Top 76 Great Guitar Quotes
#1. Great guitar players are a dime a dozen. It is sometimes your very limitations as players that set you apart from the crowd.
Dean Wareham
#2. I did a song, "Court and Spark," for a Joni Mitchell tribute album that's yet to see the light of day. So she's someone I'd like to do something with, sure. I worked with the great guitar player Bill Frisell on Phantom Moon - that was fun. I'm such a fan; he's amazing.
Duncan Sheik
#3. With all these great (guitar teachers) around here, don't cop their licks, COP THEIR ATTITUDE.
Leo Kottke
#4. The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.
Ian Anderson
#5. Yeah," he says. "We've been friends since kindergarten. Funniest guy I know," Matt says with a chuckle. "He's a great guitar player, too. He's in a band with some guys from Omaha South. He keeps trying to get me to join."
"What do you play?" I ask.
"Baseball," Matt jokes.
Cat Patrick
#6. At some point, I had to make a decision: I could practice more and become a really great guitar player or I could work on writing better songs. There are only so many hours in the day, and I found writing songs more fulfilling than working on becoming this virtuoso guitar player.
James Iha
#7. I didn't want to fall into the trap of competing with all these other great guitar players. I just want to sidestep the whole thing and get out of the race.
Kirk Hammett
#8. And I had not much of a voice. I didn't play that great guitar either.
Leonard Cohen
#9. To me, the hook of the riff is what makes a great guitar recording. It's the backbone of the whole song. When you have a strong riff, it's the rocket fuel for the track.
Dwight Yoakam
#10. Most of my music theory knowledge is based on piano. But I write on guitar a lot, too. I'm not a great guitar player by any means. I'm not a great instrumentalist. I play piano on stage. I don't play guitar on stage, but I use it to write quite a lot.
Zooey Deschanel
#11. Bryan Adams might not be what I want to put on, but he's a pop singer with a great voice and great guitar tone. Plus, he's done more for Canada than Rush have, because he works all the time. I envy him for that.
Alex Lifeson
#12. I love Jimi Hendrix obviously, and Jimmy Page and Prince. And also Elvis Presley is a really great guitar player. I don't think he ever took lessons; he was piecing it together himself. But he has great rhythm. And rhythm, to me, you can use it to your advantage if you're not all over the fretboard.
Brittany Howard
#13. Steve Fister is a great guitar player. He's ROCKIN'!!
Walter Trout
#14. The bulk of my set is instrumental and you have to give yourself and the audience some relief because a performance is not about great guitar playing it's really about entertainment.
Leo Kottke
#16. I don't really care what music's made on - I love guitars, but I'm fine with great electronic music.
Johnny Marr
#17. Directing is like guitar playing. That's a unique mind-set and talent, unto itself. I like the idea of putting everything together to make a great movie.
Slash
#18. My dad taught me to play the guitar. We grew up with country music. We had every Willie Nelson record (laughs). I was saved at a young age and had a great desire to follow God. I was really focused on that through my whole life, even as a kid and through high school.
Chris Tomlin
#19. To be in Boston, which is a great city and which is full of many colleges and young kids, and to be around that many people that were at the same point in their lives, who played guitar or whatever instrument - it was just perfect. It was a great environment.
John Petrucci
#20. If you have a great-sounding guitar that's a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that's the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.
Eddie Van Halen
#21. To stay a great singer or guitar player, you've got to do it 24/7. That's what I do.
Sammy Hagar
#22. It's always great playing with other musicians. It's also a great situation where I'm the older guy, I've influenced generations of guitar players.
Ace Frehley
#23. I was an original Elvis fan. He was the voice of my generation. I was listening to him on the radio when he released his great Sun records with Scotty Moore on electric guitar and Bill Black on bass.
Ronnie Milsap
#24. 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.
Sergei Lukyanenko
#25. One day you pick up the guitar and you feel like a great master, and the next day you feel like a fool. It's because we're different every day, but the guitar is always the same ... beautiful.
Tommy Emmanuel
#26. There are some people who do great stuff singing and playing fiddle at the same time and doing that kind of arrangement. But I think [I don't do that] partially because I'm still a loner on the guitar and banjo.
Sam Amidon
#27. There is a great book out called 'Everything I Needed to Learn I Learned in Kindergarten,' and I believe that everything I ever needed to learn on guitar was in my first two years of hungry learning: Scotty Moore, Hank Marvin, Chet Atkins, Lenny Breau, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.
Randy Bachman
#28. I'm a boxing junkie, a serial-killer junkie, and a classical guitar junkie. All of these guys are great, poetic references.
Mark Kozelek
#29. Badfinger was pretty good. It was a very sad story, though, because the guy, he ended up killing himself, Pete Ham, who was a lovely fellow, he was a good guitar player and a great singer, he wrote, the most famous tune I would imagine is "Without You", you know the Harry Nilsson record.
George Harrison
#30. The guitar is of no great importance to me. The people it brings to me are what matter. They are what I'm extremely grateful for, because they are alive. The guitar is just an apparatus.
Pat Martino
#31. Most things in my life I had before leaving home. Values, support, great family. I was shaped at an early age. A musician playing guitar, I wanted to be a folk singer.
Sissy Spacek
#32. I don't sing. I played guitar for a while. I'm not great, I'm not Lenny Kravitz by any means, but I do like to strum.
Liam Hemsworth
#33. I've known Shawn for several years. And he's just an amazing talent. He's a great writer, a marvelous, marvelous guitar player, and plays really good fiddle.
Guy Clark
#34. Sometimes, the best songs are the ones you write without any pen and paper or audio recording device or guitar in your hands. Because there's nothing between you and the melody; it's just a great lyric.
Jon Foreman
#35. CA means Charismatic Amalgamation of great experiences of life. I am a Chartered Accountant.
Vikrmn
#36. Mention Hubert Sumlin, as well, because Hubert's a great man, and again, you know, I don't play the guitar very good, but when I'm playing this kind of music, I always have him in my mind. I wish I could play like Hubert.
Elvis Costello
#37. For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.
Andy Summers
#38. Pat Benatar might need a rock band, but I can just sit with a blues guitar for an hour and a half and do folk songs and great contemporary ballads, and not many people can pull that off.
Bonnie Raitt
#39. If you are having trouble making a chord, get a book, that is how I learned. There are guitar tuning apps so you can tune your guitar, and just learn how to play along with your records. And it's great to be able to play along with another musician. That is like trial by fire.
Joan Jett
#40. Guitar makes even have a word for these baby-boomers-who-alwyas-wanted-to-be-great-guitarists-and-now-have-the-money-to-indulge-those-dreams: dentists
Tim Brookes
#41. Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you're still playing a guitar.
Daisy Berkowitz
#42. I think we raised about 20,000 pounds. There was a live performance thing so we thought we'd donate the equipment for an online charity in Britain. I hated to part with my guitar, but it was for such a great cause.
Dan Hawkins
#43. Writing songs is an essential part of my life: my mother teaches piano, and I have inherited my grandparents' passion for music, especially from my grandfather Tommy, who was a great drummer. It's no coincidence that I play the drums best, but I am also good with the guitar and the piano.
Caleb Landry Jones
#44. I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.
Neil Peart
#45. I am the Great White Buffalo and I play an American-made Gibson guitar that can blow your head clean off at 100 paces.
Ted Nugent
#46. Being a songwriter, singer, and a great part of a unit is more important than being Joe Guitar Hero.
Vivian Campbell
#47. It was great to do August Rush and have all the challenges of playing that character, especially the American accent for the first time and also playing the guitar and the conducting I had to do.
Freddie Highmore
#48. With the guitar I've suffered a great deal, but when I've had a good time, the suffering seemed worthwhile,
Paco De Lucia
#49. May was so great to work with, he even took me over to Japan for some dates. It blew me away when he let me play his guitar on stage with him.
Gary Hoey
#50. The best music happens when you have a personal connection to it. That same philosophy can extend to the instrument you hold in your hands: if a guitar means something special, you're bound to do great things with it.
Frank Iero
#51. I wish I had met [Francesca] Woodman forty years ago. It would have been great to live with her for a year. She didn't save anything. She played the camera like a new guitar. She murdered herself out taking pictures ...
Richard Prince
#52. In recording, you're trying to make something work sonically - getting the right inflection on the right guitar sound - and maybe a part that would be musically great doesn't sound as cool.
Beck
#53. Some people are just really goofy kind of guitar acts, and they go out and do these colleges and start making a fortune pretty early on. And other people - I know guys who are great comics, who've done the Letterman show many times, who still barely pay their bills.
Greg Giraldo
#54. A tennis racket makes a great fake guitar!
Isaac
#55. We had a wonderful time with this kind of grunge awareness, where suddenly rock was cool again. People wanted to head loud guitars. It was a great time, and I'm glad we were there. But the gimmick part has worn off.
Billy Corgan
#56. I wish I played guitar so I could start a band with great musicians.
Diplo
#57. I always thought Kurt Cobain was the perfect embodiment of the great alternative guitar player.
Billy Corgan
#58. I love playing guitar. It's the only thing I've ever really been great at,
Johnny Winter
#59. I originally wanted to be a singer, but I was average. I made 18 records, but none were that great. I was in a dance band at Bournemouth Pavilion for three years, and I played guitar too.
Tony Blackburn
#60. The thing about guitar players is we're all like a brotherhood or sisterhood. We don't care if you're great, good, bad, in between or whatever. As long as you love it, then we're all going to help each other.
Tommy Emmanuel
#61. I'm a guitar player, really - I mean, first and foremost - I grew up with all that great 1960s music, in terms of growing up, becoming a musician, so it's like first-love stuff; I'm always going to go back to it.
Todd Rundgren
#62. Muddy Waters, I suppose, was my first great hero. You know, every boy wants to be a guitar player, and Muddy Waters was just the king. He was the King Bee. He was it.
Hugh Laurie
#63. Guitarists shouldn't get too riled up about all of the great players that were left off of 'Rolling Stone Magazines' list of the Greatest Guitar Players of all Time' ... Rolling Stone is published for people who read the magazine because they don't know what to wear ...
Joe Satriani
#64. I learned guitar solely for the purpose of meeting women. I'd heard it's a great lady-catcher.
Tony Revolori
#65. To be a great band it's like you have that telepathy. You know when the bass player's in back of you without even looking. You know when your guitar player's coming up to you to lean up to you and sing into your microphone. You just know these things. You feel it. You feel the energy of it.
Scott Weiland
#66. 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.'
Robbie Robertson
#67. Write great songs that sound amazing if sung and played on the piano or acoustic guitar. Always encourage sing-alongs! Be prolific! Say "Yes" to new collaborations because you never know where it could lead.
Wendy Starland
#68. At the Muddy Waters thing, I played the first song by myself on an acoustic guitar. I thought that was great that y'all did that tribute to Muddy Waters. I had a real good time.
Gregg Allman
#69. They say well begun half done; but Perseverance on the way down takes you up to a great end.
Vikrmn
#70. Even though there are some great keyboard players on the album, there are a number of songs with no keyboard on them and the backing is all guitar oriented. This is first time I've ever done this actually.
Lee Ritenour
#71. I can't remember the first song I learned to play on bass, but the first song I learned to play on guitar was 'For Your Love' by the Yardbirds. That kind of was the beginning for me. I thought it was a great song and I loved the open chord progression at the beginning of that song.
Geddy Lee
#72. Bob Dylan is great. I've been compared to him a lot. I think when people see a person on stage with a guitar they just think, 'Bob Dylan!'
Jake Bugg
#73. I would just like to say that Ritchie Blackmore did a bunch of great stuff guitar - wise. I'm happy to play the solo from 'Highway Star'. I always thought it was one of the most exciting guitar solos I'd ever played ...
Steve Morse
#74. I created this picture of this character who would play the guitar effortlessly, who had no limitations, performing beautiful music, and he moved around with great acrobatic skills, just capturing the audience and being a great entertainer.
Steve Vai
#75. Guitar is great for a certain thing, but a piano is so much more expansive.
Mick Ralphs
#76. I loved rock and roll when that came in, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, all those great records. So I begged my mom and dad for a guitar, which eventually they did get me for Christmas, but it went out of tune very quickly, and it hurt my fingers.
Ian McLagan
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