Guitar Notes Quotes & Sayings

Learning the notes on the fretboard is key to any guitarist's development on the instrument, and [Guitar] Trainer HD is a neat way to get that info burned into your brain without having to carry a guitar with you everywhere you go. Pretty cool! — Bryan Beller

Work that only comes from the head isn't any good ... You need to find a way to bring your body into your work ... If we start going through the motions, if we strum a guitar, or shuffle sticky notes around a conference table, or start kneading clay, the motion kickstarts our brain into thinking. — Austin Kleon

There are two kinds of music. One comes from the strings of a guitar, the other from the strings of the heart. One sound comes from a chamber orchestra, the other from the beating of the heart's chamber. One comes from an instrument of graphite and wood, the other from an organ of flesh and blood. This loftier music I speak of tonight is more pleasing than the notes of the most gifted composers, more moving than a marching band, more harmonious than a thousand voices joined in hymn and more powerful than all the world's percussion instruments combined. That sweet sound of love. — Michael Jackson

Those who love you the most, let you bend your notes — Paresh Shah

A horn has that voice quality, and an electric guitar can emulate that. But playing an acoustic, the notes don't sustain like that. — Bill Orcutt

There are many excellent guitar players but I have to say Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton are still at the top! There are many imitators but very few genuine articles. There is so much more to playing than a fast blur of notes, like feeling and emotion from the soul. It's like punctuating a sentence and knowing when to lay back and not fill up all the space. Those are the things I tried to teach my son Tim when he began playing. — Merrell Fankhauser

My favorite guitar now is my Martin HD-7 because it's got everything. It's got the jingle-jangle thing from the twelve string, it's got the flexibility of the six string, and the bass notes where you can do bass runs and that sort of thing. — Roger McGuinn

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! — William Walton

A child playing air-guitar plays no wrong notes. — Victor L. Wooten

The opening notes of a song began, some plucking of guitar strings. I knew the melody. It was Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved." As pop songs went, it was pretty damn good, a bit of a favorite of mine. — Kylie Scott

I picked up the guitar very late, in a very pagan way - I didn't know how to play, but I knew I had to. I drew and I had a diary, but it wasn't enough; I needed to express more. As soon as I learned two notes, I started to tell a story, which is why, I guess, my music resembles blues or folk. — Lou Doillon

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

In the physical universe, there are objects that include suns, planets, all life, and all matter in all dimensions. And then there is the space where all these things exist. That space is the vital element. For virtually every kid since 1968 who picked up a guitar to find his voice on the instrument, Jimmy Page has been the space that enables all our notes to be played. — Steve Vai

And, so, when I picked up the guitar, suddenly, just playing a couple of notes really, really spoke to me. It was almost like I should have been doing it prior to that. You know, it was something that just felt really natural. — Slash

If you go to Japan, they're still buying vinyl, and they want the education. They know who's playing on what tracks from the '60s and the '70s - who the guitar player is, who the drummer is, who the producer was, what studio it was recorded in. That's how I grew up listening to music. We bought albums. We read the liner notes. It was important to know the whole history behind it. — Lenny Kravitz

The main reason for the break was a combination of travel and going back to university, which drew me into theatre more than music. I did stuff on acoustic guitar when I was traveling, filed it away and made notes, without it being musical notation. Just taped the odd thing, did a sketch, stuck it on a cassette. I thought at some point, I'll go back to it. Some of it I did use in '84-'85 when I started working in the Free Theatre in Christchurch. So it might seem like I had given up after the Pin Group, but I just went into a different avenue. — Roy Montgomery

With my guitar, I could write my own stories, my own poems, and my own destiny. No one could take away the feelings, the emotions or the truth of my notes. They could hide secrets and provoke images of words that never should be whispered. I could compose the melody of my aching heart and write into it my own happily ever after since no one seemed to think after all my suffering I deserved one. That's okay, I would make my own. — Christine Zolendz

Those who love you the most, let yo bend your notes — Paresh Shah

It's like this when you fall hard for a musician. It's a crush with religious overtones. You listen to the songs and you memorize the words and the notes and this is a form of prayer. You attend the shows and this is the liturgy. You're interested in relics
guitar picks, set lists, the sweaty napkin applied to His brow. You set up shrines in your room. It's not just about the music. It's about who you are when you listen to the music and who you wish to be and the way a particular song can bridge that gap, can make you feel the abrupt thrill of absolute faith. — Steve Almond

The rain picks up outside. It hits and slams against the window, but I think it sounds like music
a light mix of tambourine and cymbals. The wind sounds like a guitar, all low, melancholy notes. Thunder takes the drums. I'm quiet as I listen to the song. — Katie Kacvinsky

Jeff Beck is my idol .. sometimes he finds notes that I just do not have on my guitar. Frank Zappa's another one .. I loved Frank Zappa ... I do think Van Halen reinvented the guitar ... he's an excellent musician, a shrewd guitarist and as a person he's wonderful ... — Ritchie Blackmore

I stood in the middle of the room flipping and Pusher was plucking at the guitar, just one string, and I went up to him and said, 'Man don't pluck those dirty notes at ME,' and like he just got up without a word and left. [Mardou] — Jack Kerouac

I can't use logic concerning my feelings, my feelings demand musical notes, violins, guitar solos, the stomping of feet, poetic language, metaphors, poetic lines about birds or deserts or tree-crowded forests. — Noah Cicero

Notes and chords have become my second language and, more often than not, that vocabulary expresses what I feel when language fails me. The guitar is my conscience, too - whenever I've lost my way, it's brought me back to center; whenever I forget, it reminds me why I'm here. — Slash, Anthony Bozza

Guitar playing, as currently understood, has more to do with sports than it does to do with music. It's an Olympic challenge type of situation. The challenges are in the realm of speed, redundancy, choreography, and grooming ... clouds of educated gnat-notes. — Frank Zappa

The only way a djinni can advance in rank and increase in power is to obtain more knowledge. For example, djinn can manipulate the matter in the universe by changing the vibration of strings. This action is much like playing a guitar: the more chords a person knows, the wider the repetoire. Individual string vibrations determine the type of particles and matter formed, and djinn are able to change the "notes" of the strings, thus changing one form of matter into another. — Rosemary Ellen Guiley

Listening to as many guitar solos as possible is the best method for someone in the early stages. But saxophone solos can be helpful. They're interesting because they are all single notes, and therefore can be repeated on the guitar. If you can copy a sax solo you're playing very well, because the average saxophonist can play much better than the average guitarist. — Ritchie Blackmore

When "Here Comes the Sun" started, what happened? No, the sun didn't come out, but Mom opened up like the sun breaking through the clouds. You know how in the first few notes of that song, there's something about George's guitar that's just so hopeful? It was like when Mom sang, she was full of hope, too. She even got the irregular clapping right during the guitar solo. When the song was over, she paused.
"Oh Bee," she said. "This song reminds me of you." She had tears in her eyes. — Maria Semple

I started getting interested in the notes that I could hear being generated when I hammered on while playing a classical guitar. — Fred Frith

There is so much more to the notes being strum from his guitar, behind everything is raw emotion, and it's proof that he is human. That his heart beats just like mine and that sadness can infiltrate those that appear to have souls made out of stone. — Melissa Grijalva

Time becomes a stutter-the space between drumbeats, splintered into fragments, and also endlessly long, as long as soaring guitar notes that melt into one another, as full as the dark mass of bodies around me. I feel like the air downstairs has gone to liquid, to sweat and smell and sound, and I have broken apart in it. I am wave: I am pulled into the everything. I am energy and noise and a heartbeat going boom, boom, boom, echoing the drums. — Lauren Oliver

It's always funny to me when people use the phrase 'Best guitar player in the world'. There are too many variables such as technique, uniqueness, emotional investment in the notes, etc. But If I had to pick one, it would be Tommy Emmanuel. Watching him perform can be a study in artistic and virtuosic human achievement. — Steve Vai

Note to myself - It is time for me to start taking my guitar lessons. One of my neighbor's singing and guitar strumming skills are so cool that I can't stop marveling at the music wafting around here. — Avijeet Das

I can't even read notes. But I can teach someone how to make a guitar smoke. — Ace Frehley

Yeah, on the records, the guitars are made melodic, and I try to make it memorable. There's not much just wanking, to be honest - it's mostly melodic parts. I try not to play too many notes. It's just more instrumental music. It's a totally valid criticism if you don't like that kind of thing. It also is maybe a little anachronistic or unnecessary in a certain way. — Stephen Malkmus

If your going to learn to play lead guitar, get an electric guitar .. it doesn't have to be an expensive one .. acoustic guitars aren't good for learning lead, because you can't play up very high on the neck and they take heavier-gauge strings which makes it hard to bend notes — Eddie Van Halen

It's a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can't do. — David Gilmour

And as for what I've learned: be an instrument of peace. Be a gentleman at all costs. Enjoy yourself - have fun with your existence. Learn to listen to your inner voice and don't overdose on yourself. Keep your darkness in check. Let music be a healing force. Be a real musician: once you start counting money before notes, you're a full-time wannabe. Put your guitar down and go outside and take a long drink of light with your eyes. Go walk in the park and take off your shoes and socks and feel the grass under your feet and mud between your toes. Go see a baby smiling, go see a wino crawling, go see life. Feel life - all of it, as much as possible. Find a human melody, then write a song about it. Make it all come through your music. — Carlos Santana

When The Who first started, we were playing blues, and I dug the blues and I knew what I was supposed to be playing, but I couldn't play it. I couldn't get it out. I knew what I had to play; it was in my head. I could hear the notes in my head, but I couldn't get them out on the guitar. — Pete Townshend

I also generally play slide guitar in standard tuning, which enables me to switch back and forth between using the slide and fretting notes and chords conventionally without having to relearn the fretboard, as one must do when playing in an open tuning. — Warren Haynes

No two notes are ever the same volume. With the guitar, you really have to model in your mind this wider thing; you're trying to create the illusion of a bigger dynamic range. — Pat Metheny