Quotes About Guitar

I've liked music since I can remember and the guitar was always the most attractive thing about music to me at that time. I played guitar in a high school band. I played guitar in various other bands up until I was 20, but nothing too serious. From time to time someone would ask me to play with a group, but I stopped playing with band-oriented projects as a whole soon after.

My D'Angelico is a jazz archtop guitar. That guitar was made for Glenn Miller's guitar player in 1939. It's a '39 D'Angelico New Yorker.

There was a show in Germany called Beat Club, and they had a lot of bands playing live. And I had this master plan, at 11 years old, I wanted to play electric guitar, but I knew... We lived in a small apartment, there was no way that was going to happen. I told my parents I wanted a classical guitar and I wanted to start studying classical guitar. So then a few years later, I think around 16 or so, I started playing electric. But that was my, my plan as an 11 year old. I thought I was so crafty.

In my own musical existence I don't feel that being a guitar player is like the best thing on earth to be. I would rather be a balanced musician. Playing in a group, I'm tending to think more about the music and less about the guitar. That's just me getting older. I'm not interested in being a virtuoso guitar player or anything like that.

The guitar is a means of expressing music, When you get into the emotional side of it, then it's not the guitar that matters so much as the music itself. But the guitar is the vehicle I use. It's how I express myself. As for the emotional side, music takes up where language leaves off. To try and verbalize what music says, emotionally and spiritually, is futile. Let me put it this way, Louis Armstrong once said if you've got to ask, you'll never know.

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 was interested in the electric guitar even before I knew the difference between electric and acoustic. The electric guitar seemed to be a totally fascinating plank of wood with knobs and switches on it. I just had to have one.

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.

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.

Its just something Ive always done. In South Texas, the first guitar you get is a Mexican guitar. And the first one I got, the first thing I did was take it apart.

People ask me to describe how I play, and the most obvious answer is that I'm a jazz influenced guitar player. But I'm not a jazz guitar player. Wes Montgomery was a jazz guitarist, Joe Pass was a jazz guitarist (laughs).

The guitar part is the pivot of everything we do, so if you change the guitar part you no longer have what it is.

My father was a guitar player, and I was raised with a super high standard of what good guitar playing was.

A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable.

If a guitar is too easy for me to play, it makes me too laid back. I like to battle with my guitar.

My brother was very important to me. And he played guitar. So that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a guitar player. So he was the first one to inspire me to do something with my life. And I was so glad that he was there.

I 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.

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.

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

It's one thing having a great song, but I think for me if you take it to the next level... say you had a guitar and a vocal, and the song was amazing but the vocalist wasn't that great and it just was a guitar and vocal acoustic track, switching that to something like an amazing voice singing the exact same song with the instrumentation being really nice and lush or unique in some way and interesting and diverse... I think it's all about the instrumentation and textures in the sound.

Listening to as many guitar solos as possible is the best method for someone in the early stages. But saxophone solos can be helpful. They're interesting because they are all single notes, and therefore can be repeated on the guitar. If you can copy a sax solo you're playing very well, because the average saxophonist can play much better than the average guitarist.

I'm really very embarrassed about my guitar playing, in one way, because it's very poor. I can never move but I can make a guitar speak.

[Chamber of Reflection off of Salad Days]I think it's probably that one. There's no guitar on that song, I've never recorded a song with absolutely no guitar, which is interesting. The idea behind it, well it's a Free Mason reference because before they become Free Mason's they had to go into this room called the Chamber of Reflection where they think about the life they brought with them, the life they've lived up until this point and all their wrong and right doings. And that's basically what I did with this album.

I was really into music. I started playing guitar also when I was nine. I wanted to be in the Beatles, even though John Lennon died the year I got a guitar and the Beatles broke up before I was born.

I would just like to say that Ritchie Blackmore did a bunch of great stuff guitar - wise. I'm happy to play the solo from 'Highway Star'. I always thought it was one of the most exciting guitar solos I'd ever played.

Musically, I am still hooked and just hypnotized by the sound of the guitar itself. I mean, a guitar sounds good if you drop it on the floor.

There is far more sensitivity in acoustic guitar players than could ever be compared to any synthesizer. That's a personal point of view but that's the way I see it. I think that's what it's all about. The drive, the fire, the passion - it all comes out on the 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.

My guitar is really tempermental. I don't give up on it though, I'm close to my guitar!

I write songs on guitar and that's about how good of a guitar player I am. I can write songs on it.

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

I loved rock and roll when that came in, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, all those great records. So I begged my mom and dad for a guitar, which eventually they did get me for Christmas, but it went out of tune very quickly, and it hurt my fingers.

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.

As a kid I used to pretend I was John Denver, of all people, and play the guitar and sing Take Me Home, Country Roads.

I don't remember that I copied any guitar player note-for-note. But I remember copying Charlie Parker note for note.

The Hamsters really kick ass - Slim is one of your greatest guitar players

Guitar playing is just something that came to me and is really second nature now.

My 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.

It's just a favorite language to me, that country finger-picking guitar style.

Rock and Roll is simply an attitude. You don't have to play the greatest guitar.

I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.

Once 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.

I picked up the guitar at 11, but even before then, I was writing songs on the organ.

I wanted to learn how to do everything a person could do on a guitar. Of course, that was impossible.

Yes, we three were so happy, my wife, my guitar and me!

I didn't want to fall into the trap of competing with all these other great guitar players. I just want to sidestep the whole thing and get out of the race.

Guitar players never listen to lead singers.

To be a good artist / letterer / designer / guitar player it takes practice. A lot of it. More than you can even fathom when you're starting out.