Guitar Quotations | Page 4

I like guitars in the Fender style because they have skinny necks.

A lot of people said to me, 'Enough with the guest vocalists for a while. We want to hear the Mexican play the guitar!'

I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.

Chet Atkins... is probably the best guitar player who ever lived.

I discovered after going to music festivals that I am a rock fan. I love the guitars, the phrasing, and the abandon of rock fans.

I 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.

I'm left handed, but my dad taught me to play guitar right-handed.

I would prefer it if people thought that I didn't work hard, that I just played the guitar for three minutes a week and was like, 'Check out this song - what do you think?' That would be ideal. I would prefer telling people that I'm just truly talented.

I heard the Beatles and the Stones, and Mom bought me an electric guitar. I played lead for four years and then switched to bass. One day someone suggested that I should sing, so I sheepishly stepped up to the microphone and the rest is rock history.

Mention Hubert Sumlin, as well, because Hubert's a great man, and again, you know, I don't play the guitar very good, but when I'm playing this kind of music, I always have him in my mind. I wish I could play like Hubert.

I've known Shawn for several years. And he's just an amazing talent. He's a great writer, a marvelous, marvelous guitar player, and plays really good fiddle.

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

Bruce's band is so different from the Grateful Dead; there's no lead guitar player, for one thing.

I play guitar, the ukulele and the piano. I grew up on a mountain in Tennessee, and we had 'The Mountain Opry,' where anyone could just get up on stage to perform. It was just about the soul and heart of music. My upbringing was less about being great and more about just doing what you love. It was always for joy.

It is dishonest the way that people suddenly think they've found guitars, and wear their guitar as a badge.

Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.

I saw the Village as a place you could escape to, to express yourself. When I first went there, I wrote and performed poetry. Then I drew portraits for a couple of years. It took a while before I thought about picking up a guitar.

So I'll set a cycle in motion and pop it into record and I'll lay down a drum pattern, a bass line, a keyboard and guitar part, and once the groove is going I launch into the song and sing my song over the top.

Unless the guitar works as a color, then I don't use it, so I haven't been playing guitar too much lately.

I am the Great White Buffalo and I play an American-made Gibson guitar that can blow your head clean off at 100 paces.

I've played piano and guitar when I was younger.

The stainless-steel frets were a major breakthrough, because of the amount of playing and bending that I do. I have to get my guitars refretted every couple of months.

I'm interested in creating a little sound world for songs, really crafting it, building it, and making it like a little doll's house with little things inside it, staircases and rooms and everything kind of relates to everything else. I've never seen it as drums, bass, guitar and vocals in very separate spaces.

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

I can't take any more white boys noodling around on their guitars.

I know a few chords on the guitar, but I wouldn't be able do a show or even be part of a jam session with one.

I pick up my guitar and play. Something might come, and then the pen comes out. Then an edit, until something comes out that you're actually satisfied with.

In the 1960s we were fighting to be recognized as equals in the marketplace, in marriage, in education and on the playing field. It was a very exciting, rebellious time.

Some people train for certain sports and I want to train to be able to hold a super heavy electric guitar and carry luggage around myself because I always have to have 7,000 pairs of shoes. Who cares about sports?

Most of my songs start out as being very aggressive and guitar-driven.

I get twitchy if I don't pick up a guitar or sit at the piano every now and then... I have to do it; I don't have a choice.

To be honest, I'm one of the least-technical guitar players around. I just want a guitar to feel good and sound good. That's it, period.

I guess trying to throw my body into the guitar is so natural for me that I don't even know how to explain it. I can't imagine life without it.

When I pick up the guitar, it's a melody, and that's what drives the lyrics. It's bits and pieces of truth, but it is storytelling.

When I first got a guitar, it was a Spanish, classical thing.

I feel really fortunate that, in playing guitar and surfing, I've found two things that mean so much to me, and which really complement each other. There's definitely a spiritual thing to both of them; they totally connect you to a higher realm.

I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.

I honestly believe that you have to be able to play the guitar hard if you want to be able to get the whole spectrum of tones out of it. Since I normally play so hard, when I start picking a bit softer my tone changes completely, and that's really useful sometimes for creating a more laid-back feel.

I play guitar a bit. I'm trying to learn drums - I feel like I can play violin. I've never tried, but I just feel like I can.

Well, I started writing songs about three years ago when I learned to play the guitar, but I've been singing since I was eleven.

I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.

All the time I was playing the flute, the lines, the solos, the riffs, the construction, were based on my guitar skills. I did not play the flute to exploit its natural faculties, but I used it as a surrogate guitar.

I've made my own music, and the way I've always described it is Peggy Lee with an electric guitar, or Billie Holiday with some PJ Harvey in there.

While listening, to things like western swing, for instance, I'd work something out in my head, then play it on my National; not the same song, but one that captured the feeling of the original tune.

I always loved rock guitar. I just never put it together that that's what I'd end up doing.

I was always just kind of obsessed with guitar, even before I started playing.

A wah-wah is important as well. I love it; it makes the guitar scream.

Without question Gibson guitars are the finest, most revered guitars on the planet.

The music of Hendrix wakes people up to their possibilities. It's more than just dreaming about being a guitar hero.

Catfish is not playing guitar no more, he's doing like a home-front thing. He had been in the business around ten years before I got in it, so I guess he's had enough of it.

There is a great book out called 'Everything I Needed to Learn I Learned in Kindergarten,' and I believe that everything I ever needed to learn on guitar was in my first two years of hungry learning: Scotty Moore, Hank Marvin, Chet Atkins, Lenny Breau, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.

Actually, because I'm so small, when I strike an open A chord I get physically thrown to the left, and when I play an open G chord I go right. That's how hard I play, and that's how a lot of my stage act has come about. I just go where the guitar takes me.

I got my first guitar when I was 16. I'd play for my family and friends, but taking that guitar out there into the wide, wide world wasn't something I ever thought about.

My original interests and intentions in guitar playing were primarily created on quality of tone, for instance, the way the instrument could be made to echo or simulate the human voice.

I still use the guitar pretty much just to hide my gut.

I just want to be a guy with a guitar.

I've discovered that sheer quantity doesn't necessarily make for a heavier sound; if anything, overdubs make guitars sound mushier.

But remember, guitar players are a dime a dozen.

I know that I'm capable of moving around on the guitar. I can express myself the way I want to and feel good about it. But as far as technical chops, I'm not a learned musician.

I get to play a scorching lead guitar, and there's not much that's more fun than that.

I loved the idea of recording. The idea of sound-on-sound-recording captured me as a young kid, and once I realized what it was I had an epiphany. Before I was even playing the guitar, I would create these lists of how I would record things and overdub them, like Led Zeppelin song, 'I could put this guitar on this track...' and so on.

I can't say I feel influenced by today's guitar players.

Had an awesome time. You tell me to show up and all I have to do is drink beer, play guitar all day and I can lift weights and you're going to pay me for this!

I've always enjoyed singing and can't recall a time in my life where I wasn't singing. I'm most grateful for the strength I have in that department. I have a lot of bad habits on the guitar which limits my playing ability. But I get a little better each year.

Andres Segovia, the great name for guitar, he put classical guitar on the map. He was the proponent of it, the best in the world. So I was listening to a record that he had made, and a little bauble happened in the middle of the record. A finger slipped, and I said, 'Wait a minute. He's not allowed to make mistakes,' - my mind.

Since I first picked up the violin, I've been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.

I lie around and play guitar, that's something I do for sure. In fact that's all I do, I think.

I do music because I can just pick up my guitar and sing, and completely satisfy, instant gratification. I don't need a script, I don't people, I don't need anything, cameras, I just have myself and my guitar, or keyboard.

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.

The bulk of my set is instrumental and you have to give yourself and the audience some relief because a performance is not about great guitar playing it's really about entertainment.

Playing guitar was one of my childhood hobbies, and I had played a little at school and at camp. My parents would drag me out to perform for my family, like all parents do, but it was a hobby - nothing more.

The guitar influence that affected my songwriting came from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

More recently, I used guitar synthesizer extensively on the two albums I did with Robert Fripp.

My grandfather gave me my first guitar, an old acoustic with palm trees and dancing girls painted on it

'Aqualung' marks the point at which I had the confidence as a songwriter and as a guitar player to actually pick up and play the guitar and be at the forefront of the band. It's also the album on which I began to address religious issues in my music, and I think that happened simply because the time was right for it.

I love 'Guitar Hero' because I love music, but I have no musical ability whatsoever. So I love a game that makes you feel like you're a rock star.

I'm sure if Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be doing classic guitar solos on YouTube.

Leadbelly's guitar is in the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame.

I read and write classical piano and percussion, also guitar.

My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it.

I was a schooled musician. When I made 'Blue Velvet', I told everyone what to do. I was an arranger. I learned music in school I told the band to play this. I told the guitar to do that.

Every time I listen to Jeff Beck my whole view of guitar changes radically. He's way, way out, doing things you never expect.

A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs.

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.

Most of my guitars have been instruments that look cool. I'm not picky. I never think, 'Oh, this neck isn't made of ebony,' or, 'These strings don't feel correct.' It doesn't matter too much.

Guitar players in the nineties seem to be reacting against the technique oriented eighties.

The song Dakota was first written in Paris. I was doing a promo trip. It was snowing and the hotel room was really cold and boring and for some reason I just had a go of the guitar and the song came pretty quick.

Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that's not what I call rock.

If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.

When I moved to New York to act I was no good at working restaurants - hosting, waiting, bussing, dishwashing - I wasnt good at any aspect. But I did have a guitar. So I would sing Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, but you would only hear the chorus because the train comes by every 30 seconds.

In the last couple of years I've been picking up my guitar again.

There were times I used to go to parties when I was, you know, like 15-, 16-years-old, and I'd always bring my guitar, and all my friends would be like, sing one of the Smokey songs. And everything I sang was his music, and I could sound just like him.

I have a piano and a guitar, and I tend to switch back and forth between those two instruments to help me get inspired.

On acoustic guitar I tend to stay in the key of D for some reason. On electric guitar I keep basic: C, G, D, and A. The key of D minor is also real good for me.

If you want to be negative about the whole thing you can say all guitar bands after the Beatles were just a waste of time because the Beatles were the best. I think it's far better to give new records a try.

It's always a pleasure when you can compose guitar parts from a strong vocal and not just put the melody on top of guitar riffs.

I own a '66 Jaguar. That's the guitar I polish, and baby - I refuse to let anyone touch it when I jump into the crowd.

If you have a great-sounding guitar that's a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that's the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.

I like to sing because my mother was a singer. She sang to me all the time, so I learned to love singing. I did have a career as little 10-year-old George Benson. I made my first record as a vocalist, but I've been playing guitar since I was 9.

The most obvious thing you can't do with a guitar synthesizer is to really sound like a guitar.