A Quote by Julian Bream

My father played one of the first electric guitars in England. He built his own in 1940, because you couldn't buy them in those days. He used three telephone pickups under the strings, which gave chronic distortion on chords but was quite good on single notes.
If your going to learn to play lead guitar, get an electric guitar .. it doesn't have to be an expensive one .. acoustic guitars aren't good for learning lead, because you can't play up very high on the neck and they take heavier-gauge strings which makes it hard to bend notes
I used to play a lot of electric guitar. I don't really consider myself a guitar player anymore. Then I got really into how the pickups work. And winding and de-winding Telecaster pickups. And then building Telecasters. And I became more fascinated with making them than I was with actually playing them. So it's a slippery slope.
My first experience with music was my father, he was a stereo buff and he built his own little Hi-Fi center with recorders and everything and I listened to a lot of jazz, which gave me a sensibility for melody.
Like a Star' has a very simple melody, and when you play it, it's only about three notes for ages, and it's quite boring. But when you hear the chords, the chords are sort of different than the melody, and it's pulling it around and making it mean something else.
My uncle was the first one in my family to get a telephone. It was like going to the moon. He came running over to tell us, and we were so proud. A telephone! We didn't have to go to the candy store to phone any more. We went around telling everyone. But we didn't hear from my uncle for three days, so my father got worried. He said, Let's go over there. We got there, and my uncle was very depressed. I asked, What's the matter? He said, I got a telephone and nobody called me. He didn't give his number out - he didn't know that you had to!
I just started off on my own by learning the regular chords then the barre chords. Then I'd lean the notes that would go with them.
I started playing when I was about 13, mainly because Dad had guitars lying around the house. My dad taught me my first three chords, and I taught myself from there.
When we first started, in the early Eighties, we had some crappy guitars - Japanese knockoffs that wouldn't hold standard tuning. Later, we'd shove drumsticks or screwdrivers under strings to scheme new noises, sure. But initially, open tuning was a technique used to make our cheap guitars sound better. It wasn't academic or conceptual.
I used to break three or four strings a night, and the show would be over because I didn't know how to change the strings.
I probably own 100 guitars and all of them are electric.
This band - because this is myself on electric and acoustic guitars - we've done three tours together now and I really, really like it which is why I did the DVD as well.
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.
Electric guitars are an abomination, whoever heard of an electric violin? An electric cello? Or for that matter an electric singer?
My father died when I was two years old. But my mother was quite capable. She raised three children with his war pension which was peanuts. Yet we did not want for anything. We grew up with a certain parsimony, which is a nice thing. Then if life gives you more good, otherwise you get used to. I'm still thrifty.
The lute I use has 10 courses and 19 strings, which is quite a lot of strings and a quite different fingerboard width from a classical guitar. I use a combination of flesh and nail when plucking the strings.
I started playing the guitar when I was 14. I'm not superstitious about guitars, but I do need strings to be old because that's part of my sound, and I don't like steel strings.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!