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.
