally ripped from Jeffrey Lewis. My aunt‘s boyfriend gave me bass lessons, and I played drums for a year in sixth grade. Around seventh grade, I got a guitar and forgot everything else.
I’m honored when young people say they’ve gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally. I walk around with a hat on. People don’t know it’s me.
Playing guitar is a never-finished journey.
You couldn’t not like someone who liked the guitar.
I never met a politician who didn’t want to be a guitar player in a rock band. I’ve got the opportunity to say what I believe in.
I’m just a dumb guitar player, man.
… I like the clubs because … we have two or three acoustic guitars up there and we’re not hard-core slamming or stomping through the music. We’re singing it with intricate harmonies and really showing the craftsmanship.
I suppose my little Martin acoustic guitar is quickly becoming a prize possession. It’s a lovely guitar. I bought it at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2001 before I had cleaned up.
You can be in the band, you can go buy your own guitar strings at Guitar Center, you can go and do everything the boys can do and you’re not the oddity anymore.
Each guitar has its own character and personality, which can be magnified once the player engages in beatin’ it up
My first really good guitar was a Gibson J-45.
As soon as I say I’m from Texas people say, “Oh, I’m sure the school was horrible” and they picture me wearing some barrel and suspenders and people are bucktoothed and ignoring me. But that’s not the case. I just had zero interest. I wanted to finish my research in the woods or play guitar or go have a cigarette.
I’m not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I’m too rough on instruments.
My style is so tightly tied in with our songs that I don’t think you could even ask me to quit Radiohead and play guitar for another band. I don’t think I could do it. It would probably reveal me to be the bluffer that I believe I am. That’s how it feels. I wouldn’t have the confidence to do anything but this.
I sing a little bit. I got a guitar for my 16th birthday.
Part of the joy of music is listening to lots of different kinds of music and learning from it. Specifically for me, I like writing songs that move me, and what moves me are beautiful songs on the piano or the guitar and really, really heavy music.
My guitar is really tempermental. I don’t give up on it though, I’m close to my guitar!
All I want for Christmas is a rock n roll electric guitar.
Where I grew up, I could be a punk rocker and a jock. But in college, it became apparent that those two worlds didn’t mix. When I brought my guitar back to school after Thanksgiving break, a friend handed me his bass and said, ‘Listen to the Ramones.’
It’s just me and my guitar, and the rhythm’s from there, and the poetry of life.
My first gig, I was about 17 or 18. But I’d been singing a long time. I got a guitar when I was 8, and started trying to write songs as a teenager.
Working with devices and guitar pedals and mixers and synthesizers is what I do, and I prefer people not focus on that because it’s kind of distracting from what the point should be. At least for me, it’s to have the primacy of aurality in the experience of that evening.
The only time it dominates is during a solo, or when we play a low blues and I put figures in behind Eric’s vocals. There’s never any real problem fitting guitar and organ together.
I was 12 when I started playing guitar with my brothers.
Up till now I wrote the songs on my acoustic guitar alone with the Lord. Then I would take the song and share it with my family and then we all would figure out instrumentation together.
I can’t remember the first song I learned to play on bass, but the first song I learned to play on guitar was ‘For Your Love’ by the Yardbirds. That kind of was the beginning for me. I thought it was a great song and I loved the open chord progression at the beginning of that song.
The guitar is an orchestra in itself.
My parents are artists, so I grew up with my mom having bonfires, seven guitars, and talented musicians and artists around like Jack Hirschman.
I still use the guitar pretty much just to hide my gut.
But the guitar is my favorite, first and foremost instrument.
But the day that I die will be the day that I shut my mouth and put down my guitar.
Keith Richards … was once asked how he came up with all those amazing guitar riffs. His answer? He just starts playing until he makes the right mistake. In other words he’s optimistic he will create something good by virtue of getting something “wrong.”
People have used my songs and guitar style to teach guitar for a long time.
I was never pushed into the business. I wanted to play the guitar. When my dad found out I could play pretty good he took me into the studio one day. I did my first session for his label. We did quite a few sessions up there.
And I’ve also come to the conclusion that, as far as guitar solos and things like that are concerned, it’s more important to complement the music rather than take away from it.
I don’t think anything can touch the expressive range of the guitar.
Barney Kessel is definitely the best guitar player in this world, or any other world.
I remember people would talk about Country Music like it was this sexist, lame thing. Well, no, because Dolly Parton is writing songs and playing her guitar and producing. She’s doing it all and she’s got hits on the radio.
I played guitar when I was young and never really considered it as a way to make a living.
I got into one Metallica record. That was about it. I never got into AC/DC or Black Sabbath or any of that. I was interested in the side of heavy metal that had interesting guitar ideas, but that was a very short-lived thing.
Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you’re still playing a guitar.
I was a drummer and I played the guitar.
I mean, playing music at home and writing and hanging out with my guitar is kind of medicinal for me, but when I bring the songs to people on stage, it’s very joyous.
I’d like to have a beer-holder on my guitar like they have on boats.
I write songs on guitar and that’s about how good of a guitar player I am. I can write songs on it.
It took me to about maybe 16, 17 or 18 or something to realise I was absolutely useless at everything else except for playing guitar and writing words
I fancy myself as being very good at Guitar Hero. I really don’t play any other videogames. I kind of fell in love with Guitar Hero the first time I played it, and went out and bought a system for it.
Marylata [ Elton] introduced me to Hans Zimmer. Hans tapped me [to] work on songs for DreamWorks’ animated features. I arranged Elton John’s opening main title for The Road to El Dorado, I played guitars on Shrek for Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell, I co-produced “I Can See Clearly Now” for Antz.
My dad got me the same mic I use on everything now – this $200 mic from Guitar Center.
I think a guitar solo is how my emotion is most freely released, because verbal articulation isn’t my strongest communication strength. My wife thinks that I should do interviews by listening to the questions and playing the answer on guitar.
Guitars are like women. You’ll never get them totally right.
I think Blank Generation holds up pretty well. You listen to that with headphones and there’s a lot going on there with the guitars- it’s the product of a lot of fighting.
My sister played the piano. She’s two years older than me, and I always wanted to play something. So my grandmother got the guitar for me, and showed me a couple of chords to start off. And then I got me a book. Next thing you know, I was playing along with sister.
Guitar playing is just something that came to me and is really second nature now.
My first guitar was a Gibson Challenger.
Don’t have much, but what I’ve got is yours, except of course my steel guitar.
The electric guitar meant that you could have a band with a drummer and a couple of guitars. And that put a lot of horn players out of work.
My 10 year old son likes it. He’s trying to play guitar and everything. He likes that kind of music.
I play guitar a bit. I’m trying to learn drums – I feel like I can play violin. I’ve never tried, but I just feel like I can.
I’m starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar.
But you have to give your whole life to a cello. When I realized that, I went back to the guitar and just turned the volume up a bit louder.
I don’t think I picked up the guitar in the first place as a way of getting women. There are probably better ways of doing it.
In my case, I am improvising with existing sound files. I use an MSP patch that a friend of mine made, and you have to improvise when you use this patch. I don’t use a guitar in performance anymore.
If there’s a song where there’s a possibility of guitar stuff that would be fun to listen to, go for it. Don’t worry about what anybody thinks.
Say what you will about Gypsy women, but they are remarkable assessors of blues guitar talent.
I don’t really know why I chose bass except that it was different than guitar.
I enjoy the song writing process more than anything. It’s what I like the most, just sitting in my room with guitar or at the piano or something. Just making something up, something that’s not there, that suddenly is there.
Years from now, after I’m gone, someone will listen to what I’ve done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they’ll hear my guitars speaking for me.
It was Scotty Moore‘s guitar riff [in “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You“] when he was doing The Steve Allen Show that got me into rock music.
In my early days, I never used finger vibrato at all. I originally carved my reputation as one of the ‘fast‘ guitar players.
Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly.
I designed a guitar for Ibanez and then they started manufacturing it – it’s called the Jem – it’s 26 years old and I still play it. As a kid I liked Les Pauls and Strats, but they had limitations for the kind of playing I wanted to do.
I originally wanted to be a singer, but I was average. I made 18 records, but none were that great. I was in a dance band at Bournemouth Pavilion for three years, and I played guitar too.
There’s just a few people that call themselves stars can actually sit down with a guitar and sing you a song.
I can’t take any more white boys noodling around on their guitars.
The guitar is my favorite and the one, I guess, I’m best at. But I play enough of the different instruments to be able to write with them and to, hopefully, to make myself look impressive on stage.
My interests are guitars, cars, and vacation. I’ve been playing guitar all my life. My dad was a professional guitarist, but I’m terrible, which lets me off the hook, so I just play for myself.
Electric guitars are an abomination, whoever heard of an electric violin? An electric cello? Or for that matter an electric singer?
I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.
I didn’t really learn how to play guitar until I was in college.
We weren’t listening to guitar bands, we were thoroughly ashamed of being a guitar band. So we bought loads of keyboards and learned how to use them, and when we got bored we went back to guitars.
Your sound is in your hands as much as anything. It’s the way you pick, and the way you hold the guitar, more than it is the amp or the guitar you use.
I play guitar… I like to say that I’m pretty good, but it takes someone else to tell you that you’re really good.
So it’s more the musician in me that makes me stretch out and try different things more than anything. But, like a lot of guitar players, I have one certain niche that’s my thing that I’m better at than the others.
Growing up with my dad being a musician, it seemed like a male centric world to me. I just didn’t know many girls playing guitar.
Probably my favorite artists to listen to James Taylor, Stevie Wonder – I haven’t gone back in a really long time and really listened to them – my first guitar influences. It’s been awhile since I revisited that.
I’m really not that good at Guitar Hero!
I’ve just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I’m just still writing songs and what not.
I like to sit in front of the computer, going through files of music, and recording the final vocals, guitars and what- nots. But the windows are always open and you can hear the crickets, birds, chickens, and even the sound of rain hitting the studio. The farm is a great place to hang out in, learn from and create music.
I write almost all my songs on an acoustic guitar, even if they turn into rock songs, hard rock songs, metal songs, heavy metal songs, really heavy songs I love writing on an acoustic because I can hear what every string is doing; the vibrations haven’t been combined in a collision of distortion or effects yet.
As a singer-songwriter, a solo artist with a guitar, I can only write so many weepie little bedroom songs.
I’ve tried to become a singer with the guitar and not let any technological licks run my life. Just write the licks and play them as best as I can as a part rather than ad libbing.
We’re looking to help our guitar buddies do their thing while at the same time we try to create something we might enjoy listening to ourselves. If anything we are trying to develop a vocabulary so we can converse more fluidly.
So it’s more the musician in me that makes me stretch out and try different things more than anything. But, like a lot of guitar players, I have one certain niche that’s my thing that I’m better at than the others
I bought all my friends guitars and I had a good time with my money. But then one day the IRS came knocking.
Robert Duvall saw me playing at a restaurant in Louisiana and invited me to be an extra in his movie ‘The Apostle.’ He gave me a guitar for my sixth birthday, and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.
I created this picture of this character who would play the guitar effortlessly, who had no limitations, performing beautiful music, and he moved around with great acrobatic skills, just capturing the audience and being a great entertainer.
Robby had a flamenco and folk music background. I was so enamored with watching Robby’s fingers crawl across the flamenco guitar strings like a crab.
When God plays guitar he uses Jeff Beck’s hands.
I’m a bass player from way back and Paul is a guitar player and we’ve been in many bands.
As I try to get around with a guitar, a banjo and a suitcase of high heels and dresses, I treasure that little ukulele.
They said, ‘You have a blue guitar, / You do not play things as they are.’ / The man replied, ‘Things as they are / Are changed upon the blue guitar.’
If you don’t know the blues… there’s no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.
I picked up a guitar, and I knew what I wanted to do.
I’m not Amy the star, I’m Amy the girl with the guitar.
I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.
My real interest in music was the old 78 records and the sound of the music. I loved it and began to realize that one of the main sounds on those old records I loved was the guitar.
Mogami cable is durable and flexible enough to practically build a suspension bridge with but I’ll settle for using it for my guitars and amps!
In jazz, you listen to what the bass player is doing and what the drummer is doing, what the pianist and the guitarist is doing, and then you play something that compliments that, so you are thinking simultaneously and thinking ahead.
I love to sing. I’m learning guitar right now.
I just managed to convince my grandmother that it was a worth while that was something to do, you know, and when I did finally get the guitar, it didn’t seem that difficult to me, to be able to make a good noise out of it.
I wouldn’t say I’m a very technical [guitar] player. I’m more intuitive – it’s always more about chasing an abstraction.
The [guitar is the] instrument most complete and richest in its harmonic and polyphonic possibilities.
I got a lot more interested in songs that could hold up completely on their own, with just a guitar and voice. For some people that’s easy to do, but I find it’s really difficult.
My dad was a musician. He was a singer and he played the guitar, so music was always around.
Well, I’m known as a guitar-rock guy, you know? You’re not supposed to play with synthesizers. This is not in the rulebook.
It’s amazing what the acoustic guitar can bring to the picture.
Jeff Beck is one of my heroes and has been since I first picked up a guitar.
It’s part of our nature. As much as I love (brother and guitarist Eddie), if you put us in a room with no one else for 15 minutes, we’d be at each other’s throats.
I bought me a guitar about a year ago, learned how to play in a day or so.
There’s just not a lot of guys around playing like that these days; a lot of steel players are plugging into stomp boxes, trying to sound like Jeff Beck on a steel guitar.
Listening is the key to everything good in music.
I consider myself as a singer first, but something that really helped me come into my own is that there’s not a separation between me singing and me playing the guitar. The two fed off the other.
If I see a chick playing guitar, I’m drawn to that band immediately. I want to know everything, even if it’s completely electronic. But you have to really get my attention if you’re male. I can’t help it. It’s part of my nature.
I’d like to do a song that I wrote today about our government‘s increasing infringement on our right to privacy, but the lyrics mysteriously disappeared from my guitar case.
Somebody’s going to wake up and their job in life is going to be to make guitars. There are a lot of good, talented people.
I started out writing poems before I figured to put melodies to them and play the guitar. Somewhere, there’s a book out there on all those early songs and poems. I hope no one ever finds it. I don’t think it’s my finest work.
I had a good guitar, and I was a young, young kid.
God is playing my guitar, I am with God when I play.
You know what would be fun? Nobody wants to play Guitar Hero. But you can play the Beatles! You loved the Beatles!
Maybe its a case of one guitar feeling a certain way to the hands that makes one subsequently move differently over the strings, but my intent is always to wring the maximum emotional resonance out of the object in hand.
In a time when everything can be next day and ordered and put on credit and paid for, music to me is promise, all promise, very little realization. It’s the promise of walking into a room with a guitar and not being sure you will leave with an idea that will take, not being sure it won’t slip away from you.
I never really expected any of the music business to happen, but I’m glad it did. It was a very cool thing to happen. It was a hobby for me. I used to do it to meet girls. If you had long hair and could play a guitar then you got girls. That’s how I started. Then I fell in love with the music and got carried away.
Then l learned to play guitar and l started writing songs and my mother formed for me a publishing business, so we started publishing and managing artists.
A brilliant 1989 album, Oh Mercy; some career retrospectives; and two albums of American folk songs, with just Bob Dylan and his guitar and harmonica. All that culminated in the Grammy-winning comeback album, Time Out of Mind (1997). Once again, just as Dylan seemed to be out of it, he was back at the top of his game.
Most people can do what I do – they can do guitar solos – but they can’t do a good, hard rhythm guitar and be dedicated to it.
For me, I think the only danger is being too much in love with guitar playing.
The MUSIC is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument.
The MUSIC is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument.
It’s always great playing with other musicians. It’s also a great situation where I’m the older guy, I’ve influenced generations of guitar players.
I suppose ultimately I’m interested in music. I’m a musician. I’m not a gunslinger. That’s the difference between what I do and what a lot of guitar heroes do.
The main things to rebel against – over-production, too much technology, overthinking. It’s a spoiled mentality; everything is too easy. If you want to record a song, you can buy Pro Tools and record four hundred guitar tracks. That leads to overthinking, which kills any spontaneity and the humanity of the performance.
Until I was around 12 or 13, I only listened to classical music, mostly Tchaikovsky. But around that age, I started listening to Iron Maiden, and that’s when I purchased my first guitar, a pearl-white Westone.
I started teaching myself guitar because I loved singing so much. Then one day kind of out of the blue I found I was writing a song. It just happened organically.
I do more writing by myself than with anybody else. My best thing is sitting…around somewhere with a guitar, and having an idea. You never know where it’d come from. Songwriting is a God-given talent.
Bob Dylan is great. I’ve been compared to him a lot. I think when people see a person on stage with a guitar they just think, ‘Bob Dylan!’
With the guitar I’ve suffered a great deal, but when I’ve had a good time, the suffering seemed worthwhile.
I do not consider myself a guitar player. My father is a guitar player – I’m not.
Even though there are some great keyboard players on the album, there are a number of songs with no keyboard on them and the backing is all guitar oriented. This is first time I’ve ever done this actually.
Basically, I try to treat the electric guitar like an acoustic guitar. What you have to do is attack the instrument and know that your feelings aren’t controlled by the controls of your guitar.
Guitar players never listen to lead singers.
Out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite. They’re cheap and totally inefficient, and they sound like crap and are very small.
Guitar gigs were everywhere in the ’50s, and I started diddling around so I could keep working. Playing honky-tonk, simple stuff. I took a few gigs with an organ band that put me out front.
But I say these things in an objective dispassionate manner because, you know, and I can’t explain why, but being one of the greatest guitarists in the world simply is not very important to me.
A guitar is a piece of wood, and if this piece is resonating in a period of 40 or 60 years, it kind of gets to know what it is after awhile… the reason violinists play violins that are hundreds of years old. The wood learns to sing.
And a lot of the technique and the little T-Bone phrases that define his style, Chuck Berry, when he rearranged the beat, they became rock ‘n roll guitar licks. So in essence, T-Bone was not only the first electric blues guitar player, but he was the first electric rock ‘n roll guitar player, really.
I wanted to come back to the guitar after three albums and almost 10 years. I started to miss this instrument and I wanted to come back to the guitar.
Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.
When I sit down and play the guitar, Im 20 years old again.
I always lived with guitarists. When they would leave, I would just pick up their acoustic guitars and start doing finger picking and write.
I’ve always loved Ibanez guitars, and in particular 7 strings.
My wife bought me a vintage Gibson guitar that isn’t just beautiful but has tremendous sentimental value. I have plenty of guitars for live gigs but this is one to treasure.
No matter how long you play the guitar, there’s always something else to learn.
Grab a guitar, put some kind of strings on it, a banjo string, then a violin string, then a guitar string, tune it any way you want, and make some noise, and see what you get. And work on it until you get something that you think is interesting. That’s all there is to art for me.
I think I will just use guitar as backing. I’m not doing a traditional folk thing, but a contemporary thing-my own version of folk, if you like.
Basically, I’m just a guitar player that figured out I wasn’t ever gonna be able to buy dinner with my guitar playing so I got into songwriting, which is a little more profitable business.
In 2010, I had been playing guitar for 50 years.
I just want to be a better guitar player, really.
I love Jimi Hendrix obviously, and Jimmy Page and Prince. And also Elvis Presley is a really great guitar player. I don’t think he ever took lessons; he was piecing it together himself. But he has great rhythm. And rhythm, to me, you can use it to your advantage if you’re not all over the fretboard.
Kurt Cobain was Nirvana. He named the band, hired its members, played guitar, wrote the songs, fronted the band onstage and in interviews, and took responsibility for the band’s business decisions.
And they kind of left to find a guitar player at the very end, so you know, I don’t really take it as any slight that I wasn’t able to play on the record. It’s flattering just to play with them period.
A bad rendition of you is better than a good rendition of somebody else.
The guitar chose me.
The records that I like, they have life and warmth and soul in them. Like the slap back on Scotty Moore’s guitar on ‘Mystery Train.’ You’re not gonna get that in a computer. You’re gonna want a live room, you’re gonna wanna bounce the tape, you’re gonna want real musicians, in a room, vibin’ off of each other.
I get twitchy if I don’t pick up a guitar or sit at the piano every now and then… I have to do it; I don’t have a choice.
Nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the guitar.
I had piano lessons at five and started guitar at ten, but although music and acting was always around me, my parents never pressured me into it.
If anything, I don’t have any intention of recording music that’s just me playing acoustic guitar singing a song anytime soon.
I don’t really have a relationship with the guitar; it’s like my slutty lover, whereas I’m married to the piano
The kids called me King of the Surf Guitar. I surfed sunup to sundown.
I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.
I write to the beat and let life play the guitar strings
I sit around and play acoustic guitar – usually acoustic, sometimes electric, occasionally piano, but more often guitar, just trying to come up with tunes. Ideas kind of pop into your head.
I love the Elvis movies. I used to watch them. In every single one of his movies he wasn’t acting as a car salesman – he was acting as a car salesman who loved to play guitar.
Anybody who’s a guitar player that’s spent that time with another guitar player, there’s nothing better than that.
I’m very fortunate to be doing the thing I do best, which is play guitar. There aren’t many other things I could do.
I have to work really hard to get the record deal – I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.
Playing acoustic guitar is like having sex with your clothes on. I mean you know how to do it, but it’s more difficult.
I’ve played guitar for years, and wanted to play guitar, but we got halfway through the last one and realized we hadn’t used any.
My guitar is a mutation between a classic Fender Stratocaster guitar, which I played for years, and a Gibson solid-body like an SG or a Les Paul. It contains all sounds of the basic classic rock n’ roll guitars. It does what I want it to do.
If I ever get some free time I end up thinking about what to make next. I don’t pick up a guitar and start playing the songs I already know; I immediately try to write a riff.
I’m a very compulsive person, so I spend most of my time drawing or writing my diary, patching things up and carving bits of wood – I’ve carved two of my guitars.
The guitar part is the pivot of everything we do, so if you change the guitar part you no longer have what it is.
I used to play a few instruments including guitar and snare drums, but I think a musical background is an important part of a career. If you start out playing instruments you create a better instinct and feeling for music.
It turns out kids today still learn that four-chord progression when they’re just picking up the guitar.
I actually write my own music whenever I have a chance. I play guitar and sing.
I’m only myself when I have a guitar in my hands.
I got really excited about it. But then we went into the studio and tried to record some with different musicians, and it didn’t sound good. It didn’t work. So we put together the album [Unchained] with just a guitar and myself.
I think a “song” is, like, just play it on the guitar and sing it. You look out and see thousands of covers of “Animal” for example, so you think, “That was probably a pretty good song, because people feel like it’s satisfying to just play it with one instrument accompanying it.”
There are no rules or certain methods. I usually start with the guitar or piano and sing melodies over the chords. The lyrics seem to be born out of that, and the fact that it’s still a mystery to me is my favorite part.
When we moved back to the US, folk music was all the rage. So I traded in my banjo for a guitar.
I definitely have a different perspective on music in general. But once I actually have a guitar in my hands, I think I disappear into the same black hole that I was disappearing into when I was 15.
I practice on the acoustic guitar a little bit, but I think I have reached the peak of my talent.
My son plays guitar, and he’s been at the Kennedy Center.
The first guitar I ever got was for my 13th birthday.
I ended up starting guitar because I didn’t want to just be the lead singer.
I don’t have a very disciplined approach to practicing or anything, but I do tend to have a guitar around most of the time, which I strum on most of the day.
Treat each guitar track-and each song-completely different. For example, if I’m using a certain amp and guitar on one track, I’ll deliberately use something else for the next tune or overdub.
I sit down with a guitar player and if there’s a situation I feel strongly about, or a guy that I’ve been thinking about or if I’m mad at a guy, it comes out.
I enjoy playing the band as the band. I be the whole band and Im playing the drums, Im playing the guitar, Im playing the saxophone. To me, the most wonderful thing about playing music is that.
I had some music lessons and my mum played every instrument but the guitar.
My guitar wants to kill your mama.
It was very satisfying knowing I could come in not really knowing what I was going to do, and at the end of the session feeling that I’d really done interesting guitar work and knowing that I’d really contributed to the music.
I like the guitar better these days. I like the bass, too, but it’s hard to fit a bass amp in a small car.
I’d say writing songs is, for me, as much playing the tape recorder as it is playing guitar or writing words.
You hit a guitar, you hit a note, you hit a drum, you hit an organ. Meat and potatoes. Simplicity. Not getting too caught up in little tweezers of perfection.
For 20 years I’ve been screaming at these guitar companies, saying, ‘It’s abnormal to put your arm around an acoustic guitar that is about 6 to 8 inches deep.’ Your arm reaches over, and you start to strum, and then all of a sudden you get a charley horse in your back. The older you get, the greater the charley horse.
I’d like to know how to play the guitar.
I’m not good enough to be playin’ much acoustic guitar onstage. Man, you gotta get so right; I mean, the tones, the feel, the sound. Plus, acoustic blues guitar is just that much harder on the fingers.
All the women in the world want a phony rock star who plays guitar.
My dad bought me a guitar when I was very young, and I never looked back.
I want to make hip-hop that can use guitars and soul and jazz and just fuse it all together. And I want to make this whole new sound that’s going to shock the world. Unfortunately, the masses didn’t receive it.
I had sat in one day in Central Park with Bonnie and Delaney, and Duane was playing with them, so I asked if he wanted to work on an album. You never had to say to him how to play the guitar.
I love to sing, but I’m just terrible. I play guitar, and I play enough where I can play most country stuff, and I’ll sing when it’s just me.
Running my hands really fast up and down the fretboard… I mean, anybody can do that. It’s the Guitar Olympics, and I can’t think of anything more pointless.
My first instrument was actually the trombone, but that didn’t last long. Soon I was playing guitar in bands from the time I was 11 or 12.
I’m bored. I need to be entertained. Sam is moping. I may kill him with his own guitar. It would give me something to do and also make him say something. Two birds with one stone!
I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.
I always loved rock guitar. I just never put it together that that’s what I’d end up doing.
I did the first backwards guitar solo on вЂI’m Only Sleeping’
I play the piano a lot at home. I write songs on the piano and guitar. I would like to actually play piano on stage. I don’t think I’ll get the chance for a while.
I bad a piano long before I bad a guitar, and the practice I got just playing those three chords in a basic 12-bar blues song was very important.
My father had slowed down playing a little… I was ’round 10 or 12 years old. Every time he put his guitar down, I pick it up.
For me, I’m more of a songwriter than a guitar player or singer. And not having things to work on was really kind of nice.
If you have a great-sounding guitar that’s a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that’s the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.
I don’t really collect guitars.
When you go to awards shows these days, you can walk through a room and they give you everything for free: sunglasses, guitars, stuff for the wife.
P.I.L. has been a favorite of mine since high school especially there metal box album. The guitarist Keith Levine gets some of the best sounds ever to come out of a guitar. The songs are really free form and experimental and have a heavy dub influence.
I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound.
Dorsey played the upright bass and steel guitar, as well as acoustic guitar. Johnny played acoustic guitar and together they were fabulous songwriters and singers.
I play guitar because it lets me dream out loud.
I realized that I really didn’t like the sound of the ukulele so much so I started playing the guitar.
Always when I write my music, I take my guitar, and I improvise always with a melody, you know, lyrics in Spanish. But sometimes I use some words in English. I don’t know why. Maybe because I listen to a lot of music in English.
My D’Angelico is a jazz archtop guitar. That guitar was made for Glenn Miller‘s guitar player in 1939. It’s a ’39 D’Angelico New Yorker.
The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.
And I had not much of a voice. I didn’t play that great guitar either.
You can’t get a guitar player like Dweezil without his commitment to the work that it takes A) to be the musician that he is and B) to the music itself.
I’ll never be the best guitar player.
My dad has been playing guitar basically all his life. He’s sort of who got me into rock music.
I’m a struggling guitar player.
Television was the only band of its ilk that treated the guitar with delicacy, not as simple rhythm support for teenage aggression.
If I’m playing with Ozzy it’s just a guitar thing. But with the vocals I feel like I’m studying for the SATs.
Americans have been good at improvising for a long time, but in the last few decades, we have gotten very sloppy about the rote memorization of facts. That’s a discipline issue. You need the rote skill in order to have something to improvise off of, otherwise you are simply playing air guitar.
I can write songs without a guitar.
Eric Clapton is my dream guitarist.
My goal from the very beginning was just to write good songs that don’t require any production to be felt or understood. I wanted to be able to sit in a room with a guitar and play the song from beginning to end and have it be as impactful as if you heard the studio version with all the bells and whistles.
For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I’m very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.
Maybe I feel like I’m writing songs that don’t need to be saved or made more interesting by endless overdubs and studio tricks…maybe – remember, where I am with songwriting I have never been before – sparkly guitars and overdubs I’ve done (and will do again – see instrumental record in above answer)
Yes and for two reasons: one, I couldn’t find anything to imitate at the time, and secondly because what I heard on the radio didn’t bear any resemblance to what I wanted to hear on the guitar.
Bruce’s band is so different from the Grateful Dead; there’s no lead guitar player, for one thing.
I got my first instrument for Christmas when I was three or four years old. My parents got me a mandolin because it was the only instrument that would fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into the drums when I was six, and then I started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.
I started out in a heavy metal band with a guy who could really play guitar, and I thought the only thing missing from Guided By Voices was a lead guitarist. In the early days, I would bring people in just to play leads, like Greg Demos and Steve Wilbur.
People think of songwriting as a very personal thing: A guy gets up there with an acoustic guitar and he sings his heart out, bares his soul.
I don’t see any rock stars playing an electric guitar from some new maker like you see in the acoustic guitar world.
I don’t want to pooh-pooh modern pop. I appreciate that as well, but my personal favorite kind of music is guitar-based rock. I like grunge and garage bands and alternative music, but that’s more my personal taste.
Great musicians are great musicians, whether they’re playing a trombone or an electric guitar or a xylophone.
I borrowed a guitar at age 16 and taught myself to play because I wanted to write songs.
Guitar playing is not my strong suit. I cut my finger off, working in an oil field, and it don’t work anymore, so I’m limited as to what I can do on the guitar.
I don’t really love the guitar hero trip, anyway, so it’s not something I’m actively searching for or after. I don’t like what it’s about.
Guitar playing isn’t really for everybody.
She can play my guitar note for note, she likes to stick her tongue down my throat.
I’m not going to play lead guitar in a concert hall full of people, because I’m going to mess up a lot.
We play loud electric guitar music, and we’d hope that that doesn’t mean you have to act like an asshole.
I don’t touch electric guitars. It’s just not my thing – I stick with acoustic guitars only.
If a guitar is too easy for me to play, it makes me too laid back. I like to battle with my guitar.
If you want to play something that you hear, you need to listen with your mind’s eye. You’ve heard of the mind’s eye, right? Your mind has an ear too. It’s a kind of listening, but it’s not using your ears to listen. It’s listening with your inner ear, and that’s what you want to translate onto the guitar.
It’s quite similar to guitar solos, only with programming you have to use your brain. The most important thing is that it should have some emotional effect on me, rather than just, ‘Oh, that’s really clever.’
Sometimes I play guitar like a frustrated drummer.
As soon as I had a guitar I loved it, and I started playing in every spare moment.
It’s always a pleasure when you can compose guitar parts from a strong vocal and not just put the melody on top of guitar riffs.
It was shocking to see Nirvana play, because it was like, “Here’s this little guy with a monster-guitar sound.” And it was heavier than Black Sabbath. That was shocking.
A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I’m very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.
Guitar Player Magazine says Dick Dale is the father of Heavy Metal, blowing up 48 amplifiers, creating the first power amplifier.
It’s that kind of in-born music thing – I could pick up the guitar and play something. It’s not something I consciously do.
Many kids and parents ask me, ‘What kind of guitar can I buy?’ It’s a great opportunity for those people to be able to buy a quality guitar that’s not necessarily a little Fender or whatever. Ernie Ball signature model guitar is something that’s more signature.
I’d like to do a tour with a bunch of people where it’s just them and their guitars. It would be like Lilith Fair – only everyone plays alone, and it would be competitive.
My ambition was just to be able to play guitar.
That it’s a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar.
I always loved rock guitar. I just never put it together that that’s what I’d end up doing. I had no aspirations to be a musician, but I picked up a guitar for two seconds and haven’t put it down since.
Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, except, possibly two.
I get to play a scorching lead guitar, and there’s not much that’s more fun than that.
My philosophy is, honestly never collected anything that I don’t play. I know a lot of people that collect guitars, but for me, I want instruments that I play. And if I don’t play them, I don’t’ want to have them sitting in a closet collecting dust.
I’ve known Shawn for several years. And he’s just an amazing talent. He’s a great writer, a marvelous, marvelous guitar player, and plays really good fiddle.
‘Each man kills the things he loves‘. I recognise that in myself, in relationships, even with guitars, beautiful things that I’ve had and wilfully destroyed.
There’s just no stopping those girls with guitars.
I got a bit bored of just me and my guitar.
So that’s the challenge for me and that has always been the challenge – finding that melody, that riff, that thing that just lights me up and makes me feel like it’s Christmas.
My first wife said, ‘It’s either that
guitar or me,’ you know — and I give
you three guesses which one went.
guitar or me,’ you know — and I give
you three guesses which one went.
I don’t like guitar solos that are like, ‘Look at me, look at me!’ I like guitar solos that are little songs within the songs.
I’ll sit around and play my guitar; that’s how I write tunes.
My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass.
Some of the songs I wanted to be really full, [but] there’s something to be said for just a voice and a guitar
I think Clapton is brilliant. He’s the only one who moved me. The only one who made me want to play the guitar.
The bulk of my set is instrumental and you have to give yourself and the audience some relief because a performance is not about great guitar playing it’s really about entertainment.
And my daddy could play a harmonica and also the guitar, so I guess I got a little bit from both of ’em, but I think mostly from my mother’s side of the family.
In any moment, I guess we could whip out a guitar and start playing old school.
Around age 11 or 12, I started playing jazz bass. From there, I went to electric bass and then guitar, which I kept up for a long time.
I looked at myself, and I just said, well, you know, I can sing but I’m not the greatest singer in the world. I can play guitar very well, but I’m not the greatest guitar player in the world… And so I said, well, if I’m going to project an individuality, it’s going to have to be in my writing.
My original interests and intentions in guitar playing were primarily created on quality of tone, for instance, the way the instrument could be made to echo or simulate the human voice.
Yeah, my dad bought me a guitar when I was like 10, and I didn’t really want it then.
I think I come under the singer/songwriter badge. I’ve always written songs right from the very beginning. Because of my style of playing people tend of me more of a guitar player than a singer sometimes.
It’s actually not that hard to play guitar in a rock band.
When I’m home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It’s a feeling few people experience, and that’s usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can’t force myself. I don’t sit down and say I’ve got to practice.
I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case & throw in a piece of raw meat.
In the last couple of years I’ve been picking up my guitar again.
It is a well-known mystery that guitar players suddenly get better once they are dead. Buddy Holly was the first. Stevie Ray Vaughan is known by a lot more people than had ever heard of him when he was alive.
I just play the guitar and write songs.
Every guitar has a personality.
Without a doubt, Eddie Van Halen is the greatest guitar player who has ever lived.
I knew I wanted to sing when I was a very small boy. When I was probably 4 years old. My mother played a guitar and I would sit with her and she would sing and I learned to sing along with her.
There’s one piece of advice my dad gave me when he dropped me off at college. He said, “You’ve got the talent. You can sing and play guitar. That doesn’t make you any better than anyone else.”.
Gary Burnetts office is shelved with theological books, guitars fill the floor, and the drawers are crammed with CDs. In The Gospel According to the Blues, Gary brings his vocation as a New Testament teacher together with his passion for the blues and gives the reader scholarly knowledge and wise insight.
One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen.
I used to play a lot of cricket at the junior level. Then I did my engineering and got interested in singing and playing the guitar. Yes, I’m a musician. From music it was a step away from cinema.
I would hole up in my bedroom growing up and teach myself guitar.
And this whole period of time of gradually working at being a better guitar player and songwriter have gradually led me to the point where I feel I’m doing a clearer representation of the thing that I’ve been feeling inside me since I was four years old.
I taught myself how to play the guitar. I never studied music.
A good example of a lyric that makes me laugh but might not hit anybody right away is, “Sit behind the guitar and play the chords,” just because it’s such a lame image. It’s not rock’n’roll at all to be sitting behind a guitar.
I could hear and feel music going on in me, and I couldn’t get it out. You can always depend on a guitar.
What I do now is all my dad’s fault, because he bought me a guitar as a boy, for no apparent reason.
I listen to other guitar players, yeah. It gives me new concepts and shows me where the instrument is going for the future and it is going some places. There are some musicians who are really putting out a good vibe with new theories. I try and keep up.
A good player can make any guitar sound good.
In my first bands I was a singing guitar player, but if you heard any of those songs you wouldn’t describe me as a singer. But I can make it work.
… by far the most astonishing guitar player ever has got to be Django Reinhardt … Django was quite superhuman, There’s nothing normal about him as a person or a player.
After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise.
I guess because I had such a horrible life growing up, going from place to place not knowing what I was gonna do and ending up being homeless, there was a lot of pain and a lot of anger that was coming out through my guitar playing.
Scotty Moore plays one of the first really amazing riffs in rock history on Heartbreak Hotel with Elvis Presley … it was dangerous, it scared everybodys parents, which was part of the attraction then – as it still is now… it totally blindsided me and made me want to get a guitar and do that.
When it came time to hire a guitar player … I didn’t even have to think about it … Mike Bloomfield was the best guitar player I’d ever heard.
I come from a very musical family. My dad taught me to play guitar. I play violin and drums as well. Violin, I started in elementary school. Drums actually came when I was in a program called ‘Rock Star,’ which was really awesome. We were doing a song by the Ramones, so I thought, ‘Why not play the drums?’
Heaven to me is percussion and bass, a screaming guitar and a burbling Hammond B-3 organ. It’s a soup I love being immersed in.
Greg Ginn was certainly a huge influence on my guitar playing. I put him up there with people like Eddie Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen changed everything; I don’t necessarily like everything he did, but he definitely changed everything.
Well I thought my pickin’ would set them on fire, but nobody wanted to hire a guitar man.
Trust me, the only real way to understand ‘Chic’ is in highfalutin terms. Our chord progressions were based on European modal melodies. I made those early ‘Chic’ records to impress my jazz friends.
I love ‘Guitar Hero,’ and I think it’s a part of pop culture.
There’s just certain styles of playing that you do play in your own way. Maybe it’s in the way your fingers bend, for all I know. And so whenever you pick up the guitar it’s not so much the sound of the instrument itself, it’s like the ting that you add onto it-the attitude.
I was deluding myself that the song was almost not important, but I think the real thing that was happening was almost like self-hypnosis or mediation. The guitar lick was the transcendental key that unlocked my brain. It freed me. And then it all became easy. It’s funny now, because I’ve had times when it wasn’t easy.
How we approached this was I wanted this to be personal in a way. It’s not a big, epic Hollywood score but really personal and intimate, and we thought guitar would be the perfect instrument for him because he’s young and he has an undying spirit and all that stuff and we went on that feeling totally.
I learned how to play guitar by playing along to Jane‘s Addiction records and Smashing Pumpkins records, things you can totally hear if you listen to my guitar.
As jazz fans, it was amusing for us to play jazz harmonies on these big, ugly electric guitars.
I just have some restaurants to just go and eat there. Do mean places to watch people? I like to go shopping look for guitars and stuff with my friends. Look at Meyer, great old instruments, talk about pedals and stuff
As a kid, I was into music, played guitar in a band. Then I started acting in plays in junior high school and just got lost in the puzzle of acting, the magic of it. I think it was an escape for me.
I can play the air guitar really, really well.
I tried to connect my singing voice to my guitar an’ my guitar to my singing voice. Like the two was talking to one another.
Once I got a guitar that was relatively user-friendly, but not super-duper easy, I really came on as a guitarist, at that point. It helped. It was a super-expensive guitar either, but something needs to steer you a bit, if you’re playing an instrument that is really hard.
So I started to learn guitar right away.
I wouldn’t just have other people write songs and me go out and sing it. I would sit down with a guitar and write 11 or 12 good songs for an album and that is gonna take a long time.
Tame Impala’s music revisits a time when guitar effects and studio tricks were music’s newest frontiers; when rock was barely old enough to drive and violently threw conventional ideas out the window.
There’s so much that can be done on the guitar. And that’s what is so good about the guitar – everyone can really enjoy themselves on it and have a good time, which is what it’s all about.
I never set out to write a certain kind of song, I just play my guitar and see if I catch something.
Jeff and Mike had taken drum lessons at a young age. When the Beatles came out in ’64, we all wanted to play guitar.
I’ve learned not to let it be the end of the world if a boy doesn’t like you. I used to put so much effort into boys. I started playing guitar because I wanted to impress this boy. Then, I ended up in love with guitar and I didn’t care about the boy anymore.
I started writing songs when I was 10. It was a natural way to express myself as a kid. It wasn’t until I started listening to jazz, joined the choir and picked up a guitar that my little hobby became something far more serious.
I like the guitar-driven music of Nirvana at its peak. At that point, I thought there was a lot of really exciting music coming out.
I play guitar quite a bit, because I’m always in search of something. I don’t play to jam, but because I’m fishing. I’m looking for something, that I hope you can never find. If I do find it, I’m afraid I won’t have a need to do this any more.
I’ve got holes in my guitar.
It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn’t there before.
One day, I just decided I’m ready to go. So I went down with my guitar and sat on the front steps of Sam Phillips recording studio.
I wasn’t very good at studies but was into a lot of extra-curricular activities. I used to play the keyboard and bass guitar in my school band and went on to study keyboard from Trinity College, London.
I’m glad I get singled out for my slide guitar-playing, which isn’t that difficult to do. I didn’t take guitar lessons, but I just love the way it sounds, almost like the human voice.
Its just something Ive always done. In South Texas, the first guitar you get is a Mexican guitar. And the first one I got, the first thing I did was take it apart.
Lots of people can have girlfriends. But I can throw around guitars onstage! That’ll be my epitaph: ‘He never had a girlfriend, but you should’ve seen him smash a Les Paul!’
You know, I like playing music and playing guitar, and I like to draw, so I thought I would end up just probably barely making a living, or probably having to have some other job, but being involved in one of those things that I really like to do. But that didn’t work out like that.
Saying a camera takes nice pictures is like saying a guitar plays nice melodies.
Unless the guitar works as a color, then I don’t use it, so I haven’t been playing guitar too much lately.
I play the guitar. This year at the Sundance film festival, I joined the band from ‘The Guitar’ on stage. We warmed up for Patti Smith, and then the director Michel Gondry got on the drums to play some songs from the soundtrack to his film Be Kind Rewind with Mos Def. It was pretty mad.
The thing about guitar players is we’re all like a brotherhood or sisterhood. We don’t care if you’re great, good, bad, in between or whatever. As long as you love it, then we’re all going to help each other.
I always call myself a “student” of the guitar.
I try not to punish the audience by making them listen to too much acoustic guitar.
If you want to challenge the system, don’t go to bed with it.
I did play every little note on the guitar on that record
Guitar is the best form of self-expression I know. Everything else, and I’m just sort of tripping around, trying to figure my way through life.
I started on drums when I was 13 and played them for two years. Then I went to guitar for a year, played keyboards for a year and a half, and went back to guitar.
Mention Hubert Sumlin, as well, because Hubert’s a great man, and again, you know, I don’t play the guitar very good, but when I’m playing this kind of music, I always have him in my mind. I wish I could play like Hubert.
Didn’t want to be a star, wanted just to play guitar in this cockamamie business.
You’ve got to do something to fill up your day. And I can only play so much guitar and watch so many TV shows. It fulfills me. There are two things about it I like: It makes me happy, and it makes other people happy.
I wish I had met [Francesca] Woodman forty years ago. It would have been great to live with her for a year. She didn’t save anything. She played the camera like a new guitar. She murdered herself out taking pictures.
It was really hard to find people to come over and play guitar and sing and write songs together. So that turned me into a songwriter that way, just so I could be able to play with other people.
I loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that’s where I was.
Johnny Guitar… just one of my favorite singers of all time. I met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the ’50s when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together.I would hear him sing every night.
I always had wished somebody else would sing my songs, but there wasn’t anybody who knew them, so I sang them myself and eventually became a better singer and guitar player.
I learned to play guitar at a young age and converted poems and stuff that I had written to songs.
I’ve sung since I talked, when I’m two, but what I sang was ballads, because it’s very hard to do a dance track with your little acoustic guitar when you’re a kid.
But you make me sing like a guitar humming . . .
I’ve always loved the electric guitar: to hold it and work it and hear what it does is unreal.
I heard the Beatles and the Stones, and Mom bought me an electric guitar. I played lead for four years and then switched to bass. One day someone suggested that I should sing, so I sheepishly stepped up to the microphone and the rest is rock history.
I had a guitar sitting around, and it just happened to have four strings on it, and I would sit around watching TV and playing it. I ended up writing bunches of songs around four strings.
Heck, I’m no Henry Mancini or Michel Legrand. I just play the guitar and write songs.
I was a very bad musician. I was the world’s worst guitar player, so when I was performing solo with a guitar, I had to keep things very simple.
I will always love the guitar as long as I’m alive, the Blues is my heart.
It’s just something I’ve always done. In South Texas, the first guitar you get is a Mexican guitar. And the first one I got, the first thing I did was take it apart.
Most of the time I sit down with my guitar or at the piano, and I play for awhile until I get a new riff or groove that I like a lot. Then I’ll concentrate on building around that line of thought by adding words and textures. At first I’m only trying to please myself, and hopefully what I like will appeal to others.
You know, I’ve never done karaoke, ever. It makes me nervous – I think it’s the lack of the guitar and just a microphone.
Actually, because I’m so small, when I strike an open A chord I get physically thrown to the left, and when I play an open G chord I go right. That’s how hard I play, and that’s how a lot of my stage act has come about. I just go where the guitar takes me.
As far as guitar picking, if I make the same mistakes at the same time every day, people will start calling it a style.
If you play “I Don’t Want To Know” by Fleetwood Mac loud enough — you can hear Lindsey Buckingham’s fingers sliding down the strings of his acoustic guitar. …And we were convinced that this was the definitive illustration of what we both loved about music; we loved hearing the INSIDE of a song.
My dad didn’t want me to play guitar. He played piano, so I chose that. And I ended up loving it.
Yes, I love to play drums and bass and guitar and piano. Those are the main instruments I play. That is it.
I really worked to try and be creative enough on the guitar parts so those who aren’t real educated would know that there was some difficulty in doing it.
It’s not so surprising that there are more women in metal bands. And they’re not just fronting them. There are drummers and guitar players, bass players.
We’ve always described our sound as a bit more guitar driven than normal pop music. Kind of Pink in a boy band form. We’ve heard a few people say that so now we use it. I think Pink is amazing person to be compared to.
Once I get onstage the tension explodes and I’m fine. I’m in another world – in a trance almost, doing what I love best, expressing myself through guitar.
Most of my music theory knowledge is based on piano. But I write on guitar a lot, too. I’m not a great guitar player by any means. I’m not a great instrumentalist. I play piano on stage. I don’t play guitar on stage, but I use it to write quite a lot.
Don’t be precious about anything-much less a certain guitar sound. There is always another interesting sound or effect just waiting to be discovered.
Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.
Sometimes, you don’t need a $5,000 guitar – you need $5,000 worth of lessons.
I think guitar-wise, Eric Clapton was a big influence on me. I got to spend time around him. He’s kind of strange, mysterious, serious and he always has played such hot guitar.
