I looked at myself, and I just said, well, you know, I can sing but I'm not the greatest singer in the world. I can play guitar very well, but I'm not the greatest guitar player in the world... And so I said, well, if I'm going to project an individuality, it's going to have to be in my writing.
I had this idea... I wanted the sound to sing and have that thickness but yet still have an edge so that it could articulate. So my dad and I designed the guitar... the one that was made from an old fireplace.
My wife bought me a vintage Gibson guitar that isn't just beautiful but has tremendous sentimental value. I have plenty of guitars for live gigs but this is one to treasure.
Playing guitar is like telling the truth.
I sit down with a guitar player and if there's a situation I feel strongly about, or a guy that I've been thinking about or if I'm mad at a guy, it comes out.
These days I keep a journal, so I'm constantly sketching down my thoughts, or lines that come to me...ideas for songs. And then when I have a moment to myself, I'll sit down with my guitar and open my journal, and start kind of massaging things together, and see if a song takes shape. Or sometimes, I'll just be hanging out with my guitar and come up with a chord progression or a lick, and that'll sort of sit around for a while waiting to marry itself to some words. So it's sort of haphazard and it's like...junk culture. I go around finding shiny objects and I glue them together laughs.
More recently, I used guitar synthesizer extensively on the two albums I did with Robert Fripp.
For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.
It's part of our nature. As much as I love (brother and guitarist Eddie), if you put us in a room with no one else for 15 minutes, we'd be at each other's throats.
I'm not that fluid when it comes to scales and modes. I just pick up the guitar and play. It's all about exploration: just tune the guitar any way you want and start playing.
It's that kind of in-born music thing - I could pick up the guitar and play something. It's not something I consciously do.
I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, because that was new music for me. I really hadn't been up on them. I mean, I'd heard of them, but I wasn't up on their music. And I kept listening to Radiohead, and I was like, Man, I want to make hip-hop that feels like Radiohead. I want to make hip-hop that can use guitars and soul and jazz and just fuse it all together.
Eventually as a teenager, I was pulled up on stage by James Brown's saxophone player, Maceo Parker, during one of his concerts and scatted on his stage for 20 minutes. After I was done, Maceo's bass player got down on one knee as if he were proposing, took a string off of his bass guitar and coiled it up around my ring finger. He hushed the crowd and said into the microphone, "Wendy, from this day forward you are married to music. You have a gift from God. You must devote your life to using this gift or else you will deprive the world of something so special." I got the chills.
My fingers used to hurt really bad when I played guitar. I stopped because of it.
No matter how long you play the guitar, there's always something else to learn.
There is no finer sonic-producing weapon for a guitar slayer than a hand crafter Gibson masterpiece.
I feel like I'm just learning how to play the guitar. I mean, really learning to play the guitar
I was always just kind of obsessed with guitar, even before I started playing.
I have a piano and a guitar, and I tend to switch back and forth between those two instruments to help me get inspired.
Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you're still playing a guitar.
Learn the lick, but learn FROM the lick.
I play the guitar. This year at the Sundance film festival, I joined the band from 'The Guitar' on stage. We warmed up for Patti Smith, and then the director Michel Gondry got on the drums to play some songs from the soundtrack to his film Be Kind Rewind with Mos Def. It was pretty mad.
I think often times if a guitar riff is centered around the chorus or if it follows the chorus, then it often times turns into the actual hook.
I wanted to develop a guitar style where phrases and lines get there just in the nick of time, like with Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper. Subtleties mean so much, and there is a stunning beauty in them.
I had given up the guitar between '75 and '78. I completely lost interest. I was sick of hearing other guitar players and I was tired of my tunes.
