Eddie Van Halen Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Obviously you have to have rhythm. If you have rhythm, then you can play anything you need. If you have rhythm and you love music, then play and play and play until you get to where you want to get. If you can pay the rent, great. If you can't, then you'd better be having fun.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you'll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you'll get to where you want to be.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“... I played 'Eruption' two times for the record, and we kept the one that seemed to flow ... there's a mistake at the top end of it whenever I hear it, I always think, Man I could've played it better ... but I like the way it sounds. I'd never heard a guitar sound like that before...”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“Most beginners want to learn lead because they think it's cool .. consequently, they never really develop good rhythm skills .. since most of a rock guitarists time is spent playing rhythm, it's important to learn to do it well .. learning lead should come after you can play solid backup and have the sound of the chords in your head”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with?”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that's a wonderful thing.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“It's Always about the music, never about anything else”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“We make music for a living. Like I've always said, if you like what you're doing, you're halfway there; if someone else likes it, that's even better. If they don't like it, at least you like it. Not to be selfish, but you kind of have to be.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I'm very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“Eventually you'll take the phrases and rhythm patterns you've copped and begin to put your own mark on them”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“If your going to learn to play lead guitar, get an electric guitar .. it doesn't have to be an expensive one .. acoustic guitars aren't good for learning lead, because you can't play up very high on the neck and they take heavier-gauge strings which makes it hard to bend notes”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“We're musicians. We make music for a living. It's that simple. Nothing else matters.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“Rock & Roll is feeling, and after you know most of the basics ... chords, rhythm, scales and bends ... getting that feeling is just about the most important aspect of playing guitar”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“I started doing all kinds of weird stuff on the guitar, which became part of my playing. I started doing harmonics and tapping on the guitar and pulling off strings and doing all this weird stuff that no one had ever done before.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I'm tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I've opened up my own pathology center.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids!”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“I took classical piano lessons from the age of five.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“I was trying to take the band in a direction that I thought was appropriate, and Roth was trying to take the band in more of a Las Vegas direction. And there he is.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“Imagine if Beethoven had a tape recorder. Then you'd know exactly what he meant. Maybe he meant 'Da da da da' instead of 'Boom boom boom boom!' Who knows?”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“The one thing I do have is good ears. I don't mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“The only band I was really over-into was Cream. And the only thing I really liked about them was their live stuff 'cause they played two verses, then go off and jam for 20 minutes, come back and do a chorus and end. And I love the live jam stuff, the improvisation.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“When I was growing up and listening to bands like the Dave Clark Five, the groove was what initially got me going. I really like that funky, heavy groove.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“Before the operation on my left hand I wasn't able to stretch my fingers open all the way. I've never had very big hands, but I could do the splits with them. Eventually I couldn't any more. I had a twisted tendon in my little finger that prevented me from being able to stretch.”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“I wanted a Gibson type sound, but with a Strat vibrato ... I bought a body from Charvel for $50.00 and a neck for $80.00 - I slapped it together, put an old Gibson PAF in it and painted it up with the stripes”
-- Eddie Van Halen -
“I was just a punk kid, trying to get a sound out of a guitar that I couldn't get off the rack, so I built one myself ... I wanted a Gibson type of sound but with a Strat vibrato .. I went to town painting it and I put three pickups back in, but they don't work - only the rear one works”
-- Eddie Van Halen
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