Quotes About Guitar

I was pillaging a lot of music that had nothing to do with guitar playing, using a lot of strange tunings and voicings and chord structures that aren't really that natural to the guitar; I ended up developing a harmonic palette that's not particularly natural to the guitar because I was always trying to make my guitar sound like something else.

I grew up with rock and pop music from the 70s and 80s. I had to play guitar in school - it was a music college and we had to take instrument classes there - so I think guitar playing and guitar sounds have always been an influence.

I play piano and guitar. Acoustic guitar. I tried studying classical guitar when I was 16 but it got really hard. I could never play a lead to save my life.

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.

Yeah. I started using them [SDD-3000s] shortly after first working with Edge on The Unforgettable Fire. Basically, I stole his sound. It wasn't a complicated rig: just a guitar he liked through a Korg SDD-3000 digital delay into a Vox. Three components, mono - that's it. The great thing about the Korgs is its three-position level switch, which lets you hit the amp with about 10 extra dB. It's more overdriven than if you just plugged the guitar straight into the amp, even when it's on bypass. But a lot of the guitar sounds on Achtung Baby were recorded through a Korg A3 effects processor.

All gut strings. Thats just the first kind of guitar I played, it was a nylon string guitar. And to me, its the purest form of guitar making, and I just enjoy doing it.

It's hilarious, because my guitar has what's known as a tremolo bar or a whammy bar. And the whammy bar is probably the most alien thing on my guitar that could possibly relate to a classical guitar.

Lenny Breau is one of the true geniuses of the guitar. I suppose he is a musician's musician. His knowledge of the instrument and the music is so vast, and I think that's what knocks people out about him. But he's such a tasty player too. I think if Chopin had played guitar, he would have sounded like Lenny Breau.

I have a lot of guitar heroes I guess, some of them are female and some of them are male. Robert Fripp is one of them, and Marc Ribot, that's another guitar hero.

I've never really been schooled in music theory. I'm a guitar player, and I attack the guitar in a certain way that it not fully unique to me, but it's more unique that some other people.

I had a guitar when I was 6 or 7, a plastic guitar with the Beatles' faces on it. It would be a collector's item now. It would fetch a hefty sum, I imagine.

And at the time, for one of the few times in my life I didn't have a band, I just had myself and the guitar, so I was going to have to do something with just my voice, just the guitar and just my songs that was going to move someone enough to give me a shot. So I wrote songs that were very lyrically alive and lyrically dense. And they were unique, but it really came out of the motivation to - or I understood it was - I was going to have to make my mark that way.

I'd probably get a much quicker and better result if I went to a really great guitar player for a certain style of guitar that I have a problem doing. But there is a challenge in figuring out if I can do that myself.

Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded.

Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitar player in the world... a guy who mastered that instrument. It was talking when he played. And when he did a solo, he made the guitar cry - or made it sound like it was coming from the devil's amplifier.

I'm not good enough to be playin' much acoustic guitar onstage. Man, you gotta get so right; I mean, the tones, the feel, the sound. Plus, acoustic blues guitar is just that much harder on the fingers.

I started writing little short stories and poems as soon as I learned to read and write. I think I was six years old. And then when I got to be eleven, twelve, and into my teens, I was just listening to records all the time, and I got a guitar. I started to take guitar lessons when I was twelve.

If I look at my own recordings, I think generally there is a focal point within the song and often it's the instrumental bridge or a guitar solo where we try to do something unexpected, something beautiful or weird, or beautiful because it is weird. And of course I fail half the time, but yes that is the goal, to create even a few seconds of bliss, or sadness. The electric guitar is a great instrument for doing this because it is capable of surprising you. There are so many different sounds available.

I was trained at classical piano as a youngster back in PA. To rebel, I bought a drum set and played in some rock & roll bands. In college I picked up a guitar and became obsessed with practicing which led to playing guitar in indie rock bands in the mid 90's. Which led me to Los Angeles.

One of the reasons I took up the guitar was I didn't want to speak to anybody. I really felt uncomfortable speaking to people, so I took the guitar up so I could hide behind it. I'm not comfortable explaining things, because my brain doesn't work that way.

After 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.

I fool around with guitar and I can fool around on piano. I don't really play either instrument although I can play a couple of songs on guitar. You don't really need to be able to play to compose. There are many composers and arrangers who work out of their heads.

I'm glad I get singled out for my slide guitar-playing, which isn't that difficult to do. I didn't take guitar lessons, but I just love the way it sounds, almost like the human voice.

I love playing rock music, man. You give me a guitar in my hands, and I go out there, and, for me, it's like...you know, some dudes like hunting, fishing, going out and playing ball in the backyard with their buddies on a rainy day. I like being out with my buddies playing rock guitar. That's what I love to do.

My 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.

I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It's fragile. I don't have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.

Lately I haven't been able to write for the guitar - it'll usually start out with a melody on the bass, and I'll layer vocals. I just can't really physically hear the guitar anymore, so I'll just go into GarageBand and play around with the keys. I'll sit on a melody or some lyrics for a really long time and just play with it.

The voices on the record, that was trying to treat my voice like guitar players treat guitar tones.

I've always lived in that guitar world. I have noticed kids being more into the real essence of guitar music now.

From the age of 16 on, I brought my guitar everywhere. I just fell in love with learning the guitar, and I wanted to learn songs and chords, and that led to wanting to start a band, and to wanting to do our first show.

I 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.

I'm playing a D-28 Martin that I've had about 20 years or so. I've got a '51 Martin and I thought I shouldn't be taking this on the road. So I went down to Gruhn Guitars in Nashville and kind of traded around and ended up with this one. This guitar sounded pretty good as new guitar.

I fancy myself as being very good at Guitar Hero. I really don't play any other videogames. I kind of fell in love with Guitar Hero the first time I played it, and went out and bought a system for it.

Inspiration and stealing are two completely different things. If somebody wants to make a song like "Stairway to Heaven" and writes a song on acoustic guitar, Led Zeppelin does not own every song that's on acoustic guitar for the rest of time.

We play loud electric guitar music, and we'd hope that that doesn't mean you have to act like an asshole.

I don't separate writing songs from poetry and short fiction. In the area where I work in my house, there's a word processor and a guitar.

In a time when everything can be next day and ordered and put on credit and paid for, music to me is promise, all promise, very little realization. It's the promise of walking into a room with a guitar and not being sure you will leave with an idea that will take, not being sure it won't slip away from you.

There's so much to be said for making your guitar sound like a synthesizer and try to make your drummer sound like a drum machine.

I was left with an urge to make the guitar sound like things it shouldn't be able to sound like.

I got a bit bored of just me and my guitar.

I got my first guitar in October of 1968. I'm self-taught.

My guitar, I sing of thee 'Tis with thee that I decoy And ensnare enchantingly the ladies I enjoy.

I was immediately taken with Geoff Muldaur's rich soulful voice, masterful phrasing and guitar playing when I first heard him.

I watch movies and hang with my family, go shopping, love to cuddle with my dog, Happy, & write songs with my guitar!

When it's a funky uptempo song, you're basically having the same kind of release you would have when you have sex, only it lasts longer. Whether you're playing it on the guitar or on the dance floor, you're in that moment.

My first love in music was jazz, but I like it all," "I reacted emotionally to Art Blakey and, of course, to Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery. I was all of 16 when I had my first guitar lesson with Joe. But I never focused on being a bebop player. I loved the harmony, rhythm and phrasing, but I wanted to apply them to my own concept and sound.

I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case & throw in a piece of raw meat.

In the physical universe, there are objects that include suns, planets, all life, and all matter in all dimensions. And then there is the space where all these things exist. That space is the vital element. For virtually every kid since 1968 who picked up a guitar to find his voice on the instrument, Jimmy Page has been the space that enables all our notes to be played.