A Quote by Paul Simon
My voice is my improvisational instrument, the melody instrument. The guitar is harmonic structure. I'm not a good enough guitarist to improvise on it.
Related Quotes
Preparing to improvise is at a level commensurate with mastering the structure in a European classical piece. Another way to define improvisation is spontaneous melody. In order to improvise, a player first needs to have memorized and analyzed the harmonic structure of so many pieces.
The [guitar is the] instrument most complete and richest in its harmonic and polyphonic possibilities.
What an unfortunate instrument the guitar is! An instrument of such great nobility, a genuine monarch of music-- reduced to a pitiful lump of wood with six strings, constantly abused by people with no ear and no voice.
I always think of a voice as an instrument, whether a voice is a trumpet, or violin, or bass. You know what I mean? A horn or wind instrument versus a string instrument. Horn instruments are definitely more toward jazz.
The guitar has become a textural instrument rather than a lead instrument. And I think that's probably a good thing.
The cult of the instrument is O.K. for people who are mad about the guitar. But I love music. The guitar is just the instrument I happen to play.
Only having one melody instrument in play at a time meant that we could improvise more in our practices.
I think it all comes back to the individual. My instrument's just a pile of metal and wood! If you listen to the way I speak I have a lot of rhythm, use a lot of accents. When I'm playing my instrument that concept comes through very clearly. In fact some people who've seen me play have noticed that I'm singing - but it's more that I'm actually speaking. So it's not really about the instrument. But for me, in my thinking, the music is all about the melody. When I compose, 99 percent of the time I start with the melody.
Learning the notes on the fretboard is key to any guitarist's development on the instrument, and [Guitar] Trainer HD is a neat way to get that info burned into your brain without having to carry a guitar with you everywhere you go. Pretty cool!
It is amazing when you try and write songs without an instrument. It kind of forces the melody to be honed it. It has to be good. A lot of what I think are my best songs were made without an instrument.
The cello is such a versatile instrument. It can rock like the hardest rock guitar, and it can sing like the human voice. We couldn't do what we do without the classical training. It's a hard instrument to play. There are no frets, and it takes finesse and technique to play.
Once I got a guitar that was relatively user-friendly, but not super-duper easy, I really came on as a guitarist, at that point. It helped. It was a super-expensive guitar either, but something needs to steer you a bit, if you're playing an instrument that is really hard.
It is difficult to understand the fortunes of an instrument. There was music written for the guitar until the mid-19th century. Then the instrument declined in popularity.
I like to use my voice as an instrument and just play along with the music. That's really how I tend to my voice. The content usually comes after or during that process of just trying to be an instrument.
In the piano, one has the instrument complete before he begins; but in the case of the voice, the instrument has to be developed by study.
I try not to talk during the day when I have a show that night. My voice is my instrument, just like a saxophonist's instrument is his saxophone, plus also his voice, if he's the one between tunes that makes announcements.
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