Instrument Skill Quotes

I don't have any legato skills; I could never figure out how to roll the notes off.

It's so easy to practice out of context. For example, if you're learning a scale, you take that scale and you sit in your room and you go up and down the fretboard, over and over. You've gotta do that, because you need to get that scale working. But you have to keep in mind that that's not the finished product. That's the starting point.

I'm not very good at playing piano, so I usually hit chords with my right hand. And those chords came, and I was just singing a little bit.

When I started to play trumpet I was fortunate to learn very quickly.

My first instrument was bass, and the first thing that I remember learning to play that was better than a few notes was Fleetwood Mac's 'The Chain.' If you're the guy who penned that bass riff, then you should probably be in some sort of fantasy band.

I had a jazz trio, a rock n' roll band, and I played drums in junior high, high school, college, big bands, and I played timpani in the symphony. I am a drummer. It's the one instrument I actually play pretty well. It's just hard to carry on your back.

I consider the piano my 'main' instrument and have been playing for as long as I can remember. It seems to me that I might have come up with something resembling a song as early as 4 or 5 years old.

I'm a slow learner. When people are so talented or facile at picking up an instrument and playing covers, like Yo La Tengo, I admire that. But I could never do that.

The only instrument I can play is piano. Whenever I make songs at home, I play the piano and make them on the piano.

Whenever I'm really excited about a song, I want to learn it, and it becomes the first thing I play every time I pick up an instrument.

I think when you're learning an instrument, you are restricted because much of it is the noise of individual theory and your ability to play the instrument.

Punk was perfect for lazy people, because anyone could do it--you didn't even need to know how to play your instrument, assuming you knew how to plug it in. There was really no difference between Sid Vicious and anyone in London who owned a bass.

I am, by nature, a guitar player... I learned all of these other instruments around that, and around the theory that I built learning the guitar.

I didn't know that you were supposed to tune the guitar to an open chord, and I learned to play slide with a normal tuning. I think it's a little more melodic that way and doesn't sound so bluesy. Of course, if I could play like David Lindley or Ry Cooder, I'd be a happy man!

I discovered early on that I was more of a strummer than a picker.

I despise people who revel in the ignorance of not being able to play their instrument.

I'm a very tough critic of my guitar-playing. Sometimes I don't even want to do it anymore.

I learned to tune a guitar by ear. That method has served me pretty well.

I'd like to know how to play the guitar.

I have no guitar technique.

Music is my greatest love. If I could play an instrument I would be a musician.

I had been practicing guitar about six months beforehand; I concentrated mostly on the songs I had to play. I got those down pretty well so they could use me actually playing.

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.