John Petrucci Quotes

I have to work really hard to get the record deal - I have to spend years at it to get good. I have to practice to be good at guitar.

I came to L.A. in 1970, and my desire and my training was to be a studio musician, which I had read about in my senior year in high school.

I literally came out of high school thinking that I was going to do something in the sports world because I grew up with a very sports-oriented family. My last year of school, I got involved with playing guitar and singing, and I joined a band and I just decided that year somehow that I was going to play music.

I started playing guitar before I can really remember, and I started writing really early, too.

I don't sing. I played guitar for a while. I'm not great, I'm not Lenny Kravitz by any means, but I do like to strum.

I've always dabbled on guitar, but never took lessons.

I went to college on a classical piano scholarship. My grandmother made me practice one full hour a day. Every day. Man. I thought all she wanted was for me not to have any fun. Next thing you know, you have a career in music. Now, not everybody's going to go on and be Mozart or Michael Jackson. But music makes you smarter.

All the really good guitar players - Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or even Bert Jansch or John Martin - I love all those people. But I didn't start out thinking that I would be a guitar player. In the beginning, I played the guitar so I could sing. I mainly concentrated on my voice.

You can actually go to school and college to learn how to play and get technical with the electric bass.

I've actually been playing music ever since I was a young a kid. I got my first guitar when I was about 7 or 8 years old, so I've always been doing music.

My dad wanted me to play when I was a kid, so I learned to play the guitar. I pursued a career in music because I love it so much and I enjoy what it does to those who hear it.

I wanted to be a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall; that is what I wanted to do from really early on.

I can't even read notes. But I can teach someone how to make a guitar smoke.

I quit the tax job then and decided that I was going to play in a band. I answered ads in the Village Voice and went through two days of auditioning for bands.

I played guitar when I was young and never really considered it as a way to make a living.

When I was 5, I started taking singing lessons, and then, after 'School of Rock,' I started taking guitar lessons. I would always write songs and play them for my friends, and I would play my guitar on the set a lot.

It worries me that young singers think you can shortcut the training and go straight to fame and fortune, and programmes like Pop Idol have encouraged that.

I started playing guitar when I was in my late teens, and within two years I was starting to play shows.

I've been playing a guitar since I was 10 years old.

I know that I'm capable of moving around on the guitar. I can express myself the way I want to and feel good about it. But as far as technical chops, I'm not a learned musician.

I just sang at first - I didn't ever play guitar before The Kills.

I've been singing and playing the guitar ever since I can remember.

I just started playing guitar and started singing and started working on this act that I would call 'Don McLean' when I was probably in high school.

I don't know how it got around that I play a lot of instruments. I really don't. I play the guitar and the mandolin.

I learned tabla for three years when in school, then started picking up the basics of the acoustic guitar when in college.