Jesse Harris Quotes

I am, by nature, a guitar player... I learned all of these other instruments around that, and around the theory that I built learning the guitar.

I started playing guitar back in '56. I was a teenager, and guitars had just come in, and I had a thing for it and got one. Started learning lead breaks from songs, because that was the easiest thing to do at the time. I had the guitar for two years before I learned any chords. Really.

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 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 want to be a better guitar player, really.

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.

I love Neil Young. His songs were the first songs I learned to play, and I recommend anyone who is starting guitar to learn Neil Young songs first.

I've never been much of a guitarist. I mean, I've played forever, but I was always more of a rhythm kind of guy. I don't read music.

You never learn everything on that guitar neck.

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

As a youngster, I used to try to pick up any bits of wisdom about the guitar I could. It's not like now where you have books and books about every aspect of anything. Any little pearl of wisdom was welcome back then.

If you play more than two chords, you're showing off.

I learned how to play guitar by playing along to Jane's Addiction records and Smashing Pumpkins records, things you can totally hear if you listen to my guitar.

I feel like I'm just learning how to play the guitar. I mean, really learning to play the guitar.

It turns out kids today still learn that four-chord progression when they're just picking up the guitar.

I learned five chords; I thought I knew it all.

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

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 have no guitar technique.

I would type in things like, 'How to play beginner songs on guitar,' and one of the first I learnt was 'Hey, Soul Sister' by Train. I taught myself these chords I didn't know the name of and slowly started to get the hang. I was obsessed with it.

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

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.

I was learning guitar as the band was beginning, at least in terms of being a lead guitar player. I could write songs, but I couldn't really play solos.

After 35 years of bone-crushing rock guitar playing, I'm finally starting to get my head out of the harmonic sand and learning how to play over chord changes.

I find it quite easy to play chords, and, you know, that was all I ever did. I never wanted to be a lead guitarist.