Popular quotes about Guitar! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 101
Psychology Today is probably one of my favorite magazines, Guitar, Guitar World. People.
Meredith BrooksThese days I keep a journal, so I'm constantly sketching down my thoughts, or lines that come to me...ideas for songs. And then when I have a moment to myself, I'll sit down with my guitar and open my journal, and start kind of massaging things together, and see if a song takes shape. Or sometimes, I'll just be hanging out with my guitar and come up with a chord progression or a lick, and that'll sort of sit around for a while waiting to marry itself to some words. So it's sort of haphazard and it's like...junk culture. I go around finding shiny objects and I glue them together laughs.
Ani DiFrancoI kind of grew up a guitar nerd and I tried to figure out how to shred on an acoustic guitar as a kid, while listening to jazz or whatever. So that is kind of a different thing and my church background, growing up with worship kind of the ground that I learned how to play music from. Those are all odd ways of growing up, compared to most people, so I think the music has plenty of uniqueness in that.
Michael GungorYou don't need to be talented. You don't even have to play the guitar to be a guitar player in a punk-rock band. So I, in a very naรฏve and teenage way, said, "That's it. I'm going to be in a band."
Michael StipeI'll try any guitar just to see if it's different in an effort to see if it will lead me anywhere. I'm trying to have a guitar built. What's needed is better instruments, better amplifiers, better hardware for electric music to get better.
Jerry GarciaI was sixteen, I became a working guitar player gigging in LA, mostly in top 40 bands, then touring. I learned to take songs apart, down to their bones. Songwriters would hire me to produce their demos, which lead me to become a songwriter. The relationship and power music has to TV and film attracted me to composing [and] I learned to write for instruments other than guitar.
Danny JacobIf you are having trouble making a chord, get a book, that is how I learned. There are guitar tuning apps so you can tune your guitar, and just learn how to play along with your records. And it's great to be able to play along with another musician. That is like trial by fire.
Joan JettI do get labeled as a guitar band, but the only reason is that's the instrument I know how to play. The guitar is serving the song I'm writing. But I'm learning how to play keyboard better now so that'll start serving the song as well; it'll be another flavor. I'm not going to switch it up with big, fat drum machine beats and real swoopy synths, but yeah...
Mac DeMarcoMy dad is a huge rock and roll lead guitar fan. I didn't even really know that until recently. Everything has to have a guitar solo in it.
Slash... Andres Segovia literally created the genre of classical guitar, which hadn't existed before around 1910. There was flamenco, which he borrowed from, but he actually arranged the works of Mozart and other classical composers for guitar, something that had never been done before ... Segovias' style is not slick or contrived, but it's still very clean and his timing is impeccable ... it's got a feeling of casual elegance, as if he's sitting around the house in Spain with a jug of wine, just playing from the heart.
Roger McGuinnAnd if the world does turn, and if London burns, I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar. I want to be in a band, when I get to Heaven. Anyone can play guitar, and they won't be a nothing anymore.
Thom YorkeMy dad, who plays guitar and piano and was in cover bands, along with my older brother, Matt, taught me guitar and stuff. I started writing acoustic songs and playing by myself in 7th grade.
Conor OberstI wanted to be an actor, an astrologer, an astronaut; a lot of different things were going through my mind. But I also wanted to play guitar. I mentioned to my parents that I wanted an electric guitar for Christmas. They got me one! I sat there all Christmas morning making a lot of loud horrible noise.
Joan JettTreat each guitar track-and each song-completely different. For example, if I'm using a certain amp and guitar on one track, I'll deliberately use something else for the next tune or overdub.
Keith RichardsMy setup for a live performance lately has been just guitar and synthesizer. Sometimes I only bring one. The guitar is in pretty bad shape and isn't sounding the same. Most of the time my live approach has been pretty different from recording.
Kevin DrummFor me, the most difficult thing is that I am learning melodies on guitar from some songs whose melodies were not meant to be played on guitar. Ever. They were intended mostly for keyboards or melodic percussion.
Dweezil ZappaAround middle school I studied jazz guitar and ended up playing in a jazz band for a bit. But, after high school, I haven't even touched a guitar.
Mike TuckerI am a very, very fortunate and blessed guitar player to always be surrounded by musical monsters, so my life has been a nonstop jam session. I crave the musical adventure of sonic creativity and am powerfully inspired everytime I grab a guitar.
Ted NugentMy ex-wife was trying to be nice once, so she took me to a concert in Los Angeles. I went with her to Symphony Hall, and the orchestra was playing. When the show started, the spotlight was sharp on this one man (Andres Segovia) and he had sombrero on and his guitar propped up like this and, oh man ... he was a master ! - I really heard it. That one guitar sounded like a whole orchestra to me.
B. B. KingLearning the notes on the fretboard is key to any guitarist's development on the instrument, and [Guitar] Trainer HD is a neat way to get that info burned into your brain without having to carry a guitar with you everywhere you go. Pretty cool!
Bryan BellerI 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.
Dhani HarrisonI never really trained to be a musician, but I've been playing guitar since I was around, like, 13 years old. For me, the guitar has always been the instrument that I've played. I play a little piano. I taught myself everything by ear. I don't read music at all, which has not really been a hindrance.
Steve KazeeI've refined it since [ was living in Beaumont, Texas], but I was just obsessed with the guitar. I remember one day sitting in class and it just came to me how the neck worked. I was enlightened to the scales, and the runs. I just saw it and thought; now I understand it!
Steve YoungMy earliest musical memory was getting to watch my dad play drums in a local band. He's a banker by trade, but a drummer at heart. I remember seeing the guitar player do the solo from "Werewolves of London" with his teeth, and that was the moment that had me hooked.
Charlie WorshamMy older brother was the guitar player in the neighborhood band. My parents were the cool ones that had the basement for rehearsal. Rather than hang with my peers after school, I wanted to just listen to the band. More than that, I wanted to play.
Jill SobuleI grew up playing the guitar. I started when I was nine, and by the time I was nine and a half or ten, I was doing seven or eight hours' practice every day. I did two hours' practice at six o'clock in the morning before I went to school, and another two hours as soon as I got home from school in the afternoon. Then I did four hours at night before I went to bed. I did that until I was fourteen or fifteen.
Joe PassThere is still a very strong subculture of people who want to do great things on an instrument, and who are stimulated by hearing people who can. That's reassuring. But it's gonna take a person - and I don't know who this is - to come along and reinvent the guitar as a virtuosic instrument in a completely different realm than any of us have done, or anybody else in the past. That's the clincher. Maybe that will happen and maybe it won't.
Steve VaiYou hit a guitar, you hit a note, you hit a drum, you hit an organ. Meat and potatoes. Simplicity. Not getting too caught up in little tweezers of perfection.
FeistI was really young, but I can't say that I wrote much of anything. I liked to scribble; I thought of it as that. But I was playing guitar and ukulele when I was in second grade.
Mary Chapin CarpenterGuitar playing is very important to me. It's like golf to some other people; it's important to me that I play good.
Merle HaggardI 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.
Elizabeth BanksIt was great to do August Rush and have all the challenges of playing that character, especially the American accent for the first time and also playing the guitar and the conducting I had to do.
Freddie HighmoreI can sustain the impetus over the long tours we do is by feeding off the energy that we get back from an audience. That's my fuel. All i've got is this burning energy, especially when i've got a guitar in my hands.
Keith RichardsI do media every day I tour and the travel itself is a bit testing, so I don't get to do much gregarious activity when I'm on the road, but I do enough barbequing and enough hanging out and training with enough law enforcement and military to keep me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and to make sure my guitar solos every night breath fire.
Ted NugentThe guitar is my favorite and the one, I guess, I'm best at. But I play enough of the different instruments to be able to write with them and to, hopefully, to make myself look impressive on stage.
Dolly PartonI was writing tons of music in my spare time. I might be on location somewhere, and I'd go home and I'd have my guitar and my little keyboard or something and write music. Or if I was at home, on my piano. I've always been a late bloomer with a lot of things, just in general, so I think this was something that needed to come to fruition in this particular way.
Zooey DeschanelIt's important to keep your creative muscle strong and working. My most inspiring method though is just sitting down with an acoustic guitar and coming up with melodies. It's what I've been doing nice I was nine years old.
Zella DayI tend to prefer the band thing. I think playing solo is good for about 45 minutes. I remember when I was on my solo tour that I got a chance to play with Martin Stephenson of the Daintees. He's now refashioned himself as almost a delta blues guitar player and he's got all the technique, all the persona and the charisma on stage. I think I do too, but I'm more of a first position strummer guy with a little bit of filigree work. I could listen to him for hours; I could listen to myself playing solo for about half an hour!
Bill MalloneeThe guitar is like a cuisine and you can't expect people to eat the same thing all the time.
Richard LloydI can stay on my boat for a few weeks if I have a guitar and a girl and a Bob Marley CD. After that, I've got to move around.
Kenny Chesney