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.
