Guitar Quotations | Page 3

In high school, I decided I wanted to learn guitar, so I picked it up and starting teaching myself some basic chords and started playing with friends. Guitar inherently lends itself to be guitar music, especially when you're not good at guitar.

Except for a few guitar chords, everything I've learned in my life that is of any value I've learned from women.

It keeps me in touch with younger musicians who are constantly saying, 'Have you heard this new artist, or this new guitar player?' It keeps you reaching.

I sing and play guitar and harmonica. I've been doing it for a long time.

My mother and dad played the fiddle and the guitar.

I learned to play guitar at a young age and converted poems and stuff that I had written to songs.

When I was nine years old, I started playing guitar, and I took classical guitar lessons and studied music theory. And played jazz for a while. And then when I was around fourteen years old, I discovered punk rock. And so I then tried to unlearn everything I had learned in classical music and jazz so I could play in punk rock bands.

My guitars are my umbilical cord. They're directly wired into my head.

When I was younger, playing piano and guitar were all things that I wanted to do for a short period of time, like any kid.

I even played bass for a while. Besides playing electric guitar, I'd also get asked to play some acoustic stuff. But, since I didn't have an acoustic guitar at the time, I used to borrow one from a friend so I could play folk joints.

When you tune your guitar in a different way, it lends itself to a new way of looking at your songwriting.

Everyone gets frustrated and aggressive, and I'd sooner take my aggression out on a guitar than on a person.

I'll sit around and play my guitar; that's how I write tunes.

I would walk down the hall with my guitar and play for anyone that would listen. As a young kid I was really driven and I was going to make it happen no matter what.

I always hated jazz guitar. I loved jazz saxophone but I hated jazz guitar. If I would buy an organ trio record I would make sure I'd buy one that did not have a guitar player on it. The sound was awful!

I picked up a guitar, and I knew what I wanted to do.

Guitar is just something I can do. So much of it now is muscle memory, just instinct.

I started trying to do my own music at home, and I was like, 'You know what, I can play the guitar, sort of. And I can do these things, sort of. And I can make these crazy noises on my computer, sort of. But I need a ridiculously good drummer. I need someone to help me with string arrangements.

I play guitar and I love the Beatles and melodic music.

I 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.

I could have probably gone on and still played the part of the guitar player of Limp Bizkit, but musically I was kind of bored. If I was to continue, it would have been about the money and not about the true music, and I don't want to lie to myself, or to them or to fans of Limp Bizkit.

When I was growing up, there were two things that were unpopular in my house. One was me, and the other was my guitar.

I bought all my friends guitars and I had a good time with my money. But then one day the IRS came knocking.

I was playing with steel picks on a steel guitar, and there was no amplification needed.

I have pictures of me sitting in the racquetball court in my pajamas with an acoustic guitar, and Wolfgang is probably just two-and-a-half-feet tall. I'll never forget the day I saw his foot tapping along in beat! I knew then, I couldn't wait for the day I'd be able to make music with my son. I don't know what more I could ask for.

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

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.

It may be a coincidence, but from the minute I took anti-depressants, I didn't pick up a guitar or a pen for seven years.

I went to my friend's house one day, and he had an electric guitar he had just bought with a tiny little amp. I turned the volume up to 10 and I hit one chord, and I said, I'm in love.

My parents signed me up for classical guitar lessons, which made for two years of the most depressing Wednesday evenings.

I understand the rock star deal having been one and still going out strapping my guitar on and performing. Now, I probably do 30 or 40 dates a year and I get to relive how I felt at 19 when I played in some really bad bands.

In Kid A and Amnesiac, the guitar becomes one more texture, difficult to separate from other textures.

I keep guitars that are, you know, the neck's a little bit bent and it's a little bit out of tune. I want to work and battle it and conquer it and make it express whatever attitude I have at that moment. I want it to be a struggle.

I did play every little note on the guitar on that record

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

And this whole period of time of gradually working at being a better guitar player and songwriter have gradually led me to the point where I feel I'm doing a clearer representation of the thing that I've been feeling inside me since I was four years old.

I've been into music for a long time. I started playing drums when I was 8 and piano when I was 10, then bass and guitar when I was 18.

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.

Michael Sunday and I are the original members of the band. We first did it just for charities and benefit concerts. It was very ad-hoc, and before we knew it, we were really a band. We went through several drummers and guitarists before we were happy with the line up.

The best way to do that is to pick up a new instrument or an instrument that you don't typically write on and see where it takes you. Whether it's using an acoustic guitar, or piano, or electronics as tools, all of these lead to creating different types of songs and I used all of these methods for this record.

The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it's very different for me as a performer. I'm not playing music - I'm just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar... whatever it is.

I took the rhythm place, which a lot of people didn't know how to do the way I could, and this was really the first time that Johnny had a rhythm guitar player.

Marc Bolan had inspired so many people to pick up a guitar and join a band.

If I'm playing with Ozzy it's just a guitar thing. But with the vocals I feel like I'm studying for the SATs.

As a teenager I started painting and playing guitar.

The guitar was my weapon, my shield to hide behind.

I love 'Guitar Hero,' and I think it's a part of pop culture.

When I'm not touring, I sing at home, either at the piano or I'll pick up my guitar, singing old Buck Owens songs.

I like jazz, but I could never play it. You just sit there with a guitar the size of a Chevy on your chest, wearing a stupid hat, playing the same solo for an hour.

Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.

Great guitar players are a dime a dozen. It is sometimes your very limitations as players that set you apart from the crowd.

I was a big fan of Jim Hall as well. I liked his comping style, his accompanying. And that he played, generally, four note chords, the top four strings of the guitar.

I try not to punish the audience by making them listen to too much acoustic guitar.

I think it gets boring (for the audience) for the lead singer to have a guitar hanging on them all the time

I am definitely still the same kid that I was picking up the guitar at 15. But, I have definitely learned to be more flexible and roll with the punches. It's such an unpredictable business to be in and it's insane how things change so last minute.

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.

The first guitar I ever got was for my 13th birthday.

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've always been much more of a guitar picker, but I began to feel forced into a position of being the epitome of a rock & roll guitarist. Originally, TYA wanted to make it without having to compromise to pop. It worked for a while, but after five or six years, the fun went out of it for me; a lot of the music went out of it.

It's been very hard for the guitar as a serious synthesizer to compete with keyboards.

Whenever I'm on tour and I'm in my hotel room and I'm writing and playing my guitar, I go in the bathroom and I record whatever I'm writing in there. It's just what I love to do.

Every time the guys were knocked out by my guitar playing and the girls were knocked out by the type of songs I did. That set us apart from the average blues band.

I was training to be a lawyer... I was president of the law society at Glasgow University, and my bass guitarist was my secretary of my law society; the lead guitarist and writer worked at the law firm that I worked.

My place in Scotland is in the middle of nowhere, so you've just got a keyboard, guitar, a little drum machine and you know if you can work stuff out like that, if you can hammer out songs that sound good just with those three things and a voice, you're on your way.

I'd like to have a beer-holder on my guitar like they have on boats.

I love Gibsons, and Nationals, too. There's something magical about them.

I've been playing a guitar since I was 10 years old.

A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that's true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there's something about the guitar - the range of possibilities is much broader.

A guitar for me is pretty much strictly in the context of writing songs for my band, coming up with ideas with my band, and then being able to perform those songs as best as I can on stage - that's what the guitar for me has always been.

I was bought an electric guitar when I was 12, but my guitar teacher beat me up. I didn't like guitar lessons and I got quite bored. My teacher was obviously bored giving me lessons, and one day I offered him a liquorice toffee, but he didn't answer. So I threw it at him, it hit him in the face, and he sort of beat me up.

I taught myself how to play the guitar, so I basically learned by a system of making mistakes.

I have actual dreams of Bruce Springsteen calling me up on stage to wear a bandanna and play rhythm guitar next to Little Steven.

When we started I wasn't the singer. I was the drunk rhythm guitarist who wrote all these weird songs.

I have about 50 guitars around the house. I can't take more than a few steps without finding one to pick up.

I grew up in the suburbs and was raised on rap radio, so it took me a long time to stumble upon the acoustic guitar as a resource for anything.

I only want to do what I really want to do; otherwise, I'm content to sit here and play my guitar all day.

Everybody would grab a guitar and listen to somebody else and call themselves a folk singer. When they didn't know no more songs, they'd run out of them.

I destroyed a lot of guitars trying to get them to do what I wanted, but I learned something from every guitar I tore apart, and discovered even more things. Things like if the string is not straight from the bridge saddle to the nut, you're going to have friction.

That happens every time I get behind a guitar, regardless of what I'm saying, 'cause music is freedom and being free is the closest I've ever felt to being spiritual.

I like to play music; play guitar - I love that. Play some golf in the summer. Just relax, enjoy the summer. That's nice.

For 'Narrow Stairs', the majority of the songs I brought in were guitar songs - songs we could sit in a room and just play. I can honestly say I had more fun and felt more inspired on this record than anything that we had done in a long time.

I'm on this eternal quest to get the best guitar sound in the world, but my vision of what is 'the best' changes every time I go into the studio. Sometimes my goal is to make my guitar jump out, and sometimes I want it to lay back.

I'll get up there and I'll do my guitar solos in one of those space outfits.

For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.

I suppose my father was more influential in my starting to play the guitar.

My dad was vehemently opposed to electric guitars. He did not look on that kind of music as legitimate in any way

My only expenses are probably guitar strings and records.

The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.

I don't know what the outcome will be. I put a couple away for my grandkids, like that. So I don't know, who knows? Maybe I'll start building guitars for a living.

Robert Duvall saw me playing at a restaurant in Louisiana and invited me to be an extra in his movie 'The Apostle.' He gave me a guitar for my sixth birthday, and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world.

I love collecting guitars, even though I can't play well. My favourite guitarists are Richie Blackmore, Jimmy Paige, and John Mayer.

I'm not a collector, however, and I have no desire to own 50 or 60 guitars.

I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

I might have a guitar or a piano on set to play something for the actors.

I've never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I've always played with other musicians. It's how I play, there's no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play.

I preferred not to be laden down with a big instrument. If you're behind a guitar, you get used to being behind a guitar, and you don't really perform because you can't. I wanted to be able to just hold on to the mike and sing.

You're better off being a brick layer if you're going to play guitar than a sheet metal worker.

I kept listening, kept going to see people, kept sitting in with people, kept listening to records. If I wanted to learn somebody's stuff, like with Clapton, when I wanted to learn how he was getting some of his sounds - which were real neat - I learned how to make the sounds with my mouth and then copied that with my guitar.

The 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.