Quotes & Sayings About Guitar Practice

I've never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I've always played with other musicians. It's how I play, there's no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play. — Ringo Starr

My guitar playing has not developed as much as I think it could because I never practice. I only play when I'm writing or recording or when I'm playing on tour. When I'm sitting around at home, I never play. — Juliana Hatfield

If you're a musician, you can practice your guitar every day and write songs, but when you're an actor, you can't just like burst into a monologue. Your only exercise is when you're in prep or you're working. — Winona Ryder

Unless you're a true prodigy, you're going to have to practice for a while being bad before you get any good. And it will seem like a waste of time. I remember that feeling well. But don't worry about wasting time, because it'll be so worth it. It's my experience that in the end, life lessons and guitar lessons begin to blur in all sorts of interesting ways. — Brad Paisley

I said this to my daughter, if you don't practice the guitar, when you get older you wouldn't be able to play it. It's that simple. If you want to play the guitar, you put a half hour in everyday, but you have to do it. — Woody Allen

I have to work really hard to get the record deal - I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar. — Taylor Swift

I consider the guitar a tool for the most part. I do pick up the acoustic now and then, I certainly don't have any routine. Usually the only time I practice is when the band gets together. Hendrix has always been one of my favorite players, but I was a sucker for Nugent in the late 1970's. — Ian MacKaye

At age ten I switched to guitar, and I've loved the instrument ever since. And I love to practice. I just do. I just love guitar. It still brings a smile to my face! — Michael Angelo Batio

I bad a piano long before I bad a guitar, and the practice I got just playing those three chords in a basic 12-bar blues song was very important. — Mark Knopfler

I just couldn't take school seriously: I had this guitar neck with four frets which I kept hidden under the desk. It had strings on it so I would practice my chord shapes under the desk and that's about all I did at school. — Alvin Lee

To be a good artist / letterer / designer / guitar player it takes practice. A lot of it. More than you can even fathom when you're starting out. — Jessica Hische

I practice on the acoustic guitar a little bit, but I think I have reached the peak of my talent. — Tim Hudson

I do a lot of the stuff that I started out doing that I think any guitar player that's concerned about the craft needs to do. It's basic practicing of the basic elements. I try to practice like a well rounded regiment of things where I can kind of do whatever I wanna do and I also have to practice the actual songs to keep that under my fingers as well. — John Petrucci

Everything that we do wires pathways in our brain. So every time you practice a song on a guitar, you are wiring that into your brain, and each time you practice it, the wiring grows more intricate, more precise. That's why you improve over time. That's why repetition and practice lead to success in all things. Eventually the wiring perfects itself and your fingers just know where to go. You don't think about it anymore. It becomes a part of you. — L.T. Vargus

Most of our songs were written on acoustic guitar before they made it to the practice stage. — Dave Grohl

When I'm home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It's a feeling few people experience, and that's usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can't force myself. I don't sit down and say I've got to practice. — Eddie Van Halen

My dad started teaching me how to play guitar when I was 13 years old. When he'd go to work, he'd map out guitar cords on a piece of notebook paper. I'd sit down and look at it every day and practice while he was gone. — Jason Aldean

I guess anybody who plays can say that they play guitar, but if you want to be a guitarist, you've got to practice all the time and you've got to get good at it. It's more than just having one and playing it. — Jake Pitts

I don't like to practice; I like spontaneity. When I don't play guitar for a week and I pick it up again, I play better. — Ace Frehley

I'm actually better on the guitar than when I started, I think, because I've had so much time with it and I still practice and I love to do it and I love to sing. — Tom Petty

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

Practice, practice, practice. Practice until you get a guitar welt on your chest ... if it makes you feel good, don't stop until you see the blood from your fingers. Then you'll know you're on to something! — Ted Nugent

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

A lot of people at my school could play the "Stairway to Heaven" guitar solo, but they couldn't play three chords of a Ramones song if their life depended on it because they didn't have the strength or ability to do it. But all I did was practice that, and the style that I eventually fell into is more focused than people would actually imagine. — Kevin Shields

Jerry [Garcia] held his guitar and picked some random licks. I spoke from an LSD haze.

'LSD changes perception. Music transcends the musician. You are the vehicle for communication.'

Garcia stopped and stared at me.

'I practice,' Garcia declared. 'Anyone can do that.'

That shut me up and he returned to the guitar — Rhoney Gissen Stanley

I practice really hard, every day. I started that about 13 or 14 years ago; it's a discipline now. But the writing is a whole other thing. It'll come from handling a guitar, mostly; thinking up little guitar riffs. I was born and raised a rock 'n' roll guy, and that's the rock 'n' roll ethic, at least through my experience. — John Fogerty

I don't let the children watch TV on weeknights. They practice playing musical instruments instead. Both my sons play piano, drums and guitar, so my husband and I listen to them in the evening. — Jane Seymour

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

I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before you write the first good one. — Taylor Swift

I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case & throw in a piece of raw meat. — Wes Montgomery

Practice like the Devil. — Doc Watson

Even now, at 82 years old, if I don't learn something every day, you know what I think? It's a day lost. Now, I don't practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I'm doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear. — B.B. King

I thought it was too 'glam rock' to practice. The problem is that now I'm a pretty bad guitar player. — Laurent Brancowitz

I've never liked having like a set kind of schedule of training. Even when I was doing guitar lessons, I never used to practice. — Dean Geyer

I grew up playing the guitar. I started when I was nine, and by the time I was nine and a half or ten, I was doing seven or eight hours' practice every day. I did two hours' practice at six o'clock in the morning before I went to school, and another two hours as soon as I got home from school in the afternoon. Then I did four hours at night before I went to bed. I did that until I was fourteen or fifteen. — Joe Pass