When I started performing, I played acoustic music, partly because that way you don’t have to worry about interacting too much with other people creatively. Asserting myself in that way was not really a strong point for me.
When people say the words ‘singer-songwriter,’ I think they have an image in their heads of someone with an acoustic guitar who is a bit woe-is-me. I’d like to think that I’m not one of those. I’m quite a happy person.
The thing is, acoustic could be like a four-letter word to a lot of kids.
Before, I was terrified on stage. I only play guitar during the acoustic songs. After a while, you can elicit certain responses from the crowd, like Elvis.
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.
I played recorder in assembly, then I became passionate about the guitar, I don’t know why. I started on electric then moved to acoustic – my brother was playing bass in the next room.
With my songs, the question is always, ‘Can you pull it off live, alone on just an acoustic guitar?’ That’s the litmus test. If I can, then it’s a song I ought to record. If I can’t, it’s probably not good enough.
I’ve always loved acoustic music because I’ve always loved to hear someone’s words or just watch them and just get into them. The distancing thing about rock is it’s so assaulting.
I’ve always toured solo acoustic.
Oftentimes, especially in the context of an acoustic song, I’m motivated to write by some amount of melancholy.
To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.
I’ve never been one of those musicians to differentiate between acoustic and electronic sounds. I just see it all as sound sources to be used. This translates into my live shows as well.
I was in Australia in about 1996 when I played some acoustic guitar for some guys at a studio down there. They were pretty happy with it, and mentioned doing an album, so about a year later I met some people who were interested in recording.
Let’s face it – the electric guitar is way sexier than the acoustic.
I’ve always been fond of acoustic 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.
All the songs I’ve written, if they don’t sound good on acoustic guitar, they won’t sound good at 11.
As a producer, when I’m trying to make something soft, I start with a slow tempo. Then after that, it would be straight to acoustic guitar and vocals, or I’m going to go strings and just piano.
I mean, there’s times to rock and roll, and I love that too. But I think my first love is acoustic music.
When I was younger and played acoustic guitar music, I got a lot of Sheeran comparisons, along with guys like Paolo Nutini and James Morrison.
I was in Redwood for almost six years. It was an acoustic trio that I still think was the best band I’ve ever been a part of. We do have a double CD of the Redwood stuff available called ‘Lost But Not Really.’ I’m very proud of the old Redwood stuff.
But when I was 12 or 13, I found the acoustic guitar and got into guitar music ultimately, like Black Motorcycle Club, obviously Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash.
I’m a really big fan of Andy McKee – I think he’s an amazing acoustic guitar player, and he’s taken the torch from where Michael Hedges left off.
Using double coil pickups kills a lot of the guitar tone – you lose the acoustic mechanics. With my single-coils driven through the Marshalls and overdrive, it sounds massive.
I’ve just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I’m just still writing songs and what not.
I know how to play the acoustic guitar, but I’m learning to play the electric guitar now. I’m sure it will be a wonderful experience.
But the reality is when you write a song, you should be able to strip away all the instruments and just have a song right there with an acoustic guitar and a voice, and the song should be good.
There was nobody at the time who was playing slide guitar like Johnny, and nobody, or no white guys at least, that was playing country blues like that on the acoustic guitar. And it was at that point that I realized what Johnny had to offer.
I think the Flecktones are a mixture of acoustic and electronic music with a lot of roots in folk and bluegrass as well as funk and jazz.
To be honest, the acoustic stuff’s my favorite thing to do.
I’m not like other guitar players. In fact, I’m not even like most acoustic players because I use the nylon-string acoustic. I do play steel-string and the electric guitar, too, because I love rock ‘n’ roll and guitarists like Jimi Hendrix. But my bread and butter has always been the nylon-string.
I got this Christmas gift with the entire Beatles catalog. I had fun trying to duplicate what I was hearing on these records, only using the instruments I had at hand – an acoustic guitar, and that’s all. It was endlessly amusing to me to try to imitate John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s harmonies using the guitar.
Playing acoustic and line drawings are the two things I’m most competent at.
I was just a punk-rock kid who never played acoustic guitar.
I grew up in the suburbs and was raised on rap radio, so it took me a long time to stumble upon the acoustic guitar as a resource for anything.
At the Muddy Waters thing, I played the first song by myself on an acoustic guitar. I thought that was great that y’all did that tribute to Muddy Waters. I had a real good time.
I love the acoustic sets. Growing up, me and my dad would always watch those because we loved seeing the songs stripped back.
What resonates with me now is the acoustic guitar and piano.
It’s amazing what the acoustic guitar can bring to the picture.
My foundation is acoustic guitar, and it is finger-picking and all of that and sort of an orchestral style of playing. Lead guitar came later, more out of the necessity to do so because of expectations in a particular situation.
‘Flying In A Blue Dream’ was quite automatic. I was working on another song, and I took a break and picked up my acoustic guitar, tuned it strangely, and instantly wrote the tune. It’s funny how you can struggle with one piece and write a better one in a minute. Usually, when things come easy, it means it’s good.
The way I think about things or hear things in my head is actually much closer to acoustic instruments. I don’t have weird synthesized fantasy of music in my head.
I’d say it’s harder to play with an acoustic guitar strapped over your shoulder for a few hundred people than it is to play in front of thousands with an entire bombastic band behind you.
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 aspire to be someone like Gillian Welch. What she does is play part of a group with two acoustic guitars with harmonies. She plays folk. However, there is no one that sounds like Gillian Welch. I aspire to come up with a unique sound like she has.
I mean, there’s times to rock and roll, and I love that too. But I think my first love is acoustic music.
The classical guitar has a dynamic to it unlike a regular acoustic guitar or an electric guitar. You know, there’s times when you should play and there’s times when you gotta hold back. It’s an extremely dynamic instrument.
I started on acoustic guitar after I heard Leadbelly and Big Bill Broonzy.
My parents got me a $25 Kent steel-string acoustic guitar when I was around 12. The following Christmas, my parents bought me a Conora electric guitar. It looked almost like a Gretsch. It cost $59, and my mom still has it.
I don’t love using synthesizers, but I do use synthesizers. I’m more inspired by acoustic instruments – as long as there’s something making the sound it’s something I really like.
That’s what I love about Nashville and the music community – seeing kids around acoustic music and bluegrass picking parties is the best.
I write alternative, folkie pop. It’s very acoustic.
It took me a while to get an electric guitar and a bass and amps and stuff. Playing the acoustic guitar was much easier and more affordable. But I was always listening to the radio and was interested in all the rock and pop music.
Back in the Eighties, I used to write ballads on my acoustic guitar, so it seems very natural to me to go back to a little singing.
I’m an acoustic guitar owner – in the sense that I own them, and they sit at my house, and I never play them.
Actually, I think that a lot of the interviews and acoustic sessions and other things that artists fill their time with are really pointless and suck the energy out of the artist.
The transformation that happens when a young artist goes on the road – you put the acoustic guitar down and start to play the electric a little louder – it gets a little bit ragged.
I actually bought a travel guitar, and that guitar is really cool. You can actually fold the guitar, and you can plug headphones into it, but it’s acoustic, or semi-acoustic.
