Joan Jett Quotes

When I was about 15, I picked up the guitar and learned how to play by going through Beatles chords books. I got this Christmas gift with the entire Beatles catalog.

Neil Young does throw in a major seven chord here and there, so if you're a new guitar player learning Neil Young songs, you'll learn some seven chords, and some different positions. Nothing too complicated, just enough to kind of open up your knowledge a little bit.

As a youngster, I used to try to pick up any bits of wisdom about the guitar I could. It's not like now where you have books and books about every aspect of anything. Any little pearl of wisdom was welcome back then.

I'm starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar.

It turns out kids today still learn that four-chord progression when they're just picking up the guitar.

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.

I noticed a lot of guitar players neglected the rhythm part of rhythm guitar and decided I would try to focus in that. As my skill and knowledge of the instrument grew, I found lead started to come naturally. Sometimes I play guitar like a frustrated drummer. Ha ha!

I find it quite easy to play chords, and, you know, that was all I ever did. I never wanted to be a lead guitarist.

When I was 12 or 13, my dad taught me a couple of different chords, and once I learned chords, I never learned to read music, but I learned tablature, like a lot of kids do, and I learned songs that had the chords I knew. It took me a long time to understand the upstroke of picking and strumming, but once I did, it all fell into place.

I bought a book with guitar tabs and forced myself to learn. I would go to school and then come home and sit in my room for hours figuring out the songs.

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.

I began to learn a lot of chords and rhythms. It was a bit boring at the time but came in very handy later on.

I just started off on my own by learning the regular chords then the barre chords. Then I'd lean the notes that would go with them.

I learned music from a book on piano theory. I was only interested in knowing about chords. From that, and from the 'Harvard Dictionary of Music,' I learned everything I wanted to know.

I would type in things like, 'How to play beginner songs on guitar,' and one of the first I learnt was 'Hey, Soul Sister' by Train. I taught myself these chords I didn't know the name of and slowly started to get the hang. I was obsessed with it.

I can't deny that Eric Clapton's and Eddie Van Halen's lead stuff has influenced a stack of people, but for me, it's the rhythm thing that's way more impressive and important to a band.

As the chord changes go by, I don't so much think about a static chord voicing changing. I just see the notes on the neck change.

I don't read or write music in the traditional sense, so I have to figure it out on the fly while I'm in the studio.

Reading music has opened up me up so much. I've been experimenting for so long and trying to make sense of things just from my ears. It takes forever. Now I can get where I want much quicker.

My father started me off on the guitar, and we learned classical guitar together.

After going to a few Keith Urban concerts, I thought, 'I'd really like to learn how to play guitar.' I studied Keith Urban a lot and how he performed.

Whenever I hear my playing, I can't detach from my influences: there's my Jeff Beck, there's the Clapton bit, the Eric Johnson bit, the Birelli Lagrene bit, the Billy Gibbons.

What happens is people go, 'I want to play the guitar,' and the first thing they do is hit Google: 'How can I play this?' and the next thing you know, you've learned all these tricks, but you've never learned how to play rhythm guitar with a groove.

Finger-picking, in general, is a hypnotic thing. I feel like I'm more A.D.D. all the time, so the music has to be hypnotic.

In order to become a well-rounded musician, you have to master the three major aspects of guitar playing: the technical side, the musical side and the creative side.