Popular quotes about Guitar! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I was doing someones hair the day I first saw my guitar ... a guy was walking down the street with it, and knew that guitar was mine (a 1953 weathered Fender Telecaster) .. I said I'll get you the most beautiful guitar you've ever seen and I'll trade you straight across ... I found him a purple Telecaster and said here's your guitar ... that was it, it was like he knew that guitar belonged to me.
Roy BuchananFor me, the guitar was just a tool to make songs. I started when I was 10 - I learned what I had to learn to get my ideas across. I always felt I was a weak guitar player, but now I realize with the finger-picking stuff, I actually know how to do what I do with my songs, but I couldn't step in and be an overall guitar player. But my guitar playing has always been driven by the need to write songs.
Anna TernheimMost of my music theory knowledge is based on piano. But I write on guitar a lot, too. I'm not a great guitar player by any means. I'm not a great instrumentalist. I play piano on stage. I don't play guitar on stage, but I use it to write quite a lot.
Zooey DeschanelClaude Debussy defined the guitar as an expressive harpsicord. I believe that is the best definition ever given of the Spanish guitar. This phrase is the starting point for my Concierto de Aranjuez Our guitar is the only survivor of the rich and anarchic instrumental wildlife of the Middle Ages.
Joaquin RodrigoI 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 JacobLetโs be realistic about this, the guitar can be the single most blasphemous device on the face of the earth. Thatโs why I like it . . . The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar: now thatโs my idea of a good time.
Frank Zappa51 Martin [guitar] sounded pretty good as new guitar. Martin has several levels of guitars now, and this one is pretty good.
Steve YoungNever having thought of writing for the guitar, I asked Julian Bream for a chart which would explain what the guitar could do. I managed to write some rather pretty pieces for him, except that the first six notes of the first piece all need to be played on open strings. So when he begins to play the audience will probably think he's tuning the bloody thing up!
William WaltonThe music I'm playing now is the music I always imagined myself playing when I was a kid. It's been nice to use my instrument a bit more - play the guitar in a more fun way with riffs and stuff like that - rather than just propping up a whole song with a guitar and my vocals. There's so much more energy in the crowd as well; they've been bouncing around and having fun, and it's nice to feel like you're a part of something in a room rather than just performing for a crowd.
Marika HackmanIf your going to learn to play lead guitar, get an electric guitar .. it doesn't have to be an expensive one .. acoustic guitars aren't good for learning lead, because you can't play up very high on the neck and they take heavier-gauge strings which makes it hard to bend notes
Eddie Van HalenI still only play by ear. I don't have any training. But the piano actually makes more sense to me than guitar, even though I play more guitar now. And then, it wasn't till later that I started really writing songs. Writing songs was an outlet that I needed, so I became obsessed with it. It allowed me to express a bunch of stuff that had been piling up.
Amber RubarthAfter watching a couple of live performances of bands like Nirvana, I was really excited and inspired by how raw and powerful it was. I wanted to at least aim in that direction with the guitar and do my own version of it. I know it doesn't really sound like that on the other end, but I wanted guitar, heavy rhythms, and singing to be the stamp of the whole thing.
Panda BearMy 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 don't see any rock stars playing an electric guitar from some new maker like you see in the acoustic guitar world.
Paul Reed SmithMy father was a guitar player, and I was raised with a super high standard of what good guitar playing was.
Billy CorganLet 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.
Jimmy PageThe use of electronics is a natural extension of the instrument - it is an electric guitar. So we guitarists have been plugging into something since 1931, and we are not about to stop now. Current advances in technology means we can have a huge array of sounds at our fingertips, and this offers amazing possibilities to the contemporary composer. It is always a guitar (I don't play synthesizer) but it becomes something else all together - more like sculpting sound in real time using metal wires, 5 fingers and a pick.
Tim BradyMy 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. KingI play guitar because I like to make loud noises. And the guitar is the coolest way to make a loud noise.
Kim ThayilI loved the idea of recording. The idea of sound-on-sound-recording captured me as a young kid, and once I realized what it was I had an epiphany. Before I was even playing the guitar, I would create these lists of how I would record things and overdub them, like Led Zeppelin song, 'I could put this guitar on this track...' and so on.
Steve VaiExcept for a few guitar chords, everything I've learned in my life that is of any value I've learned from women.
Glenn FreyWhen I'm not touring, I sing at home, either at the piano or I'll pick up my guitar, singing old Buck Owens songs.
Burton CummingsEverything that I do I hear and then I go with my hands, and since I use my hands for both piano and guitar that is kind of hands-on.
Kaci BrownWell, harpsichord is kind of a big guitar, isn't it? I mean, it is plucked, after all.
Mahan EsfahaniI was left with an urge to make the guitar sound like things it shouldn't be able to sound like.
Adrian BelewMy guitar, I sing of thee 'Tis with thee that I decoy And ensnare enchantingly the ladies I enjoy.
Pierre de RonsardThere 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 VaiOnce I picked up an electric guitar, I lost interest in piano, and I just wanted to rock. I studied piano for so long, I got burned out on it.
Juliana HatfieldYou know, once you've had that guitar up so loud on the stage, where you can lean back and volume will stop you from falling backward, that's a hard drug to kick.
David GilmourI'd much rather talk about guitar playing. I hate it when people ask me about my lyrics. I always feel like telling them to just go and read them.
James HetfieldI'm hungry for purpose. I'm looking for still that reason that I bought a guitar and started a band, to fulfill a purpose, to manifest destiny as to who I am and why I am the way I am, and what I do. I think it's still about the music, the song and the story.
Billy Ray CyrusIt's just for some reason I've got just as many fans that only like me when I'm yelling or being funny or whatnot, and jumping up and down on a pogo stick while playing a fancy lead guitar. And they get mad when I sing a heartfelt emotional song and if there's an album full of them.
Butch WalkerI 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 BanksAt 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
Gregg AllmanWhen I started off in Wales, I sang and accompanied myself with guitar in the '50s. And then I got a band together, which is a rhythm section, really. I used to do a lot of blues, and rhythm and blues, and '50s rock 'n' roll and country, and all kinds of stuff.
Tom JonesI have limited interests. I really like all sorts of gear. Guitar gear. Recording gear. Stuff like that. I like music, you know.
J MascisWhere I grew up, I could be a punk rocker and a jock. But in college, it became apparent that those two worlds didn't mix. When I brought my guitar back to school after Thanksgiving break, a friend handed me his bass and said, 'Listen to the Ramones.'
Jeff AmentThe 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.
Alan PriceI don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.
James TaylorI'm fine with being thought of as a guitar player, and if I can get any recognition or respect for doing that, that's a pretty good thing for me.
Paul WellerIt's annoying when you've got a guitar and you're working on music and then you have to go and do the shopping or someone calls your mobile and you get distracted or you have to go out and do something. So it's nice to just concentrate on it one hundred percent and give your all to it.
Michael Kiwanuka