Quotes About Playing Guitar

#1. My first instrument was actually the trombone, but that didn't last long. Soon I was playing guitar in bands from the time I was 11 or 12.

Dave Grohl

#2. I just started playing guitar and started singing and started working on this act that I would call 'Don McLean' when I was probably in high school.

Don McLean

#3. If you told me I was going to live to 240, I would take 10 years off and try and act. I don't have that kind of time, so I'd much rather stick to playing guitar.

John Mayer

#4. I'm just very sort of compulsive and lack the ability to keep things in perspective. If I'm not writing or playing guitar or on the microphone or out on the road, I'm cleaning pots and pans or freaking out about some plumbing issue or tweeting.

Marc Maron

#5. Catfish is not playing guitar no more, he's doing like a home-front thing. He had been in the business around ten years before I got in it, so I guess he's had enough of it.

Bootsy Collins

#6. How many people have stopped playing guitar, writing poetry, or painting watercolors - activities packed with flow triggers - because these are also activities that do not squarely fit into culturally acceptable responsibility categories like "career" or "children"?

Steven Kotler

#7. When I'm not writing music, I'm playing guitar, or reading philosophy. So all I have left is just an hour or two for Claudia Schiffer.

Richard Pinhas

#8. Acting, I love it and I feel that I'm good at it, but the thing that makes me feel most alive is when I'm playing guitar and singing.

Taryn Manning

#9. It was cool at the rock camp - girls could just be themselves and they could be silly, they could roll around on the floor playing guitar.

Courtney Barnett

#10. I've learned not to let it be the end of the world if a boy doesn't like you. I used to put so much effort into boys. I started playing guitar because I wanted to impress this boy. Then, I ended up in love with guitar and I didn't care about the boy anymore.

Ellie Goulding

#11. I'm still like an excited kid playing guitar in front of the bedroom mirror.

James Bay

#12. Texas people are really strong in their roots. I started writing and playing guitar at 17. I've always loved music, and my dad is a singer-songwriter.

Miranda Lambert

#13. I was basically a dork that hit the books and liked to build things and did all of the things that you weren't supposed to do to be popular. But somehow I ended up onstage, playing guitar in front of everybody else.

Tom Scholz

#14. You are working up to Mr. Fantastic Fiction levels of Zombie Expert, which is like playing Guitar Hero on some level that actually melts the guitar controller, burning your fingers with searing hot plastic till you scream in pain. Only with words. And zombies.

Libba Bray

#15. I was really into music. I started playing guitar also when I was nine. I wanted to be in the Beatles, even though John Lennon died the year I got a guitar and the Beatles broke up before I was born.

Tig Notaro

#16. 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.

Annie E. Clark

#17. I started playing guitar back in '56. I was a teenager, and guitars had just come in, and I had a thing for it and got one. Started learning lead breaks from songs, because that was the easiest thing to do at the time. I had the guitar for two years before I learned any chords. Really.

Roger McGuinn

#18. I will concentrate on playing guitar, on lyrics and on singing. I am a part of things; I am not the encompassing 'Smog.'

Bill Callahan

#19. Well, Steve Vai joined my dad's band right around the time when I actually started playing guitar. So he gave me a couple of lessons on fundamentals, and gave me some scales and practice things to work on. But I pretty much learned everything by ear.

Dweezil Zappa

#20. Playing guitar is like telling the truth.

B.B. King

#21. The concept of clearing one's mind before performing a task so that it is consumed by nothing but that task, yet is open at the same time to anything that might happen - that concept can be applied to playing guitar, and it's enormously helpful for improvising.

Kirk Hammett

#22. I love playing guitar. It's the only thing I've ever really been great at,

Johnny Winter

#23. I've probably gone a month or two without playing guitar, just because I've gotten so burnt on it touring all year or whatever.

Jonny Lang

#24. I started playing guitar when I was 6 or 7 years old, and I think that, within a week of getting my first guitar, I started writing music. I just love it.

Robby Benson

#25. When I was 11 years old, I started playing guitar.

Wyclef Jean

#26. I never had a real job either. I sort of fell out of school and ended up playing guitar.

Vivian Campbell

#27. I'm singing and dancing and playing guitar. I really enjoy pushing myself into different aspects. I'm not going to do this for the rest of my life, but I want to keep challenging myself. And if I'm fearful of something I definitely want to step into it and see how good or bad I am at it.

Dustin Clare

#28. Just the other day someone threw a bra duct-taped to a tennis ball. I just stood there, playing guitar, thinking how this was totally premeditated. Some girl sat around inventing a way to get her bra onstage from 40 rows back.

Dave Grohl

#29. Playing guitar is a never-finished journey.

John Fogerty

#30. I sit down and create atmospheres, start playing guitar or piano and just sing whatever comes out of my mouth.

Martin Gore

#31. I was really young, but I can't say that I wrote much of anything. I liked to scribble; I thought of it as that. But I was playing guitar and ukulele when I was in second grade.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

#32. The more I got into playing guitar, the more I enjoyed music, and the broader my listening became. The instrument itself became important to me, and I started messing around with classical guitar and took classical lessons.

Alex Lifeson

#33. I actually love woodworking. I'm just getting into it. And I love playing guitar, I'm a big movie aficionado, and I like hiking.

Jordan Gavaris

#34. I wouldn't want to compare myself to David Byrne whom I consider a genius, but what I think what we have in common is that he's also a guy who is very interested in the world and who has a lot of passions beyond singing and playing guitar.

Anthony Bourdain

#35. It took me to about maybe 16, 17 or 18 or something to realise I was absolutely useless at everything else except for playing guitar and writing words

Noel Gallagher

#36. I was 12 when I started playing guitar with my brothers.

Tom Chapin

#37. I had a series of mini-breakdowns where the public persona - this thing, this face, this person who writes this music ... I would walk past that person in the mirror or listen to that person playing guitar and I didn't know who they were.

Thom Yorke

#38. When I was around 7 or 8 my Dad took me to a B.B. King recording session, well, that really did it. Huge and lasting impressions. After all that I pretty much knew playing guitar was something I was going to do because I just had to do it. And I did.

Billy Gibbons

#39. People have always been resistant to change. If you go back to the 17th, 18th century, playing guitar was frowned upon. When rock n' roll first started, no one took it seriously.

Moby

#40. I first started actually playing guitar when I was eleven years old. I had some neighborhood friends who told me they were starting a band and needed a guitarist. I told my folks, and by the next day I had a guitar lesson set up with a local teacher.

Darren Robinson

#41. I started playing guitar at, like, 12 or 13 and just rock bands mostly. I had a punk rock band and hard core bands and all that.

Oscar Isaac

#42. I kind of just want to get to know people and I have a genuine interest in people that listen to my music. I've just always felt like that. I think it's from the days of playing guitar to a few people and being very conversational and very intimate and I've always wanted to keep that vibe.

Ellie Goulding

#43. Music to me is spontaneous, writing is spontaneous and it's all based on not trying to do it. From beginning to end, whether it's writing a song, or playing guitar, or a particular chord sequence, or blowing a horn, it's based on improvisation and spontaneity.

Van Morrison

#44. Unless the guitar works as a color, then I don't use it, so I haven't been playing guitar too much lately.

Trevor Rabin

#45. I think I was just bored one summer afternoon, and I decided to post a little video of me singing and playing guitar out of tune.

Shawn Mendes

#46. I like to play music and sleep. But most of all, I love to work ... I don't really play sports, so I like to spend my time playing guitar or piano.

Drake Bell

#47. Kane is a band I formed with my best friend Steve Carlson. We just got together and started playing guitar. He was playing some old school rock and roll, and we got together and thought, 'Hey, let's take this on the road.'

Christian Kane

#48. I just love playing guitar, so that's what I'm going to do.

St. Vincent

#49. When I first started playing guitar, everyone was playing Chuck Berry and B.B. King licks. I decided I was going to find other avenues of expression.

Robby Krieger

#50. I guess I was a child actor. Acting was one of the things I did alongside going to school: I'd be playing guitar, I'd be playing soccer, and I would be acting in movies.

Michiel Huisman

#51. I love playing guitar. I grew up with my dad playing. But acting is definitely the forefront, I guess I'd say, in terms of career and something that I really enjoy and feel lucky to be able to do.

Jesse Plemons

#52. My interests are guitars, cars, and vacation. I've been playing guitar all my life. My dad was a professional guitarist, but I'm terrible, which lets me off the hook, so I just play for myself.

Josh Hartnett

#53. I played for anybody and everybody from the time I started playing guitar, when I was 10 or 11.

Janis Ian

#54. I like to sing because my mother was a singer. She sang to me all the time, so I learned to love singing. I did have a career as little 10-year-old George Benson. I made my first record as a vocalist, but I've been playing guitar since I was 9.

George Benson

#55. I was trained at classical piano as a youngster back in PA. To rebel, I bought a drum set and played in some rock & roll bands. In college I picked up a guitar and became obsessed with practicing which led to playing guitar in indie rock bands in the mid 90's. Which led me to Los Angeles.

Jeff Cardoni

#56. In 2010, I had been playing guitar for 50 years.

Lee Ritenour

#57. When I was 11, I decided to start rapping, playing guitar, and writing songs. Everything really blossomed from there.

Becky G

#58. I'd put a lot of work into playing guitar, and was thinking I was pretty damn good. But Hendrix came along and destroyed everyone.

Brian May

#59. When I'm playing guitar, I just try and put those words into lyrics and just try a few things. It's all over the place.

George Ezra

#60. I was playing guitar before I heard The Beatles, but as I got older and listened to their tunes I realized they were amazing. They inspire me more now than they did when I was a kid and are still the greatest.

Noel Gallagher

#61. You know, I like playing music and playing guitar, and I like to draw, so I thought I would end up just probably barely making a living, or probably having to have some other job, but being involved in one of those things that I really like to do. But that didn't work out like that.

John Corbett

#62. I always liked playing music and I always wanted to be good at playing guitar. I always saw myself as an old man living in the mountains playing a guitar, but I didn't really turn that into a desire to be a professional musician or a singer or a rock star or anything like that.

Brett Dennen

#63. When I'm working on a movie, I'm in my trailer playing guitar. And then on the road, I read scripts and think of ... it just keeps both fires burning. I kind of need both.

Bryan Greenberg

#64. My mum had this idea I was going to be this long-haired hippie playing guitar and bought me one when I was 13, but my little brother picked it up instead and was such a natural, he kept it! Io Echo is a band my brother now plays in; they're really good.

Liberty Ross

#65. I get to do a lot of things I don't usually get to do with the boys. I love playing guitar and rocking out on stage, so I do a ton of that with my solo project. [Backstreet Boys] all give each other the freedom to do our own thing, which just makes the bond the five of us have stronger

Nick Carter

#66. For years, I was stuck behind a keyboard rig. When I started playing guitar onstage, it was a bit of a release - not to be stuck in one spot the whole night. It's really enjoyable having the freedom to move around. You just have to remember to end up somewhere near a microphone.

Martin Gore

#67. I suppose I am a frustrated musician so I annoy my family by playing guitar in the house. I used to be into acoustic stuff but my son Joseph is learning drums, so now I have an electric guitar and we play Metallica. We have an amp and a PA in the garage with his drum kit.

Kevin McKidd

#68. I started playing guitar before I can really remember, and I started writing really early, too.

Randy Houser

#69. I started playing guitar, like, when I was 17 or so, but where I'm from, you just don't hear about people moving to Nashville and making it. It was such a foreign thing to me. I never knew music was an option for me.

Kip Moore

#70. I started playing guitar when I was in my late teens, and within two years I was starting to play shows.

Buzz Osborne

#71. Playing guitar is not a beauty contest.

Ernie Isley

#72. I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.

Jackson Browne

#73. I started playing guitar kind of by accident.

Ryan Cabrera

#74. If I see a chick playing guitar, I'm drawn to that band immediately. I want to know everything, even if it's completely electronic. But you have to really get my attention if you're male. I can't help it. It's part of my nature.

Courtney Love

#75. When I sit down and play guitar, I melt into the instrument. I can play for hours by myself. Playing guitar has given me such a wonderful life, and I'm grateful for it.

Alex Lifeson

#76. I started playing guitar when I was 12 and probably from that age knew that I wanted to make music and make my own music. Playing with other bands like the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens was more like an apprenticeship for me than anything.

St. Vincent

#77. I started out playing guitar because Jimi Hendrix was my hero, so my roots were really based on Jimi Hendrix and his style of playing.

Joe Satriani

#78. Playing guitar was one of my childhood hobbies, and I had played a little at school and at camp. My parents would drag me out to perform for my family, like all parents do, but it was a hobby - nothing more.

Bonnie Raitt

#79. As a teenager I started painting and playing guitar.

Buffy Sainte-Marie

#80. Playing guitar as a young teen, I didn't really have the little light bulb in my head that said you're committed until when I was about 16. By the time I was 16, I was like, I'm guna do this. I don't care what happens. I'd play whatever other instruments fell into my hands along way.

Steve Kimock

#81. Rock & Roll is feeling, and after you know most of the basics ... chords, rhythm, scales and bends ... getting that feeling is just about the most important aspect of playing guitar

Eddie Van Halen

#82. 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

#83. I still play but for some reason, I am having so much fun playing guitar and singing that I don't really miss it because I've done it for so long like twenty-something years with Motley.

Tommy Lee

#84. I enjoyed singing and playing guitar but didn't have the stamina to make music-making a career. In reality, writing was my real gift, and as soon as I figured that out I never looked back.

Ann Powers

#85. My kids don't really like when I sing for some reason ... but they like when I play guitar. So I started writing songs just playing guitar for them.

David Pajo

#86. So, my big brother was playing guitar and I figured I'd try it too.

Stevie Ray Vaughan

#87. When I usually use a theremin during a set, it feels ... it feels good, because I get to take a break from playing guitar, it's a little rest, really, and I know that it's only five or ten minutes until the show ends and I can get a drink.

Jon Spencer

#88. Every album, I'm worried that I'm a dork and a fraud - 'What if I can't sing anymore?' Then I stop thinking and start playing guitar, and I realize that it's okay to suck, and move forward.

Pink

#89. It was fun playing a horrible, snotty kid in 'Harry Potter', and then playing Prince Charming where I was also singing and playing guitar, and then playing a completely different character.

Freddie Stroma

#90. I had to teach myself to let go of the conventional rock way of playing guitar and singing. Some things you wouldn't expect to work, did and some things won't ever work.

Chris Cornell

#91. I had the question asked of me before, 'What do you like better: singing or playing guitar?' If I'm gonna be totally truthful, if that microphone's in my hand, I'm loving it. When the guitar's in my hand, I'm a little nervous, but I'm still loving it.

Phil Anselmo

#92. There was so much good and different music back then and you'd just keep moving through it and discovering more new stuff. I went through my Black Sabbath phase before I even started playing guitar.

James Hetfield

#93. I got my first instrument at Christmas when I was three or four. My dad and mom got me a mandolin. It was the only instrument that fit me because I was so small. I went straight from that into drums when I was six and then started playing guitar when I was seven or eight.

Chord Overstreet

#94. I feel really fortunate that, in playing guitar and surfing, I've found two things that mean so much to me, and which really complement each other. There's definitely a spiritual thing to both of them; they totally connect you to a higher realm.

Kirk Hammett

#95. I love to write music. I love melodies, I love playing guitar. I just do it for fun.

Bryan Greenberg

#96. He has one hand over her mound and works his fingers as if he was playing guitar, making beautiful music with her tiny button. He serenades her with a love song that only his fingers know how to pick- a tune that no man can duplicate.

Jane Emery

#97. I had always loved music. I grew up listening to classic country, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard. My dad loved Vern Gosdin and Keith Whitley. So I kept going to class and started getting totally into playing guitar and teaching myself these songs.

Jake Owen

#98. As soon as I had a guitar I loved it, and I started playing in every spare moment.

David Rawlings

#99. Age isn't a barrier to playing the bass, and I've definitely improved over the years, although maybe I'm not as flash as I once was. But looking back, I can't imagine a life without a guitar.

Suzi Quatro

#100. I worked hard at that through most of the '80s, and in 1990 my house burned in New Hampshire, and my studios and my offices. I had to decide at what level to rebuild, and I decided that I was going to stop trying to be all things to all people, and just go back to playing the guitar.

Tom Rush