Mick Taylor Quotes

Pop songs are not as graceful as they used to be. Performers today haven't gone through the regimen of learning how to write. And of course, everyone wants to own copyrights.

I've played the guitar since I was 12, and just taught myself songs chord by chord.

It's really weird to be playing chords again. Haven't played chords for a long time. I realised I haven't played chord changes since OK Computer and stuff like that.

I was 16 when I started playing. I borrowed a friend's acoustic guitar, and I had a Beatles chord book. I just taught myself that way.

We teach young kids from 8 to 14 or 15 about their musical heritage through great songs written by American songwriters. We don't do too many modern composers, although we include songs from Billy Joel and other writers like him.

I'm very lucky; I have a lot of knowledge. My favorite band is The Beatles, so a lot of inspiration for my music comes from them, too.

You can't get a better education in what it is to write songs until you listen to American soul music.

When I first started writing songs, I was almost quite embarrassed that I couldn't read music and I still to this day don't really know what chords I'm playing, I don't know the name of them.

Not being a natural songwriter... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein.

I had to learn chord shapes. I bought books with chord charts. I used to listen to all kinds of pop music.

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.

Songwriting is something I really need to work on. I don't have very many songs but I really love it. I would love to be a great song writer some day.

If you look at an old piece of sheet music, there's all kinds of text on it, there are ads, there are proclamations of the greatest songs' success, there's artwork. So there is a tactile, physical experience of learning the song and the way it's notated.

I do have musical background; I sing.

I have been doing music all my life so everyday when I get up I expect music will be part of it.

I grew up playing the saxophone. I joined the jazz band in high school, but somewhere along the way I realized the guys who strummed acoustic guitars at parties were the ones who got the attention. So I asked a friend to show me a few chords, and when I moved to L.A. I spent a lot of time practicing my guitar.

I listen to Prince on my iPad. And I use a Chords & Scales app to warm up before performing.

I wrote music as soon as I knew notation.

I learned some chords and I started watching anybody I could, once I really got into it.

I think having musical training as a child was really, really important. I studied piano as a child. Piano is a great instrument to understand musical theory on. I think I have that in my brain somewhere.

I'd like to teach kids how to write songs. This will be my first year so I'm just as green as some of the rest of the folks. It's like a music camp and I get to hang out with some of the past contestants.

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 just love to have fun with music, and try to find songs that say something that people want to hear.

I am permanently a student of people who make great songs, but besides sort of learning by absorption, I just love listening to music, hearing what's going on, hearing new things or new old things.

I know great songwriters. Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions.