Top 100 Quotes About The Guitar
#1. I've always been on a personal mission to save the guitar.
Tom Morello
#2. I wrote my first song at 6. I spent every day with the guitar, and I just made up songs.
Hunter Hayes
#3. A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that's true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there's something about the guitar - the range of possibilities is much broader.
The Edge
#4. To me, the guitar is a tool for songwriting, and it's fun, too. The day that it's not fun, that's when I'm not gonna play guitar anymore.
Scott Ian
#5. Well I was on the one hand, the more I played the guitar the more I began to really love the guitar and to love virtually any kind of music that anybody played well on guitar.
John Fahey
#6. I love the guitar for its harmony; it is my constant companion in all my travels.
Niccolo Paganini
#7. I find it to be an ongoing challenge to keep the guitar from becoming too traditional.
Edge
#9. Every weekend I go to the guitar bar in Hoboken and do a jam session.
Steve Capus
#10. Musically, I am still hooked and just hypnotized by the sound of the guitar itself. I mean, a guitar sounds good if you drop it on the floor.
Leo Kottke
#11. I always liked the idea of the guitar - because cowboys played the guitar.
Tom Petty
#12. I put in the sounds of instruments such as the guitar and piano, which everybody hears often, and tried to go with melodies that would sound familiar. Rather than trying to do music that I want to do, I focused on doing music that I want my fans to hear.
Seungri
#13. I've never really been schooled in music theory. I'm a guitar player, and I attack the guitar in a certain way that it not fully unique to me, but it's more unique that some other people.
Wes Borland
#14. 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
#15. Music is still part of my life, but I hate the idea of people coming to see me play the guitar because they've seen me in movies. You want people who are listening to be only interested in the music.
Johnny Depp
#16. I did play every little note on the guitar on that record.
Lita Ford
#17. Lenny Breau was a genius - inspired and really loose. I loved how he used the guitar as an extension of his inner freedom, because, obviously, on the outside there were a lot of trainwrecks going on. But when you listen to him play, you hear what kind of guy he really is
Steve Vai
#18. When I sit down and play the guitar, Im 20 years old again,
J.J. Cale
#19. The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well.
Andres Segovia
#20. There are a lot of people who can do it on the guitar and sing at the same time, but I think what is harder is bass players that can play the bass and sing.
Graham Coxon
#21. 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
#22. I started doing all kinds of weird stuff on the guitar, which became part of my playing. I started doing harmonics and tapping on the guitar and pulling off strings and doing all this weird stuff that no one had ever done before.
Eddie Van Halen
#23. I had sat in one day in Central Park with Bonnie and Delaney, and Duane was playing with them, so I asked if he wanted to work on an album. You never had to say to him how to play the guitar.
Herbie Mann
#24. For me, theory has always opened things up to where I can walk into a room and just by hearing something I know exactly where to go on the guitar. I have a better time playing because I have a variety of colors to bring to the table.
John Frusciante
#26. I remember playing the guitar through the amplifier facing out the window of my house onto the street in the summer time - that was social media in 1992.
John Mayer
#27. Punk ... was more a kind of do-it-yourself, anyone-can-do-it attitude. If you only played two notes on the guitar, you could figure out a way to make a song out of that, and that's what it was all about.
David Byrne
#28. I don't have, you know, an 'overcoming addiction' story, other than the guitar itself, and I haven't overcome that. I don't have a jail time, you know, story, or any arrests.
Brad Paisley
#29. As a musician, I don't think I'm the greatest guitar player. I'm a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm.
Daron Malakian
#30. A bass player has to think and play like a bass player. A drummer has to play and think like a drummer, and stay out of the way of the vocalist. The guitar player has to respect everybody else.
Hunter Hayes
#31. I'm not the same person as the character I do in my songs. She's crazy! The 'Daddy Song' was the first sketch I ever wrote, especially on the guitar and everything - and definitely the most offensive. And absurd.
Carly Craig
#32. There's just certain styles of playing that you do play in your own way. Maybe it's in the way your fingers bend, for all I know. And so whenever you pick up the guitar it's not so much the sound of the instrument itself, it's like the ting that you add onto it-the attitude.
Keith Richards
#33. Television was the only band of its ilk that treated the guitar with delicacy, not as simple rhythm support for teenage aggression.
Richard Lloyd
#34. I don't play the guitar. That would mean I wanted people to hear it. I just strum a few strings to make myself feel better. It fills my silence.
Annie Hughes
#35. Let's be realistic about this, the guitar can be the single most blasphemous device on the face of the earth. That's why I like it ... The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar: now that's my idea of a good time.
Frank Zappa
#36. I played the guitar and thought that was what I was going to do as a career. I still record music that is played in my restaurants.
Graham Elliot
#37. If You're going to sweep the floor, sweep it better than anybody in town. And if You're going to play the guitar, really, really, really get in it, and don't be jivin'.
Carlos Santana
#38. My life has been a roller coaster ride, but somehow I've always been able to land on my feet and still play the guitar.
Ace Frehley
#39. I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.
Michelle Branch
#40. Sometimes it's the mistakes that end up leading you into new territory .. like the guitar solo on 'Peelin' Taters' - I had some speaker problems, but the tone ended up sounding better than if I had new speakers .. it's a 60's Nashville, 'uptown' thing
Junior Brown
#41. It's that kind of in-born music thing - I could pick up the guitar and play something. It's not something I consciously do.
Ziggy Marley
#42. I prefer to be an equal-opportunity offender of the guitar.
Rick Nielsen
#44. In the '90s, I think I rediscovered my guitar. The Jam was obviously very guitar-based, but in the Style Council I just got really disillusioned with playing the guitar. The further it went on, the less and less I played, to a point where I couldn't pick it up any more.
Paul Weller
#45. B.B. King will be remembered for his impressive skills on the guitar, that King defined the blue genre.
Chris Matthews
#46. 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
#47. I don't put myself on Jeff Beck's level, but I can relate to him when he says he'd rather be working on his car collection than playing the guitar.
Ritchie Blackmore
#48. I fingerpick a lot because I can get more of a range of feeling from the guitar than I can when I bash away with a pick.
Suzanne Vega
#49. Over the years, I've had to learn to play. For example, when 'Lennon' was on Broadway, I learned my way around the guitar chords because originally we were all going to play the instruments without a band.
Will Chase
#50. I've always loved the guitar. You see Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar with his teeth, and OK, you know you're never going to be able to do that, but I always wanted to play an instrument of some sort.
Michelle Ryan
#51. I think my mom always wanted to play the guitar, and somehow she projected that to me. So I started learning to play guitar when I was five years old, but actually I'd never managed to get the academic side of it. So even up to today, I don't know how to read or write music.
Gustavo Santaolalla
#52. I just managed to convince my grandmother that it was a worth while that was something to do, you know, and when I did finally get the guitar, it didn't seem that difficult to me, to be able to make a good noise out of it.
Eric Clapton
#53. I feel like I'm just learning how to play the guitar. I mean, really learning to play the guitar.
Stephen Stills
#54. 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
#55. I was a schooled musician. When I made 'Blue Velvet', I told everyone what to do. I was an arranger. I learned music in school I told the band to play this. I told the guitar to do that.
Bobby Vinton
#56. Sometimes I'll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I'll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story in it, I'll try and tease it out and figure out where the story is going.
John Darnielle
#57. 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
#58. 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
#59. The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else.
Brian May
#60. I remember one of the first gigs I played with that amp was at a local church. They wanted someone to fill in with the guitar and my friend say, 'Ah, he can play.' And so I dragged the amplifier down and started playing and everybody started yelling 'turn it down!'
Angus Young
#61. I used to play the drums. When I was 11 I got my first professional job, I played drums in a cabary and played Elvis and stuff, I used to play left handed actually. Then I started to pick up the guitar when I was around 15, but I played the drums for a long time.
Francis Dunnery
#62. I play the guitar and the piano and have a group of guys who I play with. They're uber talented.
Ryan Eggold
#63. I used to carry my dad's empty guitar case around the neighborhood because I wanted people to think I played the guitar. I would put flintstones vitamins in it in case I got tired, so I could pop some and keep walking.
Kristen Wiig
#64. The guitar influence that affected my songwriting came from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
Dave Mustaine
#65. My family is very creative. My grandfather played the guitar in Cuba. My sisters, my mom and two aunts would do harmonies, so I would see them and think, 'I want the attention.'
Chrissie Fit
#66. You know, I've never done karaoke, ever. It makes me nervous - I think it's the lack of the guitar and just a microphone.
Gary Clark Jr.
#67. I guess trying to throw my body into the guitar is so natural for me that I don't even know how to explain it. I can't imagine life without it.
St. Vincent
#68. I look upon meself as ... You take a band that's made up of arms, legs, bodies ... I happen to be the piece that talks. And does all that area of it, you know? I'm also very easy to recognize; the darkie in the middle jumping around with the guitar, you know. Dat boy's got rhydm!!!
Phil Lynott
#69. I'm still constantly learning and that's what keeps me excited about the guitar.
Gary Hoey
#70. The guitar was my weapon, my shield to hide behind.
Brian May
#71. Every song I write, including 'Too Close,' always starts on the guitar.
Alex Clare
#72. No matter how long you play the guitar, there's always something else to learn.
Tom Petty
#73. 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".
Ezra Furman
#74. I'm tired of being around men all the time. I'm going to start a band called Skirt with three girls and I'll play the guitar and sing backing vocals in drag. I went window shopping when I was in New York, saw a lot of amazing dresses.
Brian Molko
#75. My real interest in music was the old 78 records and the sound of the music. I loved it and began to realize that one of the main sounds on those old records I loved was the guitar.
Doc Watson
#76. You shouldn't hear the guitar by itself. It should be part of the whole ... You only notice the guitar when it's not there
Freddie Green
#77. I don't think anything can touch the expressive range of the guitar.
Gary Clark Jr.
#78. The guitar to me, from the classical/gut-string guitar right through to Hendrix, et cetera, has all the range [of sound]. Within those six strings it is incredible what one can get sound-wise. It's just down to imagination, really.
Jimmy Page
#79. There were basically three themes. One was the sun theme which is the guitar when he'd get sun on his leg and it comes again in the end. And there's of course the lullaby which Dido sang, "If I Rise." And then there's this driving guitar which is the motivation theme.
A.R. Rahman
#80. Sometimes if the guitar is the last thing to go on, it's very fresh.
Brian May
#81. I usually sit around with the guitar in reach and grab it when I get an idea. Sometimes it lasts five minutes, and sometimes it lasts all day.
Alex Turner
#82. What I couldn't say verbally I was able to express physically through the guitar.
Dave Mustaine
#83. I grew up hard. I picked cotton and plowed with the mule and fixed the cars and played with the guitar and the piano.
Pinetop Perkins
#84. You don't need to obsess over details if you're willing to roll the dice and accept whatever happens. But if you're striving for excellence - whether it's in playing the guitar or flying a jet - there's no such thing as over-preparation.
Chris Hadfield
#85. You'd always see a lady or a little girl sitting at a piano. I decided I wanted to play something more unexpected, so that's when I got interested in learning to play the guitar.
Barbara Lynn
#86. I guess when we're happy, it's easier to go with the flow, and when that happiness or joy is interrupted, that's when we get contemplative and break out the guitar or pen and write about it.
Jeremy Fisher
#87. I was just a kid in 1987 when I heard of the Pixies, the year after I graduated high school. But I had my band together, and my best friend at the time, Corey Hickock, who was the guitar player in the band that would become STP, Mighty Joe Young, turned me on to the Pixies.
Scott Weiland
#88. I had some music lessons and my mum played every instrument but the guitar,
Brandy Clark
#89. I just play, just you know, If i just sit down with the guitar and just do whatever for, you know, an half an hour or an hour whatever. That's pretty much, that should do it for me.
Slash
#90. I still like to play the guitar, but I rarely have anything to do with the music business these days. I mean, there is no music business anymore, is there?
Steve Jones
#91. Heck, I'm no Henry Mancini or Michel Legrand. I just play the guitar and write songs.
John Denver
#92. There are times when I am concerned about Toph's expression when I'm really singing, with vibrato and all, singing the guitar parts and everything - an expression that to the untrained eye might look like abject terror, or revulsion - but I know well enough that it is awe.
Dave Eggers
#93. I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head.
John Fahey
#94. I began guitar after coming here as there wasn't a piano about. I taught myself, but my fingers just aren't cut out for the guitar, so I can't seem to get very good. Still, I like the innstrument. It's light, simple, straighforward, like a warm little room, nice and cozy.
Haruki Murakami
#95. If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet.
Andy Summers
#96. I watch films. I play the guitar: me and some mates - I wouldn't dignify it with the term band - get together and play.
Stephen Mangan
#97. I understand I'm supposed to be feminine and dainty, but I'm not. There are two sides to the coin. People are more impressed with things that I do because they almost treat you as if you're handicapped if you're a woman ... people can be impressed that I can play a few chords on the guitar.
Kesha
#98. I don't think I picked up the guitar in the first place as a way of getting women. There are probably better ways of doing it.
James Blunt
#99. I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.
Patti Smith
#100. I always loved the guitar, from when I was quite little. My dad had a G banjo at the house that he played. When he had parties, my sisters always played piano, and my dad played banjo.
Dave Davies
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