Fingerstyle Playing Quotes

All gut strings. That's just the first kind of guitar I played, it was a nylon string guitar. And to me, it's the purest form of guitar making, and I just enjoy doing it.

The way I play guitar is very, very hard and I bloody myself incredibly without the tape. And the nails are my picks.

When I started to play with my fingernails, it was not just for volume. The most important thing was giving the guitar different colors in its voices.

If you play jazz, then you play with your fingers. If you're playing rock, you use a pick. There's really no rhyme or reason to that other than that's just the way it has been.

I took the frets out of my bass after I was getting into jazz a lot and I wanted to have that upright sound.

When I got into songs like 'Exist,' I was like, 'Okay, this riff has some bass sweeping in it, I'm definitely going to have to use a pick... but I guess I'll have to learn how to sweep first!'

I used to be totally into Steve Vai and Joe Satriani and other shredders, and I tried to emulate what they did and really grow as a guitarist.

Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.

I have no secrets; all of these things have been discussed at length in guitar magazines over the years but are far too elaborate to cover in one article.

What it really comes down to, especially in metal, is that the bass needs to cut through, so you go to the pick for that effect. But when you have a certain feel about the music and really dig in to get a big growl, you have to go with the fingers, because you're not going to get it with a pick.

I think a lot of modern day guitarists start off playing like Eddie van Halen, and they don't take the time to learn the basics.

After playing for 40 years, I've been able to evolve the way I see the fretboard and how I hear the guitar in my head.

And, you know, my dad would show me some things sometimes, but the best things that I got to do were to actually see really good players play up close. That gives you an idea of fingering and technique and what not.

There's always more than one way to play the same notes because of the nature of guitar.

It takes a lifetime and a half to master the classical guitar.

You can batter your guitar, and it won't distort too much, which is important for me because I play with my hands a lot - I don't really play with picks.

I can't play a solo without thinking about John Jorgenson. I always think about what he would do.

Is there someone who can play guitar better than me technically? One hundred percent. But does anyone look better playing a guitar in my generation? Absolutely not.

For an electric guitarist to solo effectively on an acoustic guitar you need to develop tricks to avoid the expectation of sustain that comes from playing electrics. Try cascades, for example. Drop arpeggios over open strings, and let the open strings sing as you pick with your fingers. It's kind of a country style of playing, but it works very well in-between heavily strummed parts and fingered lead lines.