Pete Townshend Quotes

It must be a hellish thing to know what's possible in music, to be hearing things all the time and not have an appropriate outlet for them.

For what I can imagine and feel and think and hear, I can hardly do anything on the acoustic bass. It used to be just pure frustration of imagining so much more and being able to get to a certain level of execution.

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.

I've actually had a melody on my guitar since the day I learned how to play it, back when I was 7. And for some reason I can't add lyrics to it.

I've dreamed about doing music since I was three or four years old.

For me, drum elements are like hieroglyphics - I think of a certain physical figure, and a little three-dimensional glyph will appear in my mind as I'm playing.

I hear entire symphonies, oratorios, in my head, but I can't write a note.

I picked up a guitar, and I knew what I wanted to do.

I don't think I approach my songs differently from other artists. You get a big picture of it, and you imagine the song and hear and feel it, and that big picture is like a snapshot, and it comes to you as fast as it takes to click a camera.

What I really have in my head, my imagination, my understanding of music, I never really get that out.

For me it's the instrument. If I want to think of a flute and the state of the arts I hear a vibrato; I don't know what a flute is unless the person plays it for me.

I'm a big, big blues fan and the last several years I've really invested in the blues a lot, and I think my playing is getting better because of it - not necessarily better on a technical level, but certainly on a level of appropriateness.

I stone got crazy when I saw somebody run down them strings with a bottleneck. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and I said that I had to learn.

The score is not a bible, and I am never afraid to dare. The music is behind those dots.

That's the thing about the blues: It's one thing to hit a note on a guitar. To make it matter is something else altogether.

I don't really play a lot of slide in general, but it was fun getting into that style and exploring it.

It's so satisfying as a guitar player to play stuff that's related to the blues.

There's always more than one way to play the same notes because of the nature of guitar.

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

I wanted to write picture music ever since I was a kid.

Some people play steel string beautifully, but I'm not exactly a world-class picker.

When I feel like improvising, I always improvise on the guitar, never on the lute. It's as natural to me as breathing.

I don't feel like I'm very good at making music.

The hierarchy is set out for me. The first priority is piano. I have to be 101 percent prepared. I find that at other times of the day, if the creative juices are working, I might want to write or compose.

If I could sing and play like Lightnin' Hopkins, I would.