Words matter. These are the best Guitar Quotes from famous people such as Benjamin Booker, Jimmy Page, Mario Vazquez, Kat Dennings, Alex Turner, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I was just a music lover who wondered what it would sound like if Otis Redding strapped on a guitar and played in a punk band. That’s it.
Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone’s got their own character, and that’s the thing that’s amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone’s approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it’s all valid.
I’d like to know how to play the guitar.
I’ve played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I’m mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute… Just not well.
Guitar music or rock n’ roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it’ll never go away completely. It can’t die because it’s so fundamentally attractive.
I just go where the guitar takes me.
What resonates with me now is the acoustic guitar and piano.
I don’t care how famous a guitarist is, he ain’t learned everything. There’s always somewhere to go, something to mash up, but he ain’t found it yet. You never learn everything on that guitar neck.
I do music because I can just pick up my guitar and sing, and completely satisfy, instant gratification. I don’t need a script, I don’t people, I don’t need anything, cameras, I just have myself and my guitar, or keyboard.
I was never really a virtuoso guitar player per se.
Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.
Right now my mind is on the people who stole our instruments, and, specifically, the person with my guitar, which will no doubt end its days having Green Day songs worked out on it. A better fate was deserved – and while the reverence given to guitars annoys me, I shall miss it.
If you told me I was going to live to 240, I would take 10 years off and try and act. I don’t have that kind of time, so I’d much rather stick to playing guitar.
I’ve got four or five records in my head at a time that I try to work on and I would like to do a guitar trio record next – since The Police I’ve mostly made records with keyboards.
Everything I did is because I wanted to do it. If I weren’t playing this arena, if I were playing a club, I’d still be doing it because that’s what I want to do. I love playing the guitar.
With the a cappella groups, every voice is like one string on a guitar, one note on the piano, or one cymbal, and you don’t have the luxury of falling back on anything.
I think I could walk into any music shop anywhere and with a guitar off the rack, a couple of basic pedals and an amp I could sound just like me. There’s no devices, customized or otherwise, that give me my sound.
And I had not much of a voice. I didn’t play that great guitar either.
Like, when I write a song, the song comes first before production. Everything is written on an acoustic guitar so you can strip away everything from it and have it be equally as entertaining and good without the bells and whistles.
I taught myself how to play the guitar. I never studied music.
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.
I’m pursuing soundtrack work in the southern California area and down the line I plan to make a moody, intense acoustic album. Not all acoustic, but an acoustic – oriented guitar record that I’ve already written most of the material for.
I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can’t sit down and play this and get the song over, I don’t take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar.
To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.
These days, my main guitar amps have been Magnatone. They’re beautiful. Magnatones have actual tremolo, which I recently learned about guitar amps. Often what guitar amps call vibrato is really just a volume Up and Down. But Magnatone has a true vibrato, which is pitch bending. And so, it’s just a lush sound.
I can’t play guitar or piano. I can’t even play dumb to get through TSA in the airport.
I play piano and trumpet. I studied classical guitar.
I really like IU… I just think she has the most adorable everything. Her voice is beautiful; she’s talented at writing music, guitar, everything. I fell in love with her when I watched her on that drama ‘Dream High.’ That’s probably when I first really fell in love with her.
Owning a handgun doesn’t make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.
George wrote Taxman, and I played guitar on it. He wrote it in anger at finding out what the taxman did. He had never known before then what could happen to your money.
I’ve been playing a Fender since 1963, and before that it was my dream guitar. I can’t endorse it more than that.
For me, anything can be music! I can get huge enjoyment and be moved totally by the purity and perfection of some Renaissance polyphony, but equally I can feel emotion in the expectant hum of a big old guitar amp just before the strings are hit.
I never liked mellow sounding 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.’
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 just loved the guitar when it came along. I loved it. The banjo was something I really liked, but when the guitar came along, to me that was my first love in music.
I play guitar and I love the Beatles and melodic music.
When I lived in a little flat in Pimlico in 1981, I’d write in the hallway. As you walked in, there was a tiny little recess type thing, hardly a hallway, really, and I’d sit there writing songs with my guitar.
I just play the guitar and write songs.
A lot of the songs start with an image. I was sitting there playing the guitar and I pictured this old, dirty green car, with the window rolled down, in the hot, hot, hot Texas heat, and this beautiful woman I knew when I was a kid sitting behind the wheel, looking out at me.
I lie around and play guitar, that’s something I do for sure. In fact that’s all I do, I think.
Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents’ passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It’s no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano.
The kids called me King of the Surf Guitar. I surfed sunup to sundown.
I sing and play guitar in the band ‘Marcy Playground’.
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.
I picked Dad’s guitar up when I was 8. It hurt to play, so I put it down and picked it back up when I was 15 and dug in. The guitar helped me come out of my shell and kind of gave me an identity at school.
When I’m having a bad day, I pick up my guitar.
I play drums and guitar, I snowboard, I do martial arts and acrobatics. I go to the movies every Friday.
I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound.
I still use the guitar pretty much just to hide my gut.
Being a songwriter, singer, and a great part of a unit is more important than being Joe Guitar Hero.
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.
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.
The most obvious thing you can’t do with a guitar synthesizer is to really sound like a guitar.
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.
I’ve made my own music, and the way I’ve always described it is Peggy Lee with an electric guitar, or Billie Holiday with some PJ Harvey in there.
We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they’re paid for it.
Great musicians are great musicians, whether they’re playing a trombone or an electric guitar or a xylophone.
I actually write my own music whenever I have a chance. I play guitar and sing.
The rest of the band were basically friends, So it was me following them around and begging them to let me be in their band for two or three years. And they finally let me in on the harmonica, actually, and then the keyboards, and finally the guitar.
I thought what I was good at doing was playing real simple guitar licks, since I’d cut my teeth on what Duane Eddy was doing; licks that were simple but had staying power.
I’m not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I’m too rough on instruments.
There are a lot of people who can do it on the guitar and sing at the same time, but I think what is harder is bass players that can play the bass and sing.
I’m coming into places with some people who just want to hear what I did before, with some people who want to hear me with a band, but I am just at the moment sticking to my guns and saying, ‘You know what? I want you just to hear this for a minute. I want it to be in the context of me and a guitar.’
The bass should be the note of the bass drum, and then you’ve got the engine of the band that everything else builds on. Everything else, the guitar, the keyboards, is a colour.
You should approach a sequencer like you would a Dobro guitar.
He made it quite clear that if I didn’t play the role, I would be dead within a week. As you can imagine, the guy who turned down Hagrid would be like the guy who called the Beatles a guitar band. So I couldn’t possibly refuse, really.
Everyone gets frustrated and aggressive, and I’d sooner take my aggression out on a guitar than on a person.
I enjoy his concerts and OK, maybe – I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I can’t play the guitar, but I am going to go a long way if I keep following Springsteen.
As much as I love acoustic Neil Young – and I do deeply – I may be more passionate about the electric. Luckily it’s not a contest, and we never have to make that choice. But Neil Young on an electric guitar – I feel like I’ve never seen or heard anything like it.
I think the way I play the guitar is very percussive. I play a lot of rhythm chops as though I were playing congas or something.
The best way to do that is to pick up a new instrument or an instrument that you don’t typically write on and see where it takes you. Whether it’s using an acoustic guitar, or piano, or electronics as tools, all of these lead to creating different types of songs and I used all of these methods for this record.
I first started actually playing guitar when I was eleven years old. I had some neighborhood friends who told me they were starting a band and needed a guitarist. I told my folks, and by the next day I had a guitar lesson set up with a local teacher.
That happens every time I get behind a guitar, regardless of what I’m saying, ’cause music is freedom and being free is the closest I’ve ever felt to being spiritual.
I wanted to take up guitar because playing piano is a little harder. Carrying a keyboard around is harder, and finding a real piano is much harder, and I wanted to play live more, so I figured a guitar would be easier to carry around.
I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.
Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’ influenced me. ‘Ziggy Stardust’ influenced Johnny Ramone a lot, especially his guitar parts.
I have held Jimi Hendrix’s Woodstock guitar and imagined what it would be like to play it, but that’s the extent of it.
A lot of the songs are written on piano or guitar, so I contribute, and I have done so since the beginning. So it’s been good to be involved completely musically as well.
I was a late bloomer. I was a kinda shy little kid, definitely a child of the dark side. I wanted to play guitar and be in a rock band.
I play guitar, piano, bass and percussion.
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.
You go to a studio with a guitar, people are like, ‘Oh this girl’s going to write this song on a guitar.’ Or wants to, or whatever. You go with a ukulele, people are just like ‘Eh, well, whatever.’ They don’t really care. It’s a very non-threatening kind of instrument.
I love to play the guitar. I also love photography and fashion.
My guitar was loud as hell, and I had no sympathy for anybody else.
Nobody seems to play Yamaha electrics, but it’s the best guitar I own.
I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.
Well, I started writing songs about three years ago when I learned to play the guitar, but I’ve been singing since I was eleven.
I was always just kind of obsessed with guitar, even before I started playing.
I remember I took a music course in junior year of high school, and some girl brought in ‘Teardrops On My Guitar,’ and she was like, ‘Isn’t this song great?’ And everyone was like, ‘Who’s Taylor Swift?’ And now, every time I listen to Taylor Swift, I remember that moment.
Like, back in Albania, all my cousins sing, they play the drums, they play guitar, it’s like… a thing!
Our last jam session was this past Christmas. Dad played his harmonica, mom sang in English and Italian, and I played guitar. I’m so happy that we could share that musical experience for one last time.
Because I don’t play guitar any more, African harmonies and rhythms have been an inspiration to me. I love the raw origin of the sound. It complements my voice and words naturally.
A guitar for me is pretty much strictly in the context of writing songs for my band, coming up with ideas with my band, and then being able to perform those songs as best as I can on stage – that’s what the guitar for me has always been.
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 always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.
I would hole up in my bedroom growing up and teach myself guitar.
It’s been very hard for the guitar as a serious synthesizer to compete with keyboards.
I started trying to do my own music at home, and I was like, ‘You know what, I can play the guitar, sort of. And I can do these things, sort of. And I can make these crazy noises on my computer, sort of. But I need a ridiculously good drummer. I need someone to help me with string arrangements.’
Well mostly in song writing my experience is that there isn’t so much inspiration as hard work. You sit there for hours, days and weeks with a guitar and piano until something good comes.
Yes, I took up the guitar when I was about 14 or 15, in high school.
There’s no leader of this band, and there never will be. That’s the key. You can’t control how the public perceives you-people see rock’n’roll bands as the guitar player and the singer.
I might have a guitar or a piano on set to play something for the actors.
I would have to say I’m bored with the standard rock, guitar solos, but I’ve done it for five albums now, and this time I wanted to go in a completely different direction. I wasn’t interested in showing off any more.
I think guitar is the best thing in the world.
I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.
Going to high school in rural Florida, we always partied down in the woods. Somebody – one of the rednecks – would leave class and mow a path out to a field, and we’d drive out there. Dude, every party I went to was lit by a bonfire. Acoustic guitar.
Well I was on the one hand, the more I played the guitar the more I began to really love the guitar and to love virtually any kind of music that anybody played well on guitar.
So by the time I taught myself the bass guitar at the age of 14, my hands were already pretty nimble.
I don’t put myself on Jeff Beck’s level, but I can relate to him when he says he’d rather be working on his car collection than playing the guitar.
I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.
I get on my porch with my guitar, look at my trees, and write a song.
My guitar is a 1934 National Trojan. They call it a resonator, which is the guitar guys played in the honky-tonks before amplification. It’s very loud. It’s the type of guitar that Son House and Robert Johnson played.
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.
I used a baritone guitar with a very unusual tuning that became the body of the composition, while the classical guitar is on top of it with the main rhythm part.
My place in Scotland is in the middle of nowhere, so you’ve just got a keyboard, guitar, a little drum machine and you know if you can work stuff out like that, if you can hammer out songs that sound good just with those three things and a voice, you’re on your way.
I remember when I was coming up, the music stores where you could get guitar strings was where I got my records from. Now the place where you get your records from is where you can get your DJ mats and your mixers.
It keeps me in touch with younger musicians who are constantly saying, ‘Have you heard this new artist, or this new guitar player?’ It keeps you reaching.
It’s harder to play drums than guitar, physically. I’m always kind of on the edge. I guess that’s how I play everything: on the edge of my ability.
There were times I used to go to parties when I was, you know, like 15-, 16-years-old, and I’d always bring my guitar, and all my friends would be like, sing one of the Smokey songs. And everything I sang was his music, and I could sound just like him.
I’ve got holes in my guitar.
Grade 9: I was too small for football, too shy for drama class, but I did have a passion for music. And so, with a mouth full of braces (and a glorious mullet), I accepted that the trombone would be a fantastic scholastic counterpart to my extracurricular loves: country music, and the guitar.
You’re better off being a brick layer if you’re going to play guitar than a sheet metal worker.
I have come to the conclusion – and I don’t know why it took me so long, but nevertheless, I’m here now – that a lot of people tell me they don’t get enough guitar on my albums. So I decided to do an album where the guitar would be the singer, playing the melody.
In the ’90s, guitar solos were dead.
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.
All I do is sit at home and play guitar. That’s seriously what I do.
I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It’s fragile. I don’t have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.
I actually first picked up an ukulele before I picked up a guitar.
I think of guitar players in terms of doctors: you have the doctor for your heart, the cardiologist, then one that works on your feet, your leg. But I believe George Benson is the one that plays all over. To me, he would be the M.D. of them all.
Unless the guitar works as a color, then I don’t use it, so I haven’t been playing guitar too much lately.
Just with the basic one guitar, one piano and one vocal and an audience, I think that the intimacy comes through more. People feel much more connected to the song because there’s nothing in the way, and I actually enjoy doing that.
I had a guitar when I was 6 or 7, a plastic guitar with the Beatles’ faces on it. It would be a collector’s item now. It would fetch a hefty sum, I imagine.
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.
My dad played guitar, and he taught me enough to play some Beatles’ songs. But primarily, I was a bookworm. I loved reading and still do. My whole family does. It was part of the family culture. Accomplished literacy was a value.
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.
T-Bone Walker was a big influence on just about every guitar player around.
I destroyed a lot of guitars trying to get them to do what I wanted, but I learned something from every guitar I tore apart, and discovered even more things. Things like if the string is not straight from the bridge saddle to the nut, you’re going to have friction.
I feel like I’m just learning how to play the guitar. I mean, really learning to play the guitar.
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.
Because people don’t understand what computing is about, they think they have it in the iPhone, and that illusion is as bad as the illusion that ‘Guitar Hero’ is the same as a real guitar.
I think we raised about 20,000 pounds. There was a live performance thing so we thought we’d donate the equipment for an online charity in Britain. I hated to part with my guitar, but it was for such a great cause.
Guitar is great for a certain thing, but a piano is so much more expansive.
I started playing guitar when I was in my late teens, and within two years I was starting to play shows.
I’m the gun guy, a loud guitar Dirty Harry with a ponytail.
Every time the guys were knocked out by my guitar playing and the girls were knocked out by the type of songs I did. That set us apart from the average blues band.
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.
But the guitar is my favorite, first and foremost instrument.
When I’m working on a movie, I’m in my trailer playing guitar. And then on the road, I read scripts and think of… it just keeps both fires burning. I kind of need both.
I had a series of mini-breakdowns where the public persona – this thing, this face, this person who writes this music… I would walk past that person in the mirror or listen to that person playing guitar and I didn’t know who they were.
Oh yeah, I mean, it wasn’t a very good guitar, most good guitars have got thrust rods in the necks that you can adjust or that’ll keep them in shape, you know keep them straight. This one just, well it turned into a bow and arrow after a couple of months.
I’m just a dumb guitar player, man.
I understand I’m supposed to be feminine and dainty, but I’m not. There are two sides to the coin. People are more impressed with things that I do because they almost treat you as if you’re handicapped if you’re a woman… people can be impressed that I can play a few chords on the guitar.
My daughter plays keyboard very well, and my son plays guitar, and they’re totally into music.
To me and my band, guitar riffs are what it’s all about. We know that every time we jam on a great riff, we’ve got a fighting chance of writing a great song!
My first really good guitar was a Gibson J-45.
I would walk down the hall with my guitar and play for anyone that would listen. As a young kid I was really driven and I was going to make it happen no matter what.
I noticed a lot of guitar players neglected the rhythm part of rhythm guitar and decided I would try to focus in that.
I saw the Village as a place you could escape to, to express yourself. When I first went there, I wrote and performed poetry. Then I drew portraits for a couple of years. It took a while before I thought about picking up a guitar.
I’ll always do the guitar parts since it’s my main instrument.
I was left with an urge to make the guitar sound like things it shouldn’t be able to sound like.
I don’t understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.
Puberty hit me very hard, and I basically had no use for school once I discovered the guitar.
My dad is a huge rock n’ roll lead guitar fan.
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.
I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar – a real nice one – in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five.
My dad wanted me to play when I was a kid, so I learned to play the guitar. I pursued a career in music because I love it so much and I enjoy what it does to those who hear it.
I just want to be a guy with a guitar.
There’s something about approaching universal truths with the simplicity of the acoustic guitar. You can take it anywhere, and it helps me reach listeners of all ages and walks of life.
My voice is my improvisational instrument, the melody instrument. The guitar is harmonic structure. I’m not a good enough guitarist to improvise on it.
My room is never clean. I play ‘Guitar Hero’ all the time and throw things around my room.
Playing guitar is not a beauty contest.
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.
Puberty was very vague. I literally locked myself in a room and played guitar.
Look what venison does to a goofy guitar player from Detroit? I’m going to be 54 this year and if I had any more energy I’d scare you.
Yes, I love to play drums and bass and guitar and piano. Those are the main instruments I play. That is it.
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.
I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head.
If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I’d never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.
People do ask, ‘Are you going to embellish this stuff?’ I wouldn’t change any of my guitar parts.
If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I’m just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I’ll have a song in an hour.
I’m surrounded by great guitar players.
I mean, I can sit down with a guitar, and in fact, we do two, three songs with just guitar and percussion.
I like to be quiet and play guitar and just chill.
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?’
It’s actually not that hard to play guitar in a rock band.
Rap bores me, and all the glamour rock groups like Bon Jovi just amuse me. They obviously have a place, but they all sound like they use the same guitar player to me.
I never went out to make the music that people would like. I mean, I tried, because every teenager tries to do that. But in my heart, I’d always come from gigs where I played upbeat guitar covers and I’d start writing sad songs on the piano.
When you play guitar and strum, you’re using biceps and triceps to move up and down. I realized you could just turn your wrist, your forearm, using smaller muscles in your arm that are much more efficient and much quicker.
I can plunk out enough chords to write a song, but I’m completely afraid to play guitar in front of other people. It’s a fear of failure, I guess.
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 don’t really know why I chose bass except that it was different than guitar.
I didn’t know until later, but my uncle was quite a famous bohemian in Glasgow, and he played guitar. My father was a kind of a poetic bohemian, and he read me poetry.
I wanted to play this part: the goofy rock and roller who can’t hang up his guitar when it’s clear to everyone else that he should.
The day before my 16th birthday I got my guitar.
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.
We’ve got an electric organ, a sax, drums, guitar and bass guitar. We sound less like the Beatles than most of the groups.
Bryan Adams might not be what I want to put on, but he’s a pop singer with a great voice and great guitar tone. Plus, he’s done more for Canada than Rush have, because he works all the time. I envy him for that.
I think a good guitar solo sounds so much better within the context of a good song.
You’d always see a lady or a little girl sitting at a piano. I decided I wanted to play something more unexpected, so that’s when I got interested in learning to play the guitar.
I wouldn’t mind working with Queens of the Stone Age, doing some guitar stuff on that. Even Arctic Monkeys. I’d like to do be a bit of guitar with them guys. I’ll play on anyone’s record to be honest with you.
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 don’t recall getting a first guitar.
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.
I’m definitely a guitar player, but it’s the last thing I listen to in a song, after the singer and the drums.
The violin is my mistress, but the guitar is my master.
The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.
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 really respect Zakk Wylde’s guitar playing and his compulsive work ethic.
When I can focus on something like guitar or painting, I do. I started painting people I admire, like Kerouac, Bob Dylan, Nelson Algren, Marlon Brando, Patti Smith, my girl, my kids.
I may be learning guitar, but I’ll never be able to sing.
We used to say when we were 20 years old, that when you reach 30, you gotta hang up your guitar and get a real job.
The idea you start from is ‘What’s cool to a kid in their early teens?’ So we had the guitar in ‘Devil May Cry 3.’ Guitars are cool to kids that age, and motorcycles are, too.
I do not consider myself a guitar player. My father is a guitar player – I’m not.
The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.
The greatest guitar player in the world today for me is Paco de Lucia, who is actually Spanish.
I play Rock Band, which is Guitar Hero times ten. You can play with four people, so when you have parties, you have a real band. Nobody ever wants to sing, so I’m always the one throwing down on the mic.
My first guitar, a Fender Jazz Master, I traded it in for a Les Paul Deluxe.
The guitar can go at a scream. It can yell at you.
It turns out kids today still learn that four-chord progression when they’re just picking up the guitar.
The ukulele was the first of many instruments they had bought for me. They got me a guitar when I was eleven, which my son Morgan uses until this day. They paid for 3 years of guitar lessons; they bought me a bass fiddle, which I still play.
I wasn’t planning on being a guitar player; I was going to be a singer. And I was for a little bit in the Sex Pistols – that is, until we got John Lydon. And then I realized I wasn’t really suited as a front guy.
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.
I play, like, 12 instruments. Guitar, piano, harmonica, African drums… I’m working on mastering the accordion.
Everybody besides my piano player has been with me since the very first day. We were a four-piece band for a solid two years. It was me playing acoustic and rhythm electric guitar, a bass player, a drummer and a lead guitar player. For a couple of years, we sounded like the Foo Fighters.
When I was 14 I would pick up my brother’s bass guitar, and I would just pound on it, having no idea how to play it.
I just want to play like Jimi Hendrix. I love other forms of music and wish I could play classical piano, or saxophone like John Coltrane, but that will never happen. Because my nature is to play electric guitar really well and to emulate my heroes from the late 1960s.
If you can’t play it on an acoustic guitar or a grand piano then it’s not a song.
I started doing all kinds of weird stuff on the guitar, which became part of my playing. I started doing harmonics and tapping on the guitar and pulling off strings and doing all this weird stuff that no one had ever done before.
When you pick up a guitar, you don’t put down your First Amendment rights.
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.
Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that’s not what I call rock.
I had, like, a keytar. I was always attracted to the guitar, but I never really thought that I could be good at it because I was trained on piano, so it was kind of a jump.
But yeah, I played bass guitar in high school and in college and then I actually fractured my thumb, so my bass career went bye-bye.
Puberty was very vague. I literally locked myself in a room and played guitar.
I got into guitar because no parent will buy their eight-year-old kid drums unless they’re divorced and trying to get back at their wife. You know what I mean?
I just love crafting and shaping sounds. Actually, many of the sounds that I work with start off as organic instruments – guitar, piano, clarinet, etc. But I do love the rigidity of electronic drums.
Being 16 years old and getting an electric guitar is never going to get old. There’s always going to be kids making music. There’s always going to be kids in bands.
I had done a fair bit of traveling during the holidays in my school days with my guitar and discovered that I could live on it. Admittedly, I traveled with a sleeping bag but I could always find somewhere to lay my head.
The first guitar I ever owned was a Kay SG copy. That cost like $35. Man, that was a terrible guitar.
I had been playing single note instruments and I wanted to hear a guitar played as a piano.
I tried when I was 13, when my grandparents gave me an acoustic guitar, and I tried for a year. It hurt so much to play. I mean, the fingertips hurt so much, I gave up.
My whole life is geared to play guitar. I play what I want when I want and I hope the listener gets as much pleasure listening to the music as I get playing it.
Unfortunately, most of the songs that I write I don’t write them with guitar in mind. I just write it as a song and that was probably one of the ones that left an opening for it. The song’s all right, I wouldn’t choose to sing it now.
Usually, I’ll just sit down at a piano or with a guitar, and I’ll just be relaxed and playing music. Because that’s what relaxes your subconscious. That’s why everyone from animals to humans love music.
I actually write more on guitar than I do on piano.
When I read the ‘Country Strong’ script, I thought, ‘Can’t they just hand-double it? Can’t I just do the rest of the movie and not have to do the performing?’ It took me six months to learn to sing and play guitar at the same time.
The lousy guitar player in any band is the bass player.
I bought one of those Learn How to Play Guitar Chords By Yourself and it shows you the diagram where to put your hands and I took that in my room, sat with my singles and learned how to play guitar.
The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it’s very different for me as a performer. I’m not playing music – I’m just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar… whatever it is.
I’ve never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I’ve always played with other musicians. It’s how I play, there’s no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play.
I gave guitar lessons. I tried to join bands. My mom always said it was obvious that nothing was going to stop me.
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.
I like a nice rumble on bass, openness on guitar and drums that breathe.
When I first got a guitar, it was a Spanish, classical thing.
That it’s a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar.
I like the bad-boy types. Generally the guy I’m attracted to is the guy in the club with all the tattoos and nail polish. He’s usually the lead singer in a punk band and plays guitar. But my serious boyfriends are relatively clean-cut, nice guys. So it’s strange.
I don’t let the children watch TV on weeknights. They practice playing musical instruments instead. Both my sons play piano, drums and guitar, so my husband and I listen to them in the evening.
It was my 16th birthday – my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do – write songs and sing them to people.
I can’t play the guitar, so the thoughts of playing one onstage at a festival makes me quiver, but I’ve been blabbering away in front of people since I was a child, so talking for a living isn’t the most daunting thing to do.
I’d say writing songs is, for me, as much playing the tape recorder as it is playing guitar or writing words.
My guitar was a loyal person to me.
I had always loved music. I grew up listening to classic country, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard. My dad loved Vern Gosdin and Keith Whitley. So I kept going to class and started getting totally into playing guitar and teaching myself these songs.
I learned to tune a guitar by ear. That method has served me pretty well.
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 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 play mostly guitar, and I played drums in my brother’s band for a while growing up.
I’ve actually had a melody on my guitar since the day I learned how to play it, back when I was 7. And for some reason I can’t add lyrics to it.
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!’
Whenever I’m on tour and I’m in my hotel room and I’m writing and playing my guitar, I go in the bathroom and I record whatever I’m writing in there. It’s just what I love to do.
I don’t read music. I don’t write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.
I love the language of, you know, the old black country man with a blues guitar and… boots and the quick banter.
At the end of the day, if you don’t have a record contract, a studio or a guitar, you can still write songs. You’re still an artist. That’s something no one can take away.
I started playing guitar kind of by accident.
I think I’m a songwriter. I grab an instrument to make my body a song, but I’m not a player as such, maybe a little more on guitar, but certainly not piano.
But KISS inspired me personally to pick up a guitar and go for it.
‘Wii Music’ elevates the scope of music video games by moving beyond commentary on what music is – as ‘Rock Band’ and ‘Guitar Hero’ do – to suggesting what it could be. Yet I’m still left wondering: Couldn’t it be more?
I went to my friend’s house one day, and he had an electric guitar he had just bought with a tiny little amp. I turned the volume up to 10 and I hit one chord, and I said, I’m in love.
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.
I spend a lot of time copying saxophone players and trumpet players. Not to say that it is not important to listen to guitar players, but there’s so much music out there and so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.
I just want to be a better guitar player, really.
I’ve always thought that the act of playing the guitar was the act of trying to make a point of playing the guitar.
I’m starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar.
I’m pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don’t use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.
I like jazz, but I could never play it. You just sit there with a guitar the size of a Chevy on your chest, wearing a stupid hat, playing the same solo for an hour.
I’m in hotel rooms night after night, playing a lot of the same venues as my dad and carrying the guitar that used to be his. We’re the same person. I don’t know if he realises how much of a legacy he has left to his children.
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.
My fingers used to hurt really bad when I played guitar. I stopped because of it.
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.
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.
My first love was the sound of guitar.
To have a man play guitar and sing to you is cool.
I like playing guitar I don’t like talking about it. I like writing riffs, I don’t like explaining them.
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.
A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that’s true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there’s something about the guitar – the range of possibilities is much broader.
My vocation is more in composition really than anything else – building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.
Pete Townshend used to crash chords and let the guitar feed back. He’s overrated.
Still to this day, I am deeply satisfied when watching a guitar player who is connected with their art and instrument. GuitarTV helps you tap into that connection, and to each other.
People forget the punk thing was really good for women. It motivated them to pick up a guitar rather than be a chanteuse. It allowed us to be aggressive.
It’s a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can’t do.
I could care less about sitting around and practicing the guitar for hours a day and trying to be the best guitar player on the planet.
You hear it in the great musicians, whether it’s a drummer or a horn player or a guitar player – you hear them take those breaths. You can feel that there’s something they’re trying to tell you.
I’m singing what I want to sing based on the emotion of what that day feels like. That’s what comes out of my mouth and guitar. That impacts people. They know anything can happen.
I play the guitar a little bit.
At a young age I thought, ‘Wow, that fiddle thing, that’s pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums… ‘ They were Indian drums. And I was saying, ‘But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.’
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 think I’ve been playing bass for as long as I’ve played guitar, and I love them both.
As Mick Jagger will tell you, performing is an aerobic work-out. I’ve got the bass guitar, which is the heaviest of all the instruments, and I’m a little girl, in boiling-hot leather under the lights. You have to keep the fitness level up if you want to look good up there.
I was lucky to start playing guitar in the Eighties when so many great players were around to inspire me, like Yngwie Malmsteen, Van Halen and especially Dave Murray and Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden.
I’m supportive of women, absolutely, and it’s so gratifying to have girls come up and say, ‘I’m really inspired by your guitar playing.’ I mean no disrespect to the sisterhood, but musically I feel more drawn to things like Dirty Projectors, the National and Grizzly Bear.
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 probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.
My body is damaged from music in two ways. I have a red irritation in my stomach. It’s psychosomatic, caused by all the anger and the screaming. I have scoliosis, where the curvature of your spine is bent, and the weight of my guitar has made it worse. I’m always in pain, and that adds to the anger in our music.
All I know is, I play the guitar, beat it out, and sing a song that has some damn resonance that we feel as musicians. We send it out and people get it, and that’s a good thing.
Everybody would grab a guitar and listen to somebody else and call themselves a folk singer. When they didn’t know no more songs, they’d run out of them.
When I have downtime, music is a big part of my life. Not so much singing, but I play the guitar.
Kane is a band I formed with my best friend Steve Carlson. We just got together and started playing guitar. He was playing some old school rock and roll, and we got together and thought, ‘Hey, let’s take this on the road.’
I did buy an electric guitar while shooting ‘Split.’
For a female artist, it takes a lot more to be taken seriously if you’re not sat down at a piano or with a guitar, you know?
I think it gets boring (for the audience) for the lead singer to have a guitar hanging on them all the time.
I only ever really take out my guitar when I’m miserable, which isn’t necessarily a very good time to do it.
For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.
Yeah. I’m amateurish. I can play enough to write a song, or strum on a little guitar to write out a song. But, I don’t play well at all. I wouldn’t even attempt for a second to play in public.
I’m tired of being around men all the time. I’m going to start a band called Skirt with three girls and I’ll play the guitar and sing backing vocals in drag. I went window shopping when I was in New York, saw a lot of amazing dresses.
I play piano and guitar and I do write my own stuff so to a certain extent I know what I want to do in regards to music. But I’m still finding out what kind of music is my favourite kind to listen to, never mind do myself so I’ve got a lot of time to find out myself and develop myself as an artist.
When I was younger, playing piano and guitar were all things that I wanted to do for a short period of time, like any kid.
If the person who can effectively sanction ill-conceived wars can play the electric guitar, which is a symbol of rebellion, then that whole worldview becomes confused.
I actually learned the guitar with the help of a Pete Seeger instructional record when I was 13 or 14.
On acoustic guitar I tend to stay in the key of D for some reason. On electric guitar I keep basic: C, G, D, and A. The key of D minor is also real good for me.
I’m glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.
For me, something will come in my head and I’ll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I’ll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn’t. So there’s really no set method behind it.
Actually, there was another band where we were three girls, around ’84 when I met John Zorn, called Sunset Chorus. It was just bass and drums and guitar- we didn’t make any records but we played a lot of different clubs in New York.
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.
And, so, when I picked up the guitar, suddenly, just playing a couple of notes really, really spoke to me. It was almost like I should have been doing it prior to that. You know, it was something that just felt really natural.
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.
My mother was a very beautiful lady, I thought. She was very good to me. I guess – she died when I was nine and a half, but if she had lived, I probably wouldn’t be trying to play guitar. She wanted me to be known, but as something else. Not a guitar player.
When I sit down and play the guitar, I’m 20 years old again.
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.
I’m not a good guitar player.
When the band begins to get a name for themselves, and the writers get assigned to bands, they’ll hit somebody who just doesn’t like that kind of music, or they love hip hop but hate guitar rock.
As I try to get around with a guitar, a banjo and a suitcase of high heels and dresses, I treasure that little ukulele.
My guitar heroes are Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and people like that – so I’ve tried to make an album of Robert Johnson covers that, well, while not totally faithful for blues purists, is faithful for people like me that grew up with the ’60s and the electric blues-rock versions of Johnson’s songs.
I explored rock culture and what the guitar can do though people like Jimmy Page and John McLaughlin, and the music moves away from pop.
Artie travels all the time. The rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time. He didn’t want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar.
A guitar player goes on the road, and he misses his girlfriend for a while, but he manages to get along. A horn player gets out on the road, plays two or three towns, and then he’ll get lonely, and next thing you know, he’s packed up and left. It’s better not to hire him in the first place.
The voices on the record, that was trying to treat my voice like guitar players treat guitar tones.
Catfish is not playing guitar no more, he’s doing like a home-front thing. He had been in the business around ten years before I got in it, so I guess he’s had enough of it.
I still like to play the guitar, but I rarely have anything to do with the music business these days. I mean, there is no music business anymore, is there?
But that guitar is the perfect companion to the human voice. You rest it against your gut, against your heart, and when you strum it the vibrations go outwards for all to hear, but the vibration also hits you on your body.
I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to Little Steven.
We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they’re paid for it.
Right now, it hasn’t affected my music other than the fact that I don’t have time to write any of it. That’s no different from when I first started and I lived at home. I would play the guitar in the afternoon and then my mom or my dad would come home and I’d have to quit.
So, once I get writing I really try and put five to eight hours a day in my room with a guitar to really try and come up with stuff that feels interesting enough to me to keep it.
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.
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.
When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn’t play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs.
I’ll get up there and I’ll do my guitar solos in one of those space outfits.
To be a great band it’s like you have that telepathy. You know when the bass player’s in back of you without even looking. You know when your guitar player’s coming up to you to lean up to you and sing into your microphone. You just know these things. You feel it. You feel the energy of it.
At some point around ’94 or ’95, ‘Rolling Stone’ said that guitar rock was dead and that the Chemical Brothers were the future. I think that was the last issue of ‘Rolling Stone’ I ever bought.
I could have probably gone on and still played the part of the guitar player of Limp Bizkit, but musically I was kind of bored. If I was to continue, it would have been about the money and not about the true music, and I don’t want to lie to myself, or to them or to fans of Limp Bizkit.
Nobody could understand why a guy would love his guitar, then all of a sudden turn around and try to destroy it. Jimi was just different.
I went to see John Mayall at the Marquee, with Peter Green on guitar, and that was a particularly good gig.
The best music happens when you have a personal connection to it. That same philosophy can extend to the instrument you hold in your hands: if a guitar means something special, you’re bound to do great things with it.
Well, you know it was so different from when you rehearsed. You’re out there with your guitar and trying to get a sound, but it doesn’t sound anything like what you expect!
I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.
I’m a struggling guitar player.
Can you imagine a guy breaking into your car, and he steals your guitar case ’cause he thinks it’s a guitar, and he gets it home and opens it up and there’s a rake inside it, an electric toilet plunger and a dog skull? That actually happened.
It was in San Diego and I was onstage and couldn’t remember how to play the guitar properly. I was in terrible pain and my nervous system was just going wild, like somebody had just run a car over me.
Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.
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.
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.
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.
Rock n’ roll was one thing, and then they chopped off the ‘roll’ and called it ‘rock,’ which became a sort of umbrella term for anything with a guitar in it. Like hair bands. How could we possibly believe that? It’s just gotten downright silly, to the point where now it’s sort of become like professional wrestling.
Radiohead and Our Lady Peace are doing the seven layers of guitar, and I kind of jumped on that before anyone else did.
I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.
I’ve just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I’m just still writing songs and what not.
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.
I can play guitar – but I can’t really. I wouldn’t say I’m talented at it. I just kind of watch videos on YouTube, and I follow the instructions… OK, yeah, my hidden talent: I’m good at following instructions!
It’s much easier to work on other people’s music and play in other people’s bands as a guitar player instead of being the main songwriter and singer. That’s a really big job to do that.
To stay a great singer or guitar player, you’ve got to do it 24/7. That’s what I do.
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.
There’s more to playing the guitar than being able to split your legs.
I always have a guitar or ukulele in the trailer, and I write songs. That keeps me in an artistic mind-set.
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.
I have a sloppy style of playing guitar. A percussive style. Unique in fact.
I think maybe people see bands and musicians as some sort of superhero unrealistic sport that happens in another dimension where it’s not real people and not real emotions. So, I grew up listening to Beatles records on my floor. That’s how I learned how to play guitar. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be a musician.
I got a guitar when I was about 14, for a Christmas present, and went from there.
Give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string; I wouldn’t get bored anywhere.
I enjoy playing the band as the band. I ‘be’ the whole band and I’m playing the drums, I’m playing the guitar, I’m playing the saxophone. To me, the most wonderful thing about playing music is that.
It may be a coincidence, but from the minute I took anti-depressants, I didn’t pick up a guitar or a pen for seven years.
We actually added an extra electric guitar to beef up ‘Need You Now’, but we haven’t changed any of this ‘Own The Night’ record at all for the international releases.
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.
My ideal travel companions are my surfboard, wetsuit, and guitar.
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.
That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together – for me to play bass and for him to play guitar.
I started out in the folk music world only because of the way my songs were written and performed, with just an acoustic guitar, but I always related to the rock n’ roll lifestyle.
I started playing guitar when I was 12 and probably from that age knew that I wanted to make music and make my own music. Playing with other bands like the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens was more like an apprenticeship for me than anything.
I always thought Kurt Cobain was the perfect embodiment of the great alternative guitar player.
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.
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.
There comes a point with any collaboration like that where you start having other interests creatively. I was moving in one direction musically, and as a guitar player, Mark wanted to move in another direction. That was essentially the reason we broke up.
Someone told me the smile on my face gets bigger when I play the guitar.
I’ve looked at photographs of myself during concerts and it sometimes looks as if I’m in a fencing move, with a guitar in my hands instead of a sword.
I’ve played piano and guitar when I was younger.
I’m like a bad musical cliche because I bring my guitar on the road and try to write songs in hotel rooms.
Since I first picked up the violin, I’ve been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.
Mike is a genius guitar player and keyboard player. I realized that, with this group, I just joined Mike Keneally’s band!
I started playing guitar before I can really remember, and I started writing really early, too.
Generally my songs are just some riffs slung together as an excuse for a guitar solo.
I loved playing the guitar and I knew I was pretty good at it, so that’s what I wanted to do with my life.
I got my first guitar at age of 7 and never laid it down. Momma taught me G, C, and D. I was off to the races son!
I was a big fan of Jim Hall as well. I liked his comping style, his accompanying. And that he played, generally, four note chords, the top four strings of the guitar.
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 don’t like playing to guitar players, actually. I’d rather just play to ordinary people.
When I was, like, 12, I remember grabbing a mic, pretending it was a guitar, and performing in front of my friends. I didn’t know at the time I wanted to be an artist.
My mom always told me I should have a Plan B. I said that if I’m not going to play guitar I’m going to play drums. And if I’m not going to play drums, I’m going to play bass. I always just wanted to play music. I was completely obsessed.
I don’t mind sitting at home playing the guitar for a year as long as I’m making good films.
My father kind of had hopes that I was going to become an artist like him – the typical thing. Of course I could play guitar better than him when I was about 12. But I couldn’t paint better than him. So I went, ‘I’m going to be the guitarist of the house, not the painter.’
There was a period when I’d just come out of college where I’d been playing classical guitar and I suddenly realised that it wasn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
As a roadie for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, I learned that I should give up being a guitar player.
I wanted to be a blues guitar player. And a singer. And a songwriter. Not a shock jock.
I’m going through a divorce now. This is the second one, and like baseball, I’m not gonna get three strikes. I’ve been living by myself for five years and I’m very comfortable. I can play my guitar when I want to.
When I’m having a bad day, I pick up my guitar.
I sit down and create atmospheres, start playing guitar or piano and just sing whatever comes out of my mouth.
I had my guitar and some talent so that I could make friends with intelligent people and could talk my way out of difficult situations.
I’ve always been interested in singing. My sister’s a fantastic singer, and it’s just something that’s always been around. I play saxophone and guitar. I’d definitely like to pursue it, and it’s something I’d like to keep going, if not as a career, then as a hobby.
Our music is an answer to the early Seventies when artsy people with big egos would do vocal harmonies and play long guitar solos and get called geniuses.
Guitar playing isn’t really for everybody.
My life has been a roller coaster ride, but somehow I’ve always been able to land on my feet and still play the guitar.
Peter was sick of being a pop star, the guitar god, and so he decided to teach himself other instruments. Among the instruments that he picked up was the mandolin.
I am Classic Rock Revisited. I revisit it every waking moment of my life because it has the spirit and the attitude and the fire and the middle finger. I am Rosa Parks with a Gibson guitar.
My dad didn’t want me to play guitar. He played piano, so I chose that. And I ended up loving it.
I trained for the drums for about two weeks, and then rocking out in front of an entire crowd was sort of like a dream come true. And now, Guitar Hero, I can’t do that anymore. It’s nothing like doing it on stage. I kinda wish I had a fake band, and we could go on tour.
If you’ve got a guitar and a lot of soul, just bang something out and mean it. You’re the superstar.
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.
I love to sing. I’m learning guitar right now.
You pick up loads of baggage with your first record with reaction to it from fans and critics. So I went to Ireland by myself for a couple of weeks with my guitar. I read lots of poetry, I read Patti Smith’s autobiography and started words and phrases and then songs started to take shape.
I’d like to have a beer-holder on my guitar like they have on boats.
As a teenager I started painting and playing guitar.
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.
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.’
I’m thinking about learning a few new things – like taking classical guitar lessons – and I’d like to bring what I learn into hard rock.
I’ve been in a band, so I understand the politics. Sometimes the bass player doesn’t like what the guitar player is doing, and you have to sort of even that out.
Our music is an answer to the early Seventies when artsy people with big egos would do vocal harmonies and play long guitar solos and get called geniuses.
As a guitar player, you can gravitate to the blues because you can play it easily. It’s not a style that’s difficult to pick up. It’s purely emotive and dead easy to get a start with.
In my early days, I never used finger vibrato at all. I originally carved my reputation as one of the ‘fast’ guitar players.
I guess I thought I was Elvis Presley but I’ll tell ya something. All Elvis did was stand on a stage and play a guitar. He never fell off on that pavement at no 80 mph.
It all comes down to the density of the wood. Every guitar’s different.
The one thing I do have is good ears. I don’t mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.
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.
The time I burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I love my guitar.
‘Swagger’ would be the word for ‘Dirt On My Boots.’ With the real funky drum loop and the ganjo rolling down, and then the fiddles and the guitar and steel, it really took an old school style where it’s fiddle, steel, guitar, and mixed it with a drum loop.
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.
I play a little guitar, write a few tunes, make a few movies, but none of that’s really me. The real me is something else.
I took guitar a while back, and my heart wasn’t in it at the time, but I’m ready to try it again. I sing in the car, at home – it’s a huge part of my life, especially since I’m from Tennessee.
My favorite travel pastime is writing music, either with my guitar or on my computer.
My dad was a musician. He was a singer and he played the guitar, so music was always around.
Where Charlie Christian left off, Papoose started a new thing; he was an innovator of the guitar. The things he did during his recording career with Fats Domino in the Fifties and Sixties until the day he died was as much a part of the music of New Orleans as anybody else has had to offer.
I suppose I am a frustrated musician so I annoy my family by playing guitar in the house. I used to be into acoustic stuff but my son Joseph is learning drums, so now I have an electric guitar and we play Metallica. We have an amp and a PA in the garage with his drum kit.
A wah-wah is important as well. I love it; it makes the guitar scream.
Because people don’t understand what computing is about, they think they have it in the iPhone, and that illusion is as bad as the illusion that ‘Guitar Hero’ is the same as a real guitar.
I’ve heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.
Music is still part of my life, but I hate the idea of people coming to see me play the guitar because they’ve seen me in movies. You want people who are listening to be only interested in the music.
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.
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.
I even played bass for a while. Besides playing electric guitar, I’d also get asked to play some acoustic stuff. But, since I didn’t have an acoustic guitar at the time, I used to borrow one from a friend so I could play folk joints.
I like to play video games like ‘Rock Band’ and ‘Guitar Hero.’
It’s the faster bands that made me want to play guitar, bands like The Jam.
My nails are a disaster. If I play guitar when my nails are long, I just tear them off.
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.
Hendrix was a perfect guitarist. And that’s all I wanted to do as a kid. Play a guitar properly and jump around.
I would love to study guitar or trumpet.
I am the Great White Buffalo and I play an American-made Gibson guitar that can blow your head clean off at 100 paces.
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.
I like to surf. I like to play guitar. I want to do college classes online. I wanted to do marine biology for a long time, but I don’t know.
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 look for things that are left of center, something you’ve only seen your whole life, but never heard. Hit it! With a stick! I have a guitar made out of a 2×4 that I bought in Cleveland.
While I was with Procol Harum, the only time I’d see my guitar was either when I walked onstage or in the studio.
I love the notion of a dude sitting there with an untuned guitar tapping his foot and just singing his passion out; that’s what got me into music in the first place.
I’m really looking forward to it, if you can imagine floating weightless, watching the world pour by through the big bay window of the space station playing a guitar; just a tremendous place to think about where we are in history.
It is dishonest the way that people suddenly think they’ve found guitars, and wear their guitar as a badge.
Except for a few guitar chords, everything I’ve learned in my life that is of any value I’ve learned from women.
The Big Band Era is my era. People say, ‘Where did you get your style from?’ I did the Big Band Era on guitar. That’s the best way I could explain it.
I started playing ukulele first for 2 years from age 9 to 11 and got my first guitar and got inspired by blues I heard on the radio that turned me on and I started learning myself.
My stuff was more of a folk coffeehouse thing, with more acoustic guitar, just me doing a single, and then adding on instruments and voices, with emphasis on lyrics and singing and light kind of acoustic jazz.
I read and write classical piano and percussion, also guitar.
I wasn’t originally a bass player. I just found out I was needed, because everyone wants to play guitar.
Guitar music or rock n’ roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it’ll never go away completely. It can’t die because it’s so fundamentally attractive.
I wanted to be able to play guitar. I wanted to be able to make music hurt.
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’m an old guitar player who has fallen into television and is so happy he did.
A bass player has to think and play like a bass player. A drummer has to play and think like a drummer, and stay out of the way of the vocalist. The guitar player has to respect everybody else.
I have to have a guitar sitting around. I sing in the shower. I sing around the house. The music comes secondary. The lyrics come first.
I remember one of the first gigs I played with that amp was at a local church. They wanted someone to fill in with the guitar and my friend say, ‘Ah, he can play.’ And so I dragged the amplifier down and started playing and everybody started yelling ‘turn it down!’
Age isn’t a barrier to playing the bass, and I’ve definitely improved over the years, although maybe I’m not as flash as I once was. But looking back, I can’t imagine a life without a guitar.
I’m just a dumb guitar player, man.
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.
The way I started playing music was sitting around with friends and singing songs. I love good ol’ fashioned guitar pulls.
Every time I listen to Jeff Beck my whole view of guitar changes radically. He’s way, way out, doing things you never expect.
I couldn’t not play a Les Paul guitar. Les always used to point to my Strat and say, ‘Why do you have that piece of crap around your neck?’ I’d say, ‘Yours are too heavy. I had to drill holes in it.’
I’ve stolen licks from just about every person that ever picked up a guitar. We all borrow from one another; it’s called legitimate stealing.
I sing and play guitar and harmonica. I’ve been doing it for a long time.
I play guitar and sing when I’m not busy with school and acting.
My father played guitar, so I always wanted to play for that reason. But I think the biggest reason was just the ’90s in general – growing up listening to the Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and bands like that, and going to concerts and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world.
My dad had a guitar that he gave me. I went to Walmart and bought a chord chart and hung it up in my room, and I was just trying to figure out how to play the guitar and put words with what I was learning.
There will be some tracks on the next album which that will consist of mostly noise and feedback, whereas others may just have guitar parts and samples.
I paint; I draw and paint – I’ve been doing that since I was in third grade, drawing realistically and then changing to abstract art. That was my first creative thing before guitar or comedy.
I was staying with my sister and messing around with the guitar every day for my own amusement. Then she took me around and introduced me to Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, and the first time I saw that onstage, it inspired me to play. I thought that was the world.
A lot of places we go, when they see the organ coming in, they’re expecting rock and roll, but after they hear us play they like it. To me, guitar cuts through-it carries more than organ. But organ has got more guts.
My dad bought me a guitar when I was very young, and I never looked back.
I grew up in the ’60s, which was a creative time, so it wasn’t that big of a stretch to go from a baseball bat to a guitar to a film camera.
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.
People have used my songs and guitar style to teach guitar for a long time.
The basic idea is always constructed around piano or guitar and a voice, that’s what we live and die by, because if you build up from that foundation, it’s going to be strong.
I think we choose gear by the way that it looks. We choose lots of things by the way that it looks. I don’t like bands that look like roadies. I don’t like when I can’t tell who’s the guitar tech and who’s the guitar player.
My favorite electric guitar would have to be my Duesenberg. I’ve named her ‘Dolores,’ and she sings like an operatic menace.
I just couldn’t take school seriously: I had this guitar neck with four frets which I kept hidden under the desk. It had strings on it so I would practice my chord shapes under the desk and that’s about all I did at school.
There are a lot of really good guitar sounds and new kind atmospheres on the new Bon Jovi record. I think people are going to dig it, man. And it rocks hard.
I’m not a really good classical guitarist by any means, but what I learned from this is a way of working very slowly on solo pieces and I enjoyed working on these pieces of John’s. They were not written for solo guitar but a lot of them were easy to adapt.
When I finally put my guitar in the case the last time, I want to be remembered just as a singer, not as a country singer or pops singer – just a singer.
I quit my band in New York City in 1969 and I got really angry at them. I got angry at one of my guitar players and I dove over the drum set and we got into a fight.
I wanted to be the best guitar player in the world. And then my dad got me a portable recorder, so I started writing my own music.
My guitar has, like, become part of me, you know.
As a musician myself, it annoys the hell out of me to watch an actor trying to play a guitar out of time with the music.
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.
You can be a singer, and you can be a guitar player, but putting them together is another animal.
I absolutely love the Philharmonic. I also love rock guitar.
I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.
I’m not too picky about guitars. I love to collect them, mostly oddballs, but I’m not married to any brand or model. Whatever guitar has the best character for the song is the one I want to use, because if you’ve got a style, you’re going to sound like yourself no matter what guitar you play.
I took a few months off after my senior year was over, and I prayed and tried to figure out what was my plan and my purpose. That’s how I started writing songs and playing guitar just to get my feelings out.
I’ve played guitar and piano for a while, so it’s really fun to play music on film.
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 didn’t want to take the guitar solos down note-for-note, but more or less use them as a map, and keep all the hooks from the guitar playing, and let myself come through.
The music I want to hear in my head sounds somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Massive Attack. It’s not really like my dad, but there will always be similarities because we have the same vocal cords, and I learnt the guitar the way he taught me.
In certain ways I still feel like I’m finding my way. I feel pretty comfortable playing acoustic guitar and singing, but then I feel pretty good sitting on a reggae groove as well.
Lean your body forward slightly to support the guitar against your chest, for the poetry of the music should resound in your heart.
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.
David Longstreth is one of the great guitar heroes of our generation.
When I was growing up, there were two things that were unpopular in my house. One was me, and the other was my guitar.
I have come to the conclusion – and I don’t know why it took me so long, but nevertheless, I’m here now – that a lot of people tell me they don’t get enough guitar on my albums. So I decided to do an album where the guitar would be the singer, playing the melody.
It was really fun. Well, Bobby was just basically a folk singer. He didn’t play with any bands or anything, like all the rest of us. Just played his guitar and sang his songs.
I’ve always wanted to smash a guitar over someone’s head. You just can’t do that with a piano.
The invention of Bob Dylan with his guitar belongs in its way to the same kind of tradition of something meant to be heard, as the songs of Homer.
As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that’s what I do, too.
As a kid I used to pretend I was John Denver, of all people, and play the guitar and sing Take Me Home, Country Roads.
My dad was good friends with the Bad Medicine Blues Band – one of the only blues bands in Fargo, as you can imagine! He took me out to see them play when I was 12 years old and I was really inspired by their guitar player, Ted Larsen.
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.
The first guitar I ever got was for my 13th birthday.
I had no aspirations to be a musician, but I picked up a guitar for two seconds and haven’t put it down since.
‘Appetite for Destruction’ was the only thing written with lyrics and melody fitting the guitar parts at the same time. After that, I got a barrage of guitar songs that I was supposed to put words to, and I don’t know if that was the best thing for Guns.
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.
I just go where the guitar takes me.
You can play slide on any guitar, but to be serious about it you have a tough set of strings, otherwise you don’t get the full attack – you can’t dig in.
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.
I was a drummer and I played the guitar.
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’d like to have a beer-holder on my guitar like they have on boats.
I pestered the hell out of everybody I ran into until I could play the guitar well enough to write and sing with it.
It’s one thing to sit at home and write a piece with your guitar, and quite another to have it performed by four people. For me, it’s always trial and error.
I sing a little bit. I got a guitar for my 16th birthday.
My dad got me the same mic I use on everything now – this $200 mic from Guitar Center.
My brother is an excellent songwriter, and I play guitar and drums.
It was my love for the guitar that first got me into music and singing.
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.
In fact, Russell Crowe once phoned me up to see if I wanted to go to a party but I had to bring my guitar and perform ‘Oh Jean.’
So I started to learn guitar right away.
I just rediscovered my guitar.
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.
Age isn’t a barrier to playing the bass, and I’ve definitely improved over the years, although maybe I’m not as flash as I once was. But looking back, I can’t imagine a life without a guitar.
I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.
There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.
You don’t have to play a whole lot of guitar to be a good blues player. Some people plays too much guitar. Stack it on top of each other the way it don’t – you’re working too fast. Blues not supposed to be played fast. Blues supposed to be played slow. You could kill a man with just one chord.
I can play piano, classical flute, guitar, bass and I’m OK on drums.
God is playing my guitar, I am with God when I play.
I’m on this eternal quest to get the best guitar sound in the world, but my vision of what is ‘the best’ changes every time I go into the studio. Sometimes my goal is to make my guitar jump out, and sometimes I want it to lay back.
Playing the guitar, you kind of lock into a rhythm and a groove, and then it relaxes me to make up lyrics and sing.
My whole career from the early 70s on has been mind-blowing. I didn’t imagine in my life that I would ever be considered a guitar player first of all because I started off as a singer.
Bruce’s band is so different from the Grateful Dead; there’s no lead guitar player, for one thing.
Guitar playing is just something that came to me and is really second nature now.
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.
James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they’re fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together.
When I’m not touring, I sing at home, either at the piano or I’ll pick up my guitar, singing old Buck Owens songs.
I never set out to write a certain kind of song, I just play my guitar and see if I catch something.
People have always been resistant to change. If you go back to the 17th, 18th century, playing guitar was frowned upon. When rock n’ roll first started, no one took it seriously.
I played a guitar with a file, and a synthesizer.
I keep a guitar around while writing and will improvise music. I do this for several reasons, such as that it’s fun, and sometimes it helps me with the meter.
Listening to my dad playing guitar along to ‘Sleepwalk’ by the Shadows was probably the first time I discovered emotion in music.
I wanted to hear the songs in the way that I had written them, which was very basic. All I wanted was drums and another guitar, and I was just going to sing.
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 Nashville, good guitar players are a dime a dozen.
A guitar riff played on a piano doesn’t come close to the purity of it being played on a guitar but I faked it enough to get by.
Jeff and Mike had taken drum lessons at a young age. When the Beatles came out in ’64, we all wanted to play guitar.
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.
I began playing drums when I was seven and guitar when I was fourteen, but it wasn’t until the early ’90s that I took music seriously.
I started playing guitar when I was 12 and probably from that age knew that I wanted to make music and make my own music. Playing with other bands like the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens was more like an apprenticeship for me than anything.
Blues music is becoming more and more popular than it ever was. I’m always meeting people on the road that are really young, and are guitar players. male and female.
If you want to be negative about the whole thing you can say all guitar bands after the Beatles were just a waste of time because the Beatles were the best. I think it’s far better to give new records a try.
As far as guitar picking, if I make the same mistakes at the same time every day, people will start calling it a style.
The guitar is a small orchestra. It is polyphonic. Every string is a different color, a different voice.
My guitar is really tempermental. I don’t give up on it though, I’m close to my guitar!
When I was about 12, I had my first paying gig – 8 dollars to play rhythm guitar in a polka band. Pretty soon, I ended up playing in all the bars within driving distance of Abbott, Texas.
Writing used to be my hobby, but now that it’s my job, I have no hobby – except watching TV and laying around the pool reading ‘U.S. Weekly.’ I have tried many hobbies, such as knitting, Pilates, ballet, yoga, and guitar, but none of them have taken.
When I moved to New York to act I was no good at working restaurants – hosting, waiting, bussing, dishwashing – I wasn’t good at any aspect. But I did have a guitar. So I would sing ‘Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,’ but you would only hear the chorus because the train comes by every 30 seconds.
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.
That’s pretty much why I went into show business because I wanted to have a guitar and sing unaccompanied, that was like my fantasy of the perfect life.
I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn’t get bored anywhere.
But then there was Hendrix, man. Jimi was really the last cat to freak me. Jimi was playing all the stuff I had in my head. I couldn’t believe it, when I first heard him. Man, no one can ever do what he did with a guitar. No one can ever take his place.
I remember I took a music course in junior year of high school, and some girl brought in ‘Teardrops On My Guitar,’ and she was like, ‘Isn’t this song great?’ And everyone was like, ‘Who’s Taylor Swift?’ And now, every time I listen to Taylor Swift, I remember that moment.
I always hated jazz guitar. I loved jazz saxophone but I hated jazz guitar. If I would buy an organ trio record I would make sure I’d buy one that did not have a guitar player on it. The sound was awful!
I love classical music, but I hated classical guitar. But I like flamenco, because there was something else there going on. It wasn’t just the notes being thrown at you. And there were certain kinds of jazz that I really liked and other kinds that just went right over my head.
The music of Hendrix wakes people up to their possibilities. It’s more than just dreaming about being a guitar hero.
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.
If I wake up in the middle of the night and have an idea, I want to go to my computer and be able to do it. So I hired someone at Guitar Center to come over to my house and teach me Logic music program, and I learned it over a couple months.
For ‘Narrow Stairs’, the majority of the songs I brought in were guitar songs – songs we could sit in a room and just play. I can honestly say I had more fun and felt more inspired on this record than anything that we had done in a long time.
He is the king. If it hadn’t been for Link Wray and ‘Rumble’, I would have never picked up a guitar.
The bass is just the crayon that I picked out of the box. I’d probably be writing similar stuff if I played guitar or trumpet. The pictures I want to draw I do with this crayon I chose, which is the bass.
I was on the road with my buddy Alex – he’s my guitar player – and we watched the movie ‘Click’ by Adam Sandler. And I don’t know why, but me and him just got in our feelings. And then we ended up calling our girls, and we were like, ‘We’re so sorry. We wish you were here!’
I played guitar when I was young and never really considered it as a way to make a living.
I was just learning to play guitar when Tracy Chapman came out. She wrote these songs, she played them by herself and I so admired her for that.
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.
When all your stuff gets smashed, everybody gives you new stuff. And when you’ve been playing the same guitar since you were like 12, that’s a lot like dancing with somebody else’s wife.
I just like simplicity. I like simple songs, I like simple chords, simple vocals, simple lead guitar. I just like simplicity. That’s just the way I like it.
I play the sax, piano, guitar, bass… I started as a kid with piano lessons.
I like jazz, but I could never play it. You just sit there with a guitar the size of a Chevy on your chest, wearing a stupid hat, playing the same solo for an hour.
But my role is to just apply the skills I’ve learned over the years: you listen to the guitar, you listen to the vocal melodies, you listen to the rhythm, and you come up with something that helps you take the song somewhere.
My sunglasses are like my guitar.
Some people are drawn naturally – there are natural guitarists, and there are natural piano players, and I think guitar implies travel, a sort of footloose gypsy existence. You grab your bag and you go to the next town.
Guitar players in the nineties seem to be reacting against the technique oriented eighties.
Chet Atkins… is probably the best guitar player who ever lived.
I always loved rock guitar. I just never put it together that that’s what I’d end up doing.
I taught myself how to play guitar – pretty badly, but I knew enough about music to start to figure it out.
When I was growing up, there were two things that were unpopular in my house. One was me, and the other was my guitar.
It’s hilarious, because my guitar has what’s known as a tremolo bar or a whammy bar. And the whammy bar is probably the most alien thing on my guitar that could possibly relate to a classical guitar.
I had no aspirations to be a musician, but I picked up a guitar for two seconds and haven’t put it down since.
I’m trying to make music that I like, and I love hip-hop. At the same time, I love guitar. I love rock and everything.
There was just no way I could leave this little Martin guitar in my apartment overnight or even in the afternoon, and expect to find it there when I got back.
I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.
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.
From 1962 to 1965, the guitar became this icon of youth culture, thanks mostly to the Beatles.
My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.
I’ve learned to take care of myself. You know, I try to stay conscious of whatever my energy is at all times, really. I mean, I come home from work, and, depending on the day or depending on what was going on, if I needed to adjust, I’d just meditate, or play guitar, or watch some ‘Monty Python.’
I suppose my father was more influential in my starting to play the guitar.
With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it’s hard to get up the courage to say, Can I sing this part, or, I want to play guitar. I feel like I have more courage to do that.
I play a little guitar, write a few tunes, make a few movies, but none of that’s really me. The real me is something else.
There is no finer sonic-producing weapon for a guitar slayer than a hand crafter Gibson masterpiece.
I’m stoked because no one’s really even seen Bo yet. It took me half the season to get used to not having a guitar wrapped around my neck. So I’m anxious for the fans to see what Bo’s really about.
I have a piano and a guitar, and I tend to switch back and forth between those two instruments to help me get inspired.
I don’t think anything can touch the expressive range of the guitar.
Marc Bolan had inspired so many people to pick up a guitar and join a band.
With a guitar I would be able to express the things I felt in sounds.
I usually sit around with the guitar in reach and grab it when I get an idea. Sometimes it lasts five minutes, and sometimes it lasts all day.
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.
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 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 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.
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 didn’t know that you were supposed to tune the guitar to an open chord, and I learned to play slide with a normal tuning. I think it’s a little more melodic that way and doesn’t sound so bluesy. Of course, if I could play like David Lindley or Ry Cooder, I’d be a happy man!
I own a guitar, a piano, a bass.
If you can play guitar and sing, you can probably get a gig down the road playing at a restaurant, but don’t throw your life away chasing something that is so elusive it will only lead you to regret and may turn you bitter.
I played a guitar with a file, and a synthesizer.
Owning a handgun doesn’t make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.
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.
I think often times if a guitar riff is centered around the chorus or if it follows the chorus, then it often times turns into the actual hook.
When I was younger, and Iron Maiden and Def Leppard and all that stuff was coming out, I was learning all those songs and trying to play guitar and develop my chops. I was a big fan.
I’d love to be an artist that’s multifaceted. At the moment, I am not. But wouldn’t that be cool if I was like, ‘Yeah, let me pull out my guitar and play you a song.’ I would adore that. I am so far not gifted in that way. But I am a very hard worker and a very determined person, so who knows?
All gut strings. That’s just the first kind of guitar I played, it was a nylon string guitar. And to me, it’s the purest form of guitar making, and I just enjoy doing it.
The guitar chose me.
I’m not afraid to have a really weird idea or, you know, take a really bad guitar solo.
I’m left handed, but my dad taught me to play guitar right-handed.
I have a 1969 Grammer Johnny Cash acoustic guitar, and it’s so inspirational.
I got my first guitar when I was 15, and I just used to fool about with it, more or less, as time went by, though, I got more interested.
I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn’t exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.
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.
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.
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.
My 10 year old son likes it. He’s trying to play guitar and everything. He likes that kind of music.
I’ve got 50 different tunings in the guitar.
I was too broke to buy a guitar so I more borrowed guitars from friends.
Yeah, my dad bought me a guitar when I was like 10, and I didn’t really want it then.
I never picked up a guitar as a kid, partly because my dad didn’t want the noise in our little back-to-back in Sheffield.
My son plays guitar, and he’s been at the Kennedy Center.
If you play acoustic guitar you’re the depressed, sensitive guy.
Arranging is the way I put my stamp on my music as much as my guitar playing.
I’ll sit around and play my guitar; that’s how I write tunes.
I understand the rock star deal having been one and still going out strapping my guitar on and performing. Now, I probably do 30 or 40 dates a year and I get to relive how I felt at 19 when I played in some really bad bands.
I didn’t know that people compared Bill Hicks and I but certainly I’m flattered if they do. I knew Bill a bit. We had dinner a couple of times and played guitar together once. I really tried to keep my distance from him professionally.
I’ve got a quick mouth, and I set my boundaries. Nothing ever happened that I couldn’t handle. Once when a guy came on stage making rude gestures, I hit him over the head with my guitar.
I never had a real job either. I sort of fell out of school and ended up playing guitar.
