Popular quotes about Guitar! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Many kids and parents ask me, 'What kind of guitar can I buy?' It's a great opportunity for those people to be able to buy a quality guitar that's not necessarily a little Fender or whatever. Ernie Ball signature model guitar is something that's more signature.
John PetrucciI don't understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.
Jeff BeckMost 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 DeschanelMichael Bloomfield was the antithesis of a collector ... he didn't care how old a guitar was; all he wanted was something that sounded good when played it ... and he cared nothing about the collectibility of an instrument ... his philosophy was "A good player can make any guitar sound good" ... to Michael, a guitar was just a tool.
Nick GravenitesI think if you really put your mind to something you can do it. Five and a half years ago I couldn't stand on stage and play guitar. I didn't have enough talent as a kid to play guitar. I started really late. I hired a guitar teacher when I was in Nashville and I applied myself and stayed focused.
Jimmy WayneInstead of buying a guitar for $2,000 or $2,500 - I'm not sure how much these are going for - but it's maybe $300 or something like that. It's more for beginners and stuff like that. Obviously it's not hitting the pros. And you can't get the Piezo pickup and the color-changing paint and the inlays and all the fancy things that my signature guitars offer, but you can get the general feel of the guitar - and the body style. It's cool.
John PetrucciI love melody, and that's what I love about pop music. The words can become what they are through a special melody. I learned to play guitar by myself, and writing songs came with playing guitar, so the writing isn't one part and the music something else.
Anna TernheimWhen I came to the States, I still wanted to be an electric guitar player. But moved to Santa Fe in '86. And just decided that nylon string guitar is really what I wanted to do... And that really change my life totally as well... And Santa Fe is one of those really unusual places that is such an interesting mix of culture. There is a lot of from restaurants to music... I remember one of the first groups I saw playing there in the back of a restaurant, was a banjo player, a classical violinist, and a flamenco guitarist. And I thought to myself, "What? You know, this is great."
Ottmar LiebertI 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.
Gary OldmanIf 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 JettIts 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.
Guy ClarkYou are working up to Mr. Fantastic Fiction levels of Zombie Expert, which is like playing Guitar Hero on some level that actually melts the guitar controller, burning your fingers with searing hot plastic till you scream in pain. Only with words. And zombies.
Libba BrayI play the guitar. I taught myself how to play the guitar, which was a bad decision... because I didn't know how to play it, so I was a shitty teacher. I would never have went to me.
Mitch HedbergI enjoy listening to Olla Bell. There is also this young guitar player, John Duke Lippincott, he sometimes goes by Johnny Duke. He is the most brilliant guitar player from right here in Wilmington, DE.
David BrombergI loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that's where I was.
Steve VaiI play the guitar. This year at the Sundance film festival, I joined the band from 'The Guitar' on stage. We warmed up for Patti Smith, and then the director Michel Gondry got on the drums to play some songs from the soundtrack to his film Be Kind Rewind with Mos Def. It was pretty mad.
Saffron BurrowsI am, by nature, a guitar player... I learned all of these other instruments around that, and around the theory that I built learning the guitar.
Hunter HayesI think if you're a lady playing a guitar, other ladies need to see you playing the guitar, and they don't need to see men come out and fix your equipment for you. It just looks incredibly pussy. So I just do it all myself.
Neko CaseRandy [ Rhoads] had small hands. Boy, could he play guitar. He became an even better guitar player after he died.
Lemmy KilmisterThe ukulele was the first of many instruments they had bought for me. They got me a guitar when I was eleven, which my son Morgan uses until this day. They paid for 3 years of guitar lessons; they bought me a bass fiddle, which I still play.
Tony ViscontiI wanted to get a guitar [when I was 13] so I could play punk songs because kid taught me power chords at summer camp. He was like, "You could play all punk songs if you just learn this chord and just move it around on the guitar".
Ezra FurmanI 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.
Brian SetzerI play guitar because I like to make loud noises. And the guitar is the coolest way to make a loud noise.
Kim ThayilWe weren't listening to guitar bands, we were thoroughly ashamed of being a guitar band. So we bought loads of keyboards and learned how to use them, and when we got bored we went back to guitars.
Thom YorkeI played guitar all my life, all the way through the Yardbirds, but I knew that for me this was going to be a guitar vehicle, because that's what I wanted it to be.
Jimmy PageI'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.
John LennonMusically, 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.
Leo KottkeAnother guitar player who had a tremendous influence on my life was Howard Roberts ... I'd listened to a lot of Tal Farlow, Johnny Smith and Kenny Burrell, and I was certainly into those guys, but I was awestruck at the intensity and fire in Howards' guitar playing... for me, it became a roadmap.
Jeff BaxterNow any person who plays an acoustic guitar standing up on stage with a microphone is a folk singer. Some grandmother with a baby in her arms singing a 500-year-old song, well, she's not a folk singer, she's not on stage with a guitar and a microphone. No, she's just an old grandmother singing an old song. The term "folk singer" has gotten warped.
Pete SeegerInspiration 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.
Robin ThickeWe play loud electric guitar music, and we'd hope that that doesn't mean you have to act like an asshole.
Ian MacKayeThere is no way I would play guitar like a tour de force like I did in Led Zeppelin. John Bonham, phenomenal drummer, young man with his technique, but do you think he would ever have the opportunity to play like that in another band? Of course he hadn't.
Jimmy PageIt's a guy thing, playing the guitar. Being a female and trying to go to the same auditions as the guys, it's pretty hard.
OrianthiI know artists whose medium is life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has increased life.... They are the artists of being alive.
Frederick FranckI get a feeling, on a guitar, and I sort of mess around until something resonates with me, and then I just find that what happens is that a melody comes, and with that, words.
Beth OrtonThe only thing I ever really wanted was a Strat .. I started playing guitar after seeing Jimi Hendrix on TV the day he died...then I got Deep Purples' Fireball album which was also a big influence .. I have a collection of more than 200 of them that includes Strats from every year since March 1954 - the first month the Strat was made
Yngwie MalmsteenAs a guitar player, you can gravitate to the blues because you can play it easily. It's not a style that's difficult to pick up. It's purely emotive and dead easy to get a start with.
Boz ScaggsI've been used for writing rhythm guitar chords for a long time because it's so easy to play and chords just sound good on it.
Bradford CoxAt that time there was, but they didn't have the guitar I wanted. There are only about 2000 people there and the next town was Dodge City 40 or 50 miles away and I didn't have a car. So it was easier to order it through the mail - which you shouldn't do. But it turned out okay. It was one of those Ovations - there's not much danger in ordering one of those.
Freedy JohnstonMy guitar, I sing of thee 'Tis with thee that I decoy And ensnare enchantingly the ladies I enjoy.
Pierre de RonsardTrey Spruance didn't want to tour for ages. And Dean Menta has always been our guitar-roadie during Angel Dust, and I remember him playing fantastically during soundchecks. During each gig, he was watching from the side of the stage, seeing Big Jim play stuff that he could play better.
Mike PattonYou 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 CarpenterIn 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.
Steve Vai