Quotes About Guitar

I bought a book with guitar tabs and forced myself to learn. I would go to school and then come home and sit in my room for hours figuring out the songs.

I am trying to build the biggest callus possible on my first finger so I can do one-finger bends and vibrato like B.B. King.

We had a music teacher in sixth grade, and I saw her tune her guitar. I said, 'Whoa. There's a certain way to do this.' I bought a packet of strings - some of mine were broken - and had her tune it for me. For a while, I just kept it like that. But I got the Internet finally, when I was 14, and started learning.

It's a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can't do.

The whole thing about 'The Rover' is the whole swagger of it, the whole guitar attitude swagger. I'm afraid I've got to say it, but it's the sort of thing that is so apparent when you hear 'Rumble' by Link Wray - it's just total attitude, isn't it?

There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.

I was very influenced by Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, both of whom I had the pleasure of playing with and becoming friends with.

I started guitar when I was like thirteen. I had a friend whose dad had an electric guitar. In sixth grade or seventh grade I went over and played it and immediately I was super excited by the whole thing.

For me, the most difficult thing is that I am learning melodies on guitar from some songs whose melodies were not meant to be played on guitar. Ever. They were intended mostly for keyboards or melodic percussion.

I come from a very musical family. My dad taught me to play guitar. I play violin and drums as well. Violin, I started in elementary school. Drums actually came when I was in a program called 'Rock Star,' which was really awesome. We were doing a song by the Ramones, so I thought, 'Why not play the drums?'

A violin neck is much smaller than the guitar's, so it's much easier to play wide intervals on one violin string. On the guitar, you really have to stretch to play them.

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.

About the only other thing I'd want would be a wider neck. My fingers are so fat that sometimes I deaden the string next to the one I'm fretting.

No two notes are ever the same volume. With the guitar, you really have to model in your mind this wider thing; you're trying to create the illusion of a bigger dynamic range.

I think a guitar solo is how my emotion is most freely released, because verbal articulation isn't my strongest communication strength. My wife thinks that I should do interviews by listening to the questions and playing the answer on guitar.

It was in San Diego and I was onstage and couldn't remember how to play the guitar properly. I was in terrible pain and my nervous system was just going wild, like somebody had just run a car over me.

I had piano lessons at five and started guitar at ten, but although music and acting was always around me, my parents never pressured me into it.

My brother, who's ten years younger than me, worked with me in the studio when he was very young. He's a guitar player and does programming as well. To have the working and personal relationship coincide has been very natural.

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.

I watch films. I play the guitar: me and some mates - I wouldn't dignify it with the term band - get together and play.

Before, I was terrified on stage. I only play guitar during the acoustic songs. After a while, you can elicit certain responses from the crowd, like Elvis.

Seriously, though, I think the only musical term that's ever put a bee in my bonnet is 'shred.' I tried to peddle the term 'Terrifying Guitar' to the world, but it just didn't stick. Now we've got 'shred.'

I'd go to the farmers' market in Santa Barbara, and I'd put out my guitar case, and I'd test out these little ditty songs that I would write, and I would get a couple of avocados, a bag of pistachios, and, like, fifteen bucks. That was a lot of money for me.

I guess that somehow I've survived as a professional guitar player. I've made it 16 years now and I feel like I'm just getting started. Variety is a secret to the success of that.