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.
