Instrument Making Quotes

Yeah, you'd be surprised how many well known musicians have regular jobs. And yes, I'm a machinist. That's how I made my guitars - at a machine shop.

I wonder if I could make an electric bass.

We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making.

I wanted something very dense, something that would sustain long and more pieces of wood that would be soft, sweet, for more of a mellow sound.

'Tis God gives skill, but not without men's hand: He could not make Antonio Stradivarius's violins without Antonio.

For the longest time, I didn't even want to admit I was serious about music. Before the Shins, I would tell myself, 'Oh, I'm going to figure something out someday.' I had this romantic vision of being this old dude maybe making guitars or something.

It was 1988, I believe, that I met Grit. We were both appearing in a Canadian Folk Festival and as we sat backstage he handed me his guitar. I played it, loved it, and then found out that he'd made it himself.

You wonder about it and wonder how will I make an instrument that can handle this kind of a problem.

I used to play a lot of electric guitar. I don't really consider myself a guitar player anymore. Then I got really into how the pickups work. And winding and de-winding Telecaster pickups. And then building Telecasters. And I became more fascinated with making them than I was with actually playing them. So it's a slippery slope.

There are a whole bunch of instruments I'd like to build.

One summer, when I was elementary-school age, my neighbors and I built guitars and keyboards out of scrap wood, painted them in bright colors, and formed the cover band Lil' 'D' Duran Duran. We didn't make our own noise or even pretend to play our fake instruments.