Quotes About Guitar

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.

After months of playing air guitar to 'Free Bird', what really got me into guitar was watching a documentary about Jimi Hendrix and picking up the Woodstock soundtrack. Listening to his version of 'Star Spangled Banner' and 'Purple Haze.' My brother played acoustic guitar and, idolising him, I thought, 'I'm going to get a guitar.'

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.

1962 to 1965, where suddenly the guitar became this icon of youth culture all over the world, thanks mostly to the Beatles. Add to that, that I saw A Hard Day's Night 12 or 13 times, and that the guitar was the one instrument that my parents absolutely refused to let in the house. So you add it up and see that irresistible forces led me to the guitar.

My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.

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.

The classical guitar has a dynamic to it unlike a regular acoustic guitar or an electric guitar. You know, there's times when you should play and there's times when you gotta hold back. It's an extremely dynamic instrument.

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.

These 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.

You think back to Tele players, and James Burton was the one who started it all. He inspired Roy Nichols (guitar for Merle Haggard & the Strangers), Don Rich (guitar for Buck Owens & the Buckaroos), and guys like that to push the envelope and expand on that sound... I really identify with that kind of thinking ... those guys to me are the reason why any of us do this.

You 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 naïve and teenage way, said, "That's it. I'm going to be in a band."

A guitar riff played on a piano doesn't come close to the purity of it being played on a guitar but I faked it enough to get by.

I feel like I'm just learning how to play the guitar. I mean, really learning to play the guitar

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 could care less about sitting around and practicing the guitar for hours a day and trying to be the best guitar player on the planet.

I 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.

At certain point, you realize it's easy to play music for the rest of your life: just don't sell your guitar. Maybe you get a day job, but as long as you have a guitar, you can play.

I've played guitar for years, and wanted to play guitar, but we got halfway through the last one and realized we hadn't used any.

Guitar solos, to me, should be a really articulate way to make fun of guitar solos.

Let 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.

I 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.

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 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.

Just as with a guitar, you can improvise a guitar solo, and they'd probably be similar each time, but they won't be exactly the same. With the word, it's probably a bit freer than that. I probably repeat myself more musically than I do verbally.

When "Here Comes the Sun" started, what happened? No, the sun didn't come out, but Mom opened up like the sun breaking through the clouds. You know how in the first few notes of that song, there's something about George's guitar that's just so hopeful? It was like when Mom sang, she was full of hope, too. She even got the irregular clapping right during the guitar solo. When the song was over, she paused. "Oh Bee," she said. "This song reminds me of you." She had tears in her eyes.

When it came time to hire a guitar player ... I didn't even have to think about it ... Mike Bloomfield was the best guitar player I'd ever heard.

I started playing heavy-metal guitar because that's what I liked. And then I got into classical guitar because it was so technically complicated.

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.

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.

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

Well, harpsichord is kind of a big guitar, isn't it? I mean, it is plucked, after all.

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

I've always loved the electric guitar: to hold it and work it and hear what it does is unreal.

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

I 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.

I play drums and guitar. My best instrument is definitely drums, so I'm featured a lot on the album drumming. It's pretty futuristic as well.

Doctor, if I put this here guitar down now I ain't never going to wake up.

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

I started playing the acoustic guitar for more singer-songwriter type stuff. I bet if I would have gotten more approval for my "rock playing", I might be a world class shredder.

I started playing guitar at the age of 8 or 9 years. Very early, and I was like already into pop music and was just trying to copy what I heard on the radio. And at a very early age I started experimenting with old tape recorders from my parents. I was 11 or 12 at that time and then when I was like 14 or 15 I had a punk band. I made all the classic rock musician's evolutions and then in the early nineties I bought my first sampler and that is how I got into electronic music, because I was able to produce it on my own. That was quite a relief.

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

Guitar playing is very important to me. It's like golf to some other people; it's important to me that I play good.

At 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

Martin Swinger is one of those rare singer-songwriters who excels at everything: singing, songwriting, guitar-playing, and being so present with his humor, tenderness, and wild mind that his performances are also deep conversations, soul to soul and heart to heart, about the quirks, surprises, and love that brings us most alive. His songs, ranging from the little plastic parts that hold the world together, to what enlightenment comes from Buddha and Betty Boop falling in love, are whimsically and wisely original and enduring.

I was just a punk kid, trying to get a sound out of a guitar that I couldn't get off the rack, so I built one myself ... I wanted a Gibson type of sound but with a Strat vibrato .. I went to town painting it and I put three pickups back in, but they don't work - only the rear one works

I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.