Top 1200 Guitar Playing Quotes & Sayings - Page 18

I don't think there's any danger of me playing Indian music. However, I did a song of George Harrison's 'Beware of Darkness' that was kind of like that. That was an illusion. I was playing that on a thumbtack piano, and Jim Gordon was playing tablas. He's an amazing player. That was as close to India as I ever got.

I don't ever have any bass in my monitors at all; I instead like to lock in with the guitar. I know the bass player has got to be locked in with the drummer, but to me, metal music is about the guitar and drums locking in and operating like a machine together. I played with my brother forever, and we were magically locked in together.

Obviously when you grow up in the area you love playing on the street, and to go from playing on the street with my mates to playing at Upton Park is a bit surreal, and 15 years on to still be in the heart of the West Ham midfield is quite good going!

Playing main-draw matches helps, and playing in front of crowds and playing in big matches definitely helps, getting them all under your belt.

When a new record came out, the world would stop that day, and we would sit in somebody's house - whoever had the best stereo system - and sit in the middle of the two speakers and listen and discuss and listen again and go over the album notes and get out the guitar and start playing it and discuss and play some more.

The first thing that got to me was seeing David Bowie on a children's TV show, but Bowie was way beyond my aspirations. The Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch came out in 1977 and it had a breakdown of the recording costs, then you saw Pete Shelley playing a broken guitar from Woolworths. We already had an idea of the kind of music we wanted to do, but punk showed us a way to do it.

One time I said: maybe I should burn a guitar tonight. You know smash a guitar or something like that. And they said: yeah, yeah! I said: you really think I should? They said: yeah, that'd be cool. I said: well, ok.

For me, I guess music has always been the through-line. You know, I played guitar from a really young age, and my dad played, and my cousin gave me a drum kit when I was 13, and I played bass guitar, so, you know, it was definitely always in the house.

I wanted to get a guitar [when I was 13] so I could play punk songs because kid taught me power chords at summer camp. He was like, "You could play all punk songs if you just learn this chord and just move it around on the guitar".

Never having thought of writing for the guitar, I asked Julian Bream for a chart which would explain what the guitar could do. I managed to write some rather pretty pieces for him, except that the first six notes of the first piece all need to be played on open strings. So when he begins to play the audience will probably think he's tuning the bloody thing up!

When I was 5, I started taking singing lessons, and then, after 'School of Rock,' I started taking guitar lessons. I would always write songs and play them for my friends, and I would play my guitar on the set a lot.

I hope our legacy will be enduring and that people think of us as an important band. But I think Ricky's guitar playing, our style of writing, the fact that we had men and women in the band and gay and straight, I think it's an important band, and the way we wrote by jamming, we really had a different approach.

Grab a guitar, put some kind of strings on it, a banjo string, then a violin string, then a guitar string, tune it any way you want, and make some noise, and see what you get. And work on it until you get something that you think is interesting. That's all there is to art for me.

The secret to comedy is not playing the comedy, but actually playing the situation, playing the drama of it.

Lately I haven't been able to write for the guitar - it'll usually start out with a melody on the bass, and I'll layer vocals. I just can't really physically hear the guitar anymore, so I'll just go into GarageBand and play around with the keys. I'll sit on a melody or some lyrics for a really long time and just play with it.

When you're playing a real person, there's a balance between playing the person in the script and playing the person as he was in life. You have to be respectful and true to who that person was, but at the same time tell the story in the film.

I like rock and roll t-shirts, tight jeans, and sneakers or boots. Really just laid back, sort of rock and roll. I'm a sneaker person. I don't really like to wear high heels. I'm always really paranoid when I'm on stage playing guitar that I'm going to trip over one of the cords when I'm prancing around so I have on wedges or shoes that are not too high.

Just because you're a solo artist playing guitar, that doesn't make it folk. People get a bit confused about these things. There's so many more aspects to my music than that. Earlier on in my career, people tried to push me in that direction. They kind of wanted me to be a folky princess, which was just never gonna happen. I don't understand quite why it is, but it is very irritating that it's still happening.

When I was 15 years old, my cousin and I formed a singing group called The Altaires. And, because we became the most popular singing group in the Tri-State area, the rest of the group convinced me I should play the guitar - even though I didn't own one! So what happened was, my stepfather actually made my first electric guitar for me for $23!

I practice really hard, every day. I started that about 13 or 14 years ago; it's a discipline now. But the writing is a whole other thing. It'll come from handling a guitar, mostly; thinking up little guitar riffs. I was born and raised a rock 'n' roll guy, and that's the rock 'n' roll ethic, at least through my experience.

Playing and fun are not the same thing, though when we grow up we may forget that and find ourselves mixing up playing with happiness. There can be a kind of amnesia about the seriousness of playing, especially when we played by ourselves.

Yeah. I started using them [SDD-3000s] shortly after first working with Edge on The Unforgettable Fire. Basically, I stole his sound. It wasn't a complicated rig: just a guitar he liked through a Korg SDD-3000 digital delay into a Vox. Three components, mono - that's it. The great thing about the Korgs is its three-position level switch, which lets you hit the amp with about 10 extra dB. It's more overdriven than if you just plugged the guitar straight into the amp, even when it's on bypass. But a lot of the guitar sounds on Achtung Baby were recorded through a Korg A3 effects processor.

I just think that the question of women in rock or women playing guitar, I just think it's such a non-issue, and I think that probably the sooner critics and press outlets can just erase the 'what's it like being a women in rock?' question from their vocabulary, the better off everyone will be.

I don't really make a distinction because when I'm acting, I feel like an actor, and when I DJ, I feel like a DJ, and when I play the guitar, I feel like a guitar player. I don't know which I prefer. I think I just like to perform, in some way or another.

I play the guitar when I want to relax. But to play the guitar, you cut the nails. So one day, I'll cut the nails off.

I lived deep in the country in northern Wisconsin. I didn't have any neighbors or anything, so in the summers, I played guitar for hours and hours every day until I was about 18. I never thought about combining it with drag, 'cause to me, well, drag queens don't play guitar. Now I'm like, 'You idiot, that's an opportunity.'

I owe a lot to playing on the street. And what was even better than playing on the street was playing football with my friends in the local graveyard. It was fantastic. We forgot what the time was and didn't even go home for our meals.

After watching a couple of live performances of bands like Nirvana, I was really excited and inspired by how raw and powerful it was. I wanted to at least aim in that direction with the guitar and do my own version of it. I know it doesn't really sound like that on the other end, but I wanted guitar, heavy rhythms, and singing to be the stamp of the whole thing.

I love to learn, and I started doing a lot of studying of Spanish-style music and really started getting into it and how it is just a completely different form of guitar playing. It is just like if you started speaking in a different language like Japanese or something. It is something that you have to study and work at a lot.

I was chubby in high school. I used to go to my information technology class, and I would type really fast to get the lesson done quick because the teacher had a little acoustic guitar, and there was a girl I had a crush on in the class. I would take the guitar and pretend to be some great singer-songwriter, serenade her with joke songs.

When you're playing a real person there's a balance between playing the person in the script and playing the person as he was in life. You have to be respectful and true to who that person was, but at the same time tell the story in the film.

Lenny Breau is one of the true geniuses of the guitar. I suppose he is a musician's musician. His knowledge of the instrument and the music is so vast, and I think that's what knocks people out about him. But he's such a tasty player too. I think if Chopin had played guitar, he would have sounded like Lenny Breau.

Being a musician since I was a teen, Guitar Center is the staple. You need anything to create, it's there. You need a Guitar Center. You gotta give it homage. It's a tool shed, and without the tool shed, it's hard to create.

I did all my guitar playing at my house. And then finally, I was throwing hay and stuff working in Stockton and somebody offered - somehow they had heard me singing at the house and said: Hey, I'll hire you for our fraternity party or sorority party. And I said: Well, are they going to pay me? And he said: Yeah, we'll pay you 50 bucks.

Romance was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes.

A basketball was in my hands 24/7, playing one-on-one against everybody and anybody, trying to prove against the older guys, just playing. The wind blowing outside, double rims, stuff like that, just always playing ball.

Even back then I really didn't enjoy playing chord changes, riffs, and solos when I was young. The only thing I enjoyed playing were these Robert Fripp-type double-picked loops that no one wanted to hear, including me; I just liked playing them.

I know what love feels like. That is one thing I have found. That is one thing that is much clearer because of fibromyalgia. Because once you experience real pain you recognize the vibration, the feeling of being healthy, happy and loved. If I'm not living from my heart, I get sick. I need to do things that feed my soul, like being with people I love, or playing my guitar, or listening to music.

On stage I have to be comfortable because I play guitar so I can't wear too much jewellery, it knocks against the guitar and makes loud noises. I had this big gold eagle necklace which I love but I kept whacking myself in the face with it so had to stop wearing it. I wear things that I can sweat in, basically... it gets really hot on stage.

I was in New York City and my sister and cousin came out to see me, and I brought a guitar on stage. But all the audience wanted was for me to play so they weren't listing to anything I was saying, I bombed hard. On the cab ride home, my sister pulled a sticker off the cab and put it on my guitar which I still have today in my man cave.

I know it sounds stupid, but we're just playing. We're playing hard, but we're just playing.

For me, playing simply is dribbling. For me, playing one or two touches is harder. Playing simply is the most difficult thing.

Once you get out there and start playing basketball, whether the NBA or college or whatever arena you are playing in or who you are playing in front of, the juices start going, and you want to just go out there and play to the best of your abilities.

Jimi Hendrix came on TV on this documentary and it was this African-American soulful black guy, playing an electric guitar, which I'd just started. And it just blew my head off. I had like an afro at the time, too. It was a bit all over the place. And it wasn't a thing to have an afro. No, that's kind of quite old school. You're supposed to have like a neatly cut shaped up haircut.

Well, to tell you the straight honest truth, it was like a Grateful Dead cover band. I didn't feel - and nothing against the guys - I didn't feel that they were opening up like they should. I'll tell you what, with guitar players, Steven has what I like in guitar players.

When I was playing week-in week-out, I was playing 46 games a season, and there's nothing better than playing every week.

Every girl is a singer. I wanted to learn the solos and play lead guitar. I would meticulously teach myself solos so when dudes were like, 'Oh, you're a girl, you can't play guitar,' I could rip these insane Telecaster blues solos and tell them, 'Yeah, I can burn up a fret board.'

Well, it grow together. It's like, first time I try to write a song is the first time I try to play the guitar. And so I can write a song without the guitar. But it really grow together. I really like stay with my guitar. But it just happen, is the inspiration come through man. Because, I personally, it look like, could I write a whole heap a tune, it look like. But I pick special tune to write. Cause a man can think of plenty things. Yuh know wah ah mean.

Instead of buying a guitar for $2,000 or $2,500 - I'm not sure how much these are going for - but it's maybe $300 or something like that. It's more for beginners and stuff like that. Obviously it's not hitting the pros. And you can't get the Piezo pickup and the color-changing paint and the inlays and all the fancy things that my signature guitars offer, but you can get the general feel of the guitar - and the body style. It's cool.

In general, we like to play as a band - guitar, piano, and voice. We also tour with a bass player, a drummer, and somebody who plays keyboard and guitar. We try to play all of our parts and flesh it out to get a lush sound, while also keeping the energy of a three-piece punk act. We want to be the best of all possible worlds.

I don't think there's any music that you hear on the radio today that would be possible without Jimi Hendrix. Rock, blues-rock, heavy metal, any guitar stuff when you get right down to it - Jimi did it. He's certainly the guy who basically invented the blues-rock genre for guitar players.

When you go to bed at night, you get seven or eight hours of sleep. I've had enough sleep. I've rested, and it's as simple as that. I want to do it now. I didn't want to three years ago. I was waiting until it felt right. I wanted to get back to falling in love with my guitar again, and hanging out with my guitar like I would a friend.

The only reason I'm in 'Kingsman' is because Matthew enjoys playing with the unexpected. I'm not playing Harry Hart because I'm the butchest actor in Britain. I'm playing it because he said I'm the last person anyone would expect to see in that role!

I enjoy playing real human beings after playing a lot of larger than life characters. I love playing true to life characters and that is what I intend to do for the majority of my career.

I've seen a lot of people getting into Jazzmasters because of me, and, well, people don't know what they're in for. I mean if you're looking for endless sustain, you're going to have to get it out of your hands (laughs). Because a saxophonist gets it out of his breath. You've got to work for it on the guitar - it means you have to pull it out of yourself, otherwise, what are you doing? You end up playing a lot of noise or scale exercises.

I fool around with guitar and I can fool around on piano. I don't really play either instrument although I can play a couple of songs on guitar. You don't really need to be able to play to compose. There are many composers and arrangers who work out of their heads.

I think we choose gear by the way that it looks. We choose lots of things by the way that it looks. I don't like bands that look like roadies. I don't like when I can't tell who's the guitar tech and who's the guitar player.

Jesus, music has always been my first love. I use music in my work because it's the fastest way to an emotional place. You hear a song, and that memory comes right back-- you're there... Making music is immediate, and it's all about you. If you're playing guitar, the feeling comes through-- the way you bend the note, the intensity with which you hit the strings. With making films, although it's real emotion, it's false emotion. You're lying.

When I picked up guitar, it wasn't like, 'OK, I'm going to be Kenny Chesney.' It was like, 'I want to play a chord,' and then it was like, 'I want to play another one, then play a song, then sing while playing the song.'

You're never really playing yourself. You're always acting. It's an illusion that you're really playing yourself. The only time I'm playing myself is when I'm at home!