Quotes About Guitar

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.'

After 40 years of not playing, I admit I'm totally in love with my guitar. It's a Froggy Bottom acoustic steel string guitar. All I have to do is hit a couple of clean chords and the endorphins are right there. It's like the top of my head has come off and stardust and magic have fallen in.

Initially, I just used the guitar as a prop. I'd pose with it in front of a mirror in my Kiss makeup when I was skipping school. Then I figured out how to play the main riff to Deep Purple's 'Smoke on the Water' on just the E string. Next, my old man showed me how to play barre chords, and that's when things started getting really heavy.

When I practise scales I will play four notes on one string. If I'm playing a C major scale, starting on F, I'll play the F, G, A, and B on one string and the C will be on the A string, etc, etc. Because I found not only was it good for my hands but it was really good for interconnecting things.

I think when I began, I played distortion more than the guitar. The results of my strumming. Now I play the twang of the string, which is a lot closer to the source of the sound making.

Well, I guess that early 12 string. The first Martin I bought. I bought it around 1957 with money I earned as a janitor assistant. I bought brand new. I still have that.

I play a couple basic folks songs and break them down. I did that on a six string. I can't recall all the songs on it. There's some finger picking on it.

Piano feels soft. Violins and all different string instruments feel soft. Guitar, even electric guitar before you start adding distortion, that you can play soft.

The easiest place to get a natural harmonic on any string is at the 12th fret. All you do is lightly rest one of your left-hand fingers on a string directly above that fret and then pick it.

I never use pull-offs because I don't like the sort of 'meow' sound they make with the string being deflected sideways.

I much rather coach a string quartet in an interpretation of Haydn or Beethoven than to teach the guitar.

When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn't go to the sixth string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings. I was only 6 or 7.

My guitar only has five strings 'cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.

I remember when I was coming up, the music stores where you could get guitar strings was where I got my records from. Now the place where you get your records from is where you can get your DJ mats and your mixers.

I'll always leave the same set of strings on my guitars when I'm recording. If I break one I'll just replace it instead of putting on a whole new set of strings.

I don't believe that heavy strings make it all that much bigger-sounding. If anything, it can mess up your fingers, and you can get tendonitis, which is not cool.

All gut strings. That's just the first kind of guitar I played, it was a nylon string guitar. And to me, it's the purest form of guitar making, and I just enjoy doing it.

I can do the old hand vibrato just fine, but I like attacking the strings.

Aww, come on man, I can barely handle 6 strings.

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

For me, anything can be music! I can get huge enjoyment and be moved totally by the purity and perfection of some Renaissance polyphony, but equally I can feel emotion in the expectant hum of a big old guitar amp just before the strings are hit.

I absolutely remember when I decided upon playing Ernie Ball strings, and it was right then and there at the guitar store up in Seattle when I picked up my first guitar ever. They said, 'What kind of strings should we put on it?' And I just looked at the brightest color package and said, 'That one!'

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 tried the guitar, but it had two strings too many. It was just too complicated, man! Plus, I grew up with Steve Cropper. There were so many good guitar players, another one wasn't needed. What was needed was a bass.