Kirk Hammett Quotes

The first time I learned how to play, my guitar was out of tune. I didn't know it; I just started writing songs.

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.

All of my acoustic playing came from my songwriting. All of the chords I've learned and all of the voicings I play them in are a direct result of composing.

You never learn everything on that guitar neck.

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

We always had a guitar at home, but it wasn't until I was 14 when I picked it up myself when my father handed me these sheets of music of the Beatles and some other classics. That's where I learned all the chords and learned how to play and sing at the same time.

I've been playing swing chords for a long time.

For me, theory has always opened things up to where I can walk into a room and just by hearing something I know exactly where to go on the guitar. I have a better time playing because I have a variety of colors to bring to the table.

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've always thought that the act of playing the guitar was the act of trying to make a point of playing the guitar.

When I was 12, I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, and I found a chord book in a shop, and I stuffed it down my trousers. And that's how I learned to play the guitar.

As a guitar player, it's harder for me to impress somebody than it is to write a song that they like.

I just want to be a better guitar player, really.

In the last couple of years I've been picking up my guitar again.

You can tune your guitar funky, and something's gonna come out. There's no secret to it - either you got it, or you don't.

When I was six years old, Mom and Dad gave me a guitar for my birthday, and Daddy taught me the chords to 'You Are My Sunshine.'

I've started to look at guitar playing from more than just a standpoint of using certain modes and techniques.

I'm not capable of wielding the guitar like Jimmy Page, one of my all-time favorite guitarists. My skill set is more based on the grinding, sort of human heartbeat - almost playing the guitar more like a drum.

All my songs were made at the end of the neck, 'farmer's corner' chords.

I like playing guitar I don't like talking about it. I like writing riffs, I don't like explaining them.

All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.

I was never a fan of open tunings, because some people will do that and fumble around. But that's not my jam.

I think I have music in me! I had a scholarship to study singing at one point, and I've never really done anything about it. I've done some music on stage, but it's been a long time. It would be kind of fun.

I loved the guitar, and I had all of this music in my head. My passion for the guitar and the ideas for what I could create musically were equal. So that's where I was.

Picking up a guitar - I couldn't imagine doing anything else.