John Petrucci Quotes

My original interests and intentions in guitar playing were primarily created on quality of tone, for instance, the way the instrument could be made to echo or simulate the human voice.

I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.

I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It's fragile. I don't have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.

It's a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can't do.

I did play every little note on the guitar on that record.

I write almost all my songs on an acoustic guitar, even if they turn into rock songs, hard rock songs, metal songs, heavy metal songs, really heavy songs... I love writing on an acoustic because I can hear what every string is doing; the vibrations haven't been combined in a collision of distortion or effects yet.

I love the subtlety and tonal range of the acoustic guitar.

There's more to playing the guitar than being able to split your legs.

A guitar is so tactile, and when you're playing bends - and bending notes is a big part of my style - there are so many notes within the note you're bending from and the note you're bending up to.

The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else.

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

I think the way I play the guitar is very percussive. I play a lot of rhythm chops as though I were playing congas or something.

As a guitar player, you can gravitate to the blues because you can play it easily. It's not a style that's difficult to pick up. It's purely emotive and dead easy to get a start with.

I don't think anything can touch the expressive range of the guitar.

When I started writing music on the guitar, it started off very folky because of my limited ability to play. It was slow, soft melodies. But then, as I got better on the guitar, I started exploring different sounds.

What made me pick up a guitar? It weighed a lot less than a piano.

Unless the guitar works as a color, then I don't use it, so I haven't been playing guitar too much lately.

Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it.

The thing with the piano is, the piano is like percussion almost - well, it is. You have to... not beat on it, but there is more work involved than a Hammond. With a Hammond, you just lay your hands on the keys, man, and you're gone.

The guitar is a small orchestra. It is polyphonic. Every string is a different color, a different voice.

Every guitar I own gets used and has its purpose.

I think when I began, I played distortion more than the guitar. The results of my strumming. Now I play the twang of the string, which is a lot closer to the source of the sound making.

When you break out the acoustic guitar, the words are the focal point unless you're the Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar. So the words have to have meaning.

I play guitar, and it's not a prop.

To me, my guitar has always been my orchestra.