Top 1200 Classical Guitar Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

I just want to play like Jimi Hendrix. I love other forms of music and wish I could play classical piano, or saxophone like John Coltrane, but that will never happen. Because my nature is to play electric guitar really well and to emulate my heroes from the late 1960s.

Actually, I've had very little classical training, although I love listening to classical music very much.

I come from a very strenuous, strict, disciplined classical music background. My grandfather, noted Carnatic classical exponent Dr. Sripada Pinakapani, was a Padma Bhushan recipient.

I love contrast in music. Being inspired by classical, actually - in high school especially - classical and metal both, I remember having this cool realization that they are really similar. It's just different instrumentation.

At a young age I thought, 'Wow, that fiddle thing, that's pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums... ' They were Indian drums. And I was saying, 'But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.'

Now, guitar was pretty cool. Everybody knew something on the guitar. So I wanted to play guitar, but I told my dad if he wanted me to keep studying something, I'd like to study piano.

I didn't decide to play guitar, but that was the instrument which I was offered. I've always been interested in horn-type instruments, such as a saxophone; but those instruments are very expensive, so my dad bought me a guitar instead. I didn't like the guitar at first, but after noodling on it for several months, I developed a feel for it.

I played guitar all my life, all the way through the Yardbirds, but I knew that for me, this was going to be a guitar vehicle, because that's what I wanted it to be. There is no way I would play guitar like a tour de force like I did in Led Zeppelin.

I suppose when I started playing guitar, it was the means to an end. I never thought of myself as a fully fledged guitar instrumentalist. And my early excursions on the electric guitar were curtailed when Eric Clapton came on the scene, and I decided I was never going to be in the same arena as a Clapton or a Peter Green.

You know I'm a bit of a dag because I listen to classical music. I recently bought myself an iPod and downloaded every piece of classical music that I had access to onto that.

It was my 16th birthday-my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do-write songs and sing them to people. [...] Everything on this record is what I really wanted to say, and I'm back to being the poet I always thought I was.

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.

But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.

I believe I love my guitar more than the others love theirs. For John and Paul, songwriting is pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they're making up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar for a whole evening. I'm fascinated by new sounds I can get from different instruments I try out. I'm not sure that makes me particularly musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I'll be satisfied.

I've always been in rock bands. I was in a rock band with my brother in high school. Then I was playing classical guitar recitals, and people said, 'You know, you can't really do both things.' My intuition told me they were wrong. Somehow, what was interesting about me was that I had those two things in my life.

I'm not a really good classical guitarist by any means, but what I learned from this is a way of working very slowly on solo pieces and I enjoyed working on these pieces of John's. They were not written for solo guitar but a lot of them were easy to adapt.

For the moment, I am more focused on classical chess rather than rapid and blitz, as I am hoping to make my move in the classical World championship cycle.

As a piano player, if 10 is concert level, I'd put myself at a 5 or a 6, but in a completely different genre than classical or opera. In terms of classical and opera, playing accompaniment, I'd say I was a 3.

1962 to 1965, where suddenly the guitar became this icon of youth culture all over the world, thanks mostly to the Beatles. Add to that, that I saw A Hard Day's Night 12 or 13 times, and that the guitar was the one instrument that my parents absolutely refused to let in the house. So you add it up and see that irresistible forces led me to the guitar.

I grew up with rock and pop music from the 70s and 80s. I had to play guitar in school - it was a music college and we had to take instrument classes there - so I think guitar playing and guitar sounds have always been an influence.

When I'm at home or in the studio, I have a 1963 Martin. It's a D-28, and I love that guitar. I write on that guitar, and it's the first guitar that I put a pickup in and ran through an amplifier, splitting the signal to the amplifier and a DI or in the studio mic'ing it traditionally and putting an amp in the other room.

I'd like to be able to get more girls to play guitar. I think with a girl playing electric guitar, sometimes it's seen a bit like a guy doing ballet. All the people I learned guitar from have been guys. There are some great female players, like Bonnie Raitt and Jennifer Batten, but very few.

I actually bought a travel guitar, and that guitar is really cool. You can actually fold the guitar, and you can plug headphones into it, but it's acoustic, or semi-acoustic.

Now, guitar was pretty cool. Everybody knew something on the guitar. So I wanted to play guitar, but I told my dad if he wanted me to keep studying something, Id like to study piano.

The use of rock, folk, or pop music serves a purpose. It gets people into the church. But an inexperienced guitar player who doesn't have much to say, for example, can make me wish to leave the church immediately, whereas one great jazz or classical guitarist can confirm that I will have a spiritual experience in the church.

What interested me about Chuck Berry was the way he could step out of the rhythm part with such ease, throwing in a nice, simple riff, and then drop straight into the feel of it again. We used to play a lot more rhythm stuff. We'd do away with the differences between lead and rhythm guitar. You can't go into a shop and ask for a "lead guitar". You're a guitar player, and you play a guitar.

Many kids and parents ask me, 'What kind of guitar can I buy?' It's a great opportunity for those people to be able to buy a quality guitar that's not necessarily a little Fender or whatever. Ernie Ball signature model guitar is something that's more signature.

My family was musical on both sides. My father’s family had a famous flautist and a classical pianist. My mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple’s double — she was the diva of the family. At 8, I learned how to play guitar. I used to play songs from the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s in the kitchen for my grandmother.

My family was musical on both sides. My father's family had a famous flautist and a classical pianist. My mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple's double - she was the diva of the family. At 8, I learned how to play guitar. I used to play songs from the '20s, '30s and '40s in the kitchen for my grandmother.

Classical music only really came into my life in 1969. I wish I had heard classical music and church music when I was a teenager or even as a child.

I don't understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound. Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been using for 50 years to make sounds that no one has heard before is truly what gets me off.

Anyone who knows classical music and loves classical music has heard the Beethoven Seventh hundreds of times probably in their life.

I noticed a lot of guitar players neglected the rhythm part of rhythm guitar and decided I would try to focus in that. As my skill and knowledge of the instrument grew, I found lead started to come naturally. Sometimes I play guitar like a frustrated drummer. Ha ha!

When I'm in the classical world, I really treat it as exactly classical and I don't try and spruce it up or jazz it up or make it easier for the masses.

A lot of my training is in classical theatre; I've done a lot of classical plays in New York and also at the Guthrie and here and there across the country.

My mother was an opera singer and my grandmother a concert pianist, and they only liked classical music. If I put on a pop record, they would tell me to turn it off, so I only listen to classical.

Right now I'm listening to a lot of different things but I listen to a lot of classical music. Eventually I would like to compose and perform classical.

There is a general decline of taste for classical dance,ce, which is neglected and this must be developed from the grassroots. There is so much of razzle-dazzle... that classical dance suffers.

Theoretical physicists live in a classical world, looking out into a quantum-mechanical world. The latter we describe only subjectively, in terms of procedures and results in our classical domain.

So writing a song is much harder than doing a classical piece for me, because in a classical piece, I can just let the mood dictate what's going to happen.

Michael Bloomfield was the antithesis of a collector ... he didn't care how old a guitar was; all he wanted was something that sounded good when played it ... and he cared nothing about the collectibility of an instrument ... his philosophy was "A good player can make any guitar sound good" ... to Michael, a guitar was just a tool.

I've always been an acoustic guitar player, and I've pretty much continued to play acoustic guitar throughout all of the Sonic Youth periods. My material for Sonic Youth often started on acoustic guitar.

And what classical music does best and must always do more, is to show this kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that's something that we as classical musicians have underestimated.

Buffalo Springfield had three guitar players, and we thought they were so cool. So we started doing the three-guitar thing, and people started calling us the 'guitar army' and all this stuff.

Like my best friend, I asked for drums for Christmas, and got them. But when he moved on to guitar, I realized two things: (1) guitar is a much more expressive instrument, (2) way more girls pay attention to guitar players than to drummers.

All the really good guitar players - Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or even Bert Jansch or John Martin - I love all those people. But I didn't start out thinking that I would be a guitar player. In the beginning, I played the guitar so I could sing. I mainly concentrated on my voice.

I'm a classical ballet dancer, and at the end of the day I want to be with American Ballet Theater, performing classical ballets.

I think if you really put your mind to something you can do it. Five and a half years ago I couldn't stand on stage and play guitar. I didn't have enough talent as a kid to play guitar. I started really late. I hired a guitar teacher when I was in Nashville and I applied myself and stayed focused.

'The Shining' is operatic and sensational and... really shocking. It has this amazing meld of classical music and modern interpretations of classical music, and incredible imagery. From the set design to the costumes, there's so much to unpack.

My stepfather met my mother when I was seven years old, and he was a guitar player. So he caught me messing with his guitar, his electric guitar, and he tried to show me some chords, but my hands were too small.

I love to play a character. If I'm playing Cinderella or Aurora in 'Sleeping Beauty' or something like that, then I enjoy classical a lot. But to do just a two-minute solo, purely to show classical aesthetic, is not my favorite thing to do.

Only directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who make period films, have songs in their movies that facilitate the inclusion of classical dance forms. No one else is concentrating on making pure classical numbers.

I was trained in classical piano, but it kind of dawned on me that classical pianists compete for six job openings a year, and the rest of us get to play 'Blue Moon' in a hotel lobby.

I got a classical piano training when I was little, and we also had music study lessons where we'd have to listen to a lot of classical music.

I couldn't sing without a guitar. I like the way it feels to sing and be holding a guitar, even if I'm not playing it that much. All my idols that I grew up liking always had a guitar on them, but they didn't play it - Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello. It's like having a partner with you.

Most actors, if you ask them if they play guitar, they'll say they played guitar for 20 years, but what they really mean is they've owned a guitar for 20 years.

I keep myself open to singing in different genres like classical dance songs, light classical folk, etc. There's so much to learn and I'm glad I'm on the right path.

I think my best advice for young guitar players is that it's not an easy road - definitely not; female guitar player or male guitar player, it's not an easy road at all.

At a young age I thought, 'Wow, that fiddle thing, that's pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums ' They were Indian drums. And I was saying, 'But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.'

In those projects with Sting and Josh Groban and people like that, I see a very interesting effect: their fans coming to my classical concerts, people who've never been to a classical show at all.