Guitarist Quotes

Mark Knopfler

Damon Hill

Andrés Segovia

Muddy Waters

Billie Joe Armstrong

Ry Cooder

Angus Young

On a bus ride into town, I wondered out loud, "Why am I going to town?"
As I looked around at the billboards and the stores I thought, "Why do I look around?"
And I kissed the filthy ground... the first dry spot I found...
I didn't have to wonder why I was laying down.

This house is lonesome: my baby left me all alone. I said this house is lonesome, my sugar left me all alone. If your heart ain't rock, sugar, must be marble stone.

Blind Lemon Jefferson

There is something about guitars—maybe something magical—when played right, which evokes past, mysterious, barely-conscious sentiments, both individual and universal.

John Fahey (musician)

Los Angeles is not Mexico City, but we have many fine nightclubs and restaurants here. It is enough. One must not aim too high.

Brand-new research suggests that the faster you take weight off, the longer you keep it off. Now that's a reason for dieters everywhere to rejoice.

Undeniably, the audience for improvisation, good or bad, active or passive, sympathetic or hostile, has a power that no other audience has. It can affect the creation of that which is being witnessed. And perhaps because of that possibility the audience for improvisation has a degree of intimacy with the music that is not achieved in any other situation.

Derek Bailey (guitarist)

I shoulda quit you a long time ago.
And I wouldn't a been here
down on the killin' floor.

That ain't working, that's the way you do it
Get your money for nothing and chicks for free.

There ain't no cure for the summertime blues.

The blues slows you down and gives you time to think.

Of the piano:

A large, rectangular monster that screams when you touch its teeth.

Andrés Segovia

What you've got to remember about Michael is that under that cold professional Germanic exterior beats a heart of stone.

Of Michael Schumacher

Learning to play the guitar is a combination of mental and motor skill acquisition. And to develop motor skills, repetition is essensial... Whenever musicians have trouble executing a passage, they generally tend to blame themselves for not having enought talent. Actually, all that's wrong is they don't know where their fingers are supposed to go... You should learn the piece in your head before you play it. And when you do play it, play it so slow that therre's no possibility of making a mistake.

A guy walks up to me and asks 'What's Punk?'. So I kick over a garbage can and say 'That's punk!'. So he kicks over the garbage can and says 'That's Punk?', and I say 'No that's trendy!'

Billie Joe Armstrong

Now, when I was a young boy,
At the age of five,
My mother said I'd be
The greatest man alive.
I'm a man.

I practice all the scales. Everyone should know lots of scales. Actually, I feel there are only scales. What is a chord, if not the notes of a scale hooked together? There are several reasons for learning scales: one, the knowledge will unlock the neck for you — you'll learn the instrument; second, if I say I want you to improvise ofer Gmaj7+5, then go to Eaug9-5, then to bmaj7-5 —well, if you don't know, what those chords are in scale terms, you're lost. It's not all that difficult, but you have to be ready to apply yourself...

I think the way that you develop your own sound is you go through a process by which you imitate people sometimes very closely. With me, I would mimic people to the note. And then I think you form a collage of all these different players that you imitate, that you learn, and you form your own recipe. I think anybody that has an originality to them, it came from a pool of taking stuff from their predecessors.

I don't like to play above or below people's heads. Basically, I just like to get up in front of a crowd and rip it up.

If someone can relate my guitar solo to an exercise in a book … that's no fun at all.

I used to practice scales, but I think mainly in positions. I do runs that go from position to position, basically around chord shapes. I can get around pretty easily from one position to another, and on a good night it sound pretty hot. I'll take chances. Sometimes I'll trip over myself, but most times I'm lucky.

He was just there, looking fantastic... the bastard.

It's not true that you fall in love only once in your life. But it is true that you only fall in love a certain way, with a certain absoluteness, once.

Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence. Sound is that cup, but empty. Noise is that cup, but broken.

I loved playing the guitar and I knew I was pretty good at it, so that's what I wanted to do with my life.

One thing I learned a long time ago was my fretboard, in terms of all the scales in all the positions... You have to learn it - there are no two ways about it. I shift between positions so easily now that I really don't have to think about them much... I would suggest starting your scale education with the major and minor scales, and after that, diminished, augmented and whole-tone. Then depending on what kind of music you want to play, the modes should be learned. My theory about this kind of thing is that you should learn it all. Once you've learned it you can play whatever you want to play, and I think that your playing will be more advanced, and you'll have a better understanding of the instrument.