guitar

I'd think learning to play the guitar would be very confusing for sighted people.

That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar.

Guitars have been the obsession of my life. I first picked one up at the age of four and I've been a guitar junkie ever since.

I spend a lot of time copying saxophone players and trumpet players. Not to say that it is not important to listen to guitar players, but there's so much music out there and so many possibilities. I like anyone who plays any instrument.

I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.

When I got into music, I wanted to learn guitar just enough to be able to write songs. I wanted to be able to express myself.

There are a lot of influences from different countries in my music. For example, I chose the guitar in my music, I think that it is a feminine instrument, so when I do not sing, the music expresses my voice.

I definitely try to be myself and not try to imitate other performers. That's why I got my music degree. I wanted to be prepared and not be a 'product.' I want people to know that I'm not only a singer but a musician as well. I studied guitar, piano, and composition. I believe that it's just about being myself on and off stage.

Being a musician since I was a teen, Guitar Center is the staple. You need anything to create, it's there. You need a Guitar Center. You gotta give it homage. It's a tool shed, and without the tool shed, it's hard to create.

I first started going to shows when I was about 16 - seeing local bands. I mean, I loved music before that, and I played a bit of guitar when I was younger and thought maybe I'd become a guitar teacher or something, but when I saw other kids doing it, I was like, 'Whoa, these are great bands! I can do it, too.'

There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.

I asked for a guitar when I was 8 years old for Christmas. I have no idea why. I never had any guitar heroes. I still don't. But there must have been something in me because I've been playing for 30 years.

Like my best friend, I asked for drums for Christmas, and got them. But when he moved on to guitar, I realized two things: (1) guitar is a much more expressive instrument, (2) way more girls pay attention to guitar players than to drummers.

I got a guitar when I was about 14, for a Christmas present, and went from there.

I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound.

When I write a song, I always start on acoustic guitar, because that's a good test of a song, when it's really open and bare. You can often mislead yourself if you start with computers and samples and programming because you can disguise a bad song.

My first synthesizer was the VCS3. I got it in Bristol in the late Sixties, long before Pink Floyd used them. I had to sell an acoustic guitar and an old reel-to-reel tape recorder to raise the money. You can do fantastic things with modern computers, but you cannot use them in the same intuitive, spontaneous way you can a VCS3.

Seven has always been my lucky number. It's on my guitar pick; in sports, that was always the number I was, and 'Riser' is my seventh album. With this album kind of coming to an end and having seven nominations at the ACMs, it feels like a bigger story in play for me, and it's the perfect number. I wouldn't have wanted eight!