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If you've played guitar for very long at all, you'll notice that your improvement can often be sporadic and jagged. Sometimes, you find yourself getting exponentially better, improving by leaps and bounds. And other times...you don't feel any improvement for a few days...or a few weeks. When I find myself in these more difficult "plateau periods," I tend to seek inspiration from somewhere to get me over the hump. Sometimes it's as simple as listening to new music, sometimes it's reading or watching an interview with one of my heroes. One thing I started to do was to keep a notebook of quotes from some of my heroes that I could continue to add to whenever I found something that struck a nerve. Here's a list of 50 that I found while leafing through my book of quotes recently. Maybe they can help you through one of your own "plateau periods." 1. "When I hear a great musician, I can feel his life inside the music." - John McLaughlin 2. "I'm not saying a guy shouldn't take lessons ... but if you want to play like the artists, you have to go and get what they're putting on records and take it from there ... " - Grant Green 3. "To be creative and spontaneous, you have to live with imperfection." - John Abercrombie 4. "Charlie Christian showed me a lot, and was a great help, but even then, I realized that if I was going to make it, it was no use copying Charlie." - Barney Kessel 5. "Sight-reading is like playing. It's a question of doing." - Johnny Smith 6. "... don't be afraid to screw up !... one of the key issues to learning is making mistakes ... if you're not making mistakes, you're probably not having a very good time" - Robben Ford 7. "If you assume you haven't learned anything yet, there's no reason your playing can't stay dynamic all your life." - Jerry Garcia 8. "...Everyone has their own sound, and if you're heard enough, folks will come to recognize it. Style however, is a different thing. Try to express your own ideas. It's much more difficult to do, but the rewards are there if you're good enough to pull it off ..." - Chet Atkins 9. "Hear something, then play it, rather than just doing whatever comes under the fingers." - Jim Hall 10. "If you're into what you're playing, that's the most important thing." - James Hetfield 11. "Most beginners want to learn lead because they think it's cool .. consequently, they never really develop good rhythm skills .. since most of a rock guitarists time is spent playing rhythm, it's important to learn to do it well .. learning lead should come after you can play solid backup and have the sound of the chords in your head." - Eddie Van Halen 12. "The greatest teacher is just going out and playing." - George Benson 13. "Being a musician is a given for me--I didn't have much choice in the matter." - Tom Morello 14. "Being able to haul ass all over the fretboard doesn't mean anything if the music's no good." - Jim Heath 15. "That's the cool thing about the guitar--there's always more to learn." - Jim Heath 16. "Don't become so enraptured by certain heroes that your playing is exactly like theirs." - Jimmy Wyble 17. "The most powerful music is music with purpose." - Tom Morello 18. "Aping what you've already done is just so dangerous and unrewarding." - Andy Summers 19. "I just plug in and let go." - Billy Joe Armstrong 20. "If you really love guitar, you're going to spend every waking hour stroking the thing." - Frank Zappa 21. "As long as you're excited about what you're playing, and as long as it comes from your heart, it's going to be great." - John Frusciante 22. "Learn from the masters, learn from your contemporaries. Always try to update yourself." - Jimmy Stewart 23. "All the great guitarists have a spirit--a way they play and don't play." - Eddie Martinez 24. "The song tells me what to play." - Joe Walsh 25. "If you want to work consistently, you have to be a team player." - Russell Malone 26. "You have to be willing to eat--or not eat-- for it. Then you're a musician." - Johnny Copeland 27. "Chord substitution isn't some mysterious religious sect." - Howard Roberts 28. "I decided I would rather have a day job and love music than to play music that made me hate it." - David Torn 29. "I'm sure every pattern has been covered, but it's nice to think you might dwell on some that other people don't." - Richard Thompson 30. "You can end up a legend in your parents' basement." - Joe Walsh 31. "Learn the lick, but learn FROM the lick." - Scott Henderson 32. "A good player can make any guitar sound good." - Michael Bloomfield 33. "Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded." - Jimi Hendrix 34. "Listening is the key to everything good in music." - Pat Metheny 35. "I came from the last couple of years in a generation where we didn't have a computer around so we didn't waste as much time on the internet as we do now so I had large chunks of time which to devote to doing something." - John Mayer 36. "The guitar is your first wings. It's assigned and designed to unfold your vision and imagination." - Carlos Santana 37."Playing scales is like a boxer skipping rope or punching a bag. It's not the thing in itself; it's preparatory to the activity." - Barney Kessel 38. "Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything." - Joe Pass 39. "I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it and you need them to hear it." -James Taylor 40. "It's been very important throughout my career that I've met all the guys I've copied, because at each stage theyâ said: 'Don't play like me, play like you.'" - Eric Clapton 41. "Recording is God's way of telling you that you suck." - Bob Brozman 42. "There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake." - Robert Fripp 43. "If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music." - Keith Richards 44. "I don't think you can ever do your best. Doing your best is a process of TRYING to do your best." - Townes Van Zandt 45. "I started learning to sing what I liked, to experience it in a visceral way. Then it's inside. Get rid of the neurosis and then you can improvise." - Joe Satriani 46. "I don't think about what other people expect or anything. I mean, I sit and worrying so much about what I'M thinking, I'd go NUTS if I sat around worrying about other people." - Allan Holdsworth 47. "I write the songs first and in most cases teach myself the technique second." - Joe Satriani 48. Nobody loses at guitar if they put in the time. Something good always shows up. It's all consistent with life's big lessons. Patience. Determination. Love. Goals. Finishing a job. Etc. - Ted Greene 49. "Fast is only cool if it's melodic and has substance." - Yngwie J. Malmsteen 50. "Practice with a metronome and a tape recorder, making adjustments to your playing as you go to make it sound more musical. In fact, try to make it sound like the best music you've ever heard, even if it's just a major scale. Why not?" - Wayne Krantz So there you go. 50 fun guitar quotes for you to make your own, ponder and use to get yourself out of the "plateau period" you may find yourself in. You could use post it notes and put the one you like the best on your bathroom mirror, so you'd see it every morning as you brush you teeth. Maybe just plant them around the house in different places to give yourself a little inspiration from the masters and keep you focused. I have a dry erase board in my practice space that I write them on, to remind myself of why I started this guitar playing journey in the first place. Good luck. Author Biography: Vreny is private guitar Instructor in LA, CA who is providing private guitar lessons and guitar instructions for beginner to advanced level guitar students.Also learn how to play rock guitar music at ZOTZinGuitarLessons.com
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