Steve Vai Quotes

I could never overstate the importance of a musician’s need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good ‘inner ear’ – the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening – is the most important element in becoming a good musician.

The only thing that’s holding you back, is the way you’re thinking.

Besides being a guitar player, I’m a big fan of the guitar. I love that damn instrument.

It’s very hard to come across as a passionate human being in print. People can’t hear the inflections in your voice.

You can never deny the immense talent, rock credibility and iconic historical contribution that Van Halen made.

My main calling in life is to seek and achieve spiritual balance, and to express that through my instrument. Everything else is here today, gone later today.

A good solo is like a book. It will start out in a phrase, it will go on in paragraphs, and then it will have a great ending.

I think every artist subconsciously wants to evolve themselves. Sometimes they get stuck in ruts because of pop culture, peer pressure, stuff like that. But what excites me most is exploring my own musical insights and expanding upon them.

Reps once took chances on art, History’s most treasured musicians were believed in and cultivated to reach their potential. Today, it would be difficult for those musicians to get deals.

If I remain true to what’s in my heart, that’s all the success I need.

As a musician, I look for certain things that stimulate me. And what I look for is something that’s an evolution on a particular genre that I never heard before.

The classical guitar has a dynamic to it unlike a regular acoustic guitar or an electric guitar. You know, there’s times when you should play and there’s times when you gotta hold back. It’s an extremely dynamic instrument.

I’m always pursuing knowledge; I’m a seeker of spiritual equilibrium – and music is a big part of that.

Still to this day, I am deeply satisfied when watching a guitar player who is connected with their art and instrument. GuitarTV helps you tap into that connection, and to each other.

I’ve always considered transcribing to be an invaluable tool in the development of one’s musical ear and, over the years, I have spent countless glorious hours transcribing different kinds of music, either guitar-oriented or not.

The older I get, the more I just like plugging directly into my amp. I’m tired of trying to impress myself with weird sounds. It’s about the notes more.

I designed a guitar for Ibanez and then they started manufacturing it – it’s called the Jem – it’s 26 years old and I still play it. As a kid I liked Les Pauls and Strats, but they had limitations for the kind of playing I wanted to do.

The blues scale was the first thing I learned. It’s just a pentatonic scale with a flat seventh and a few notes that sound cool when you bend them. And because people have amalgamated the blues into this rock-blues scale, if you’re using it, you better sound like a real authentic blues player.

Ray and I do not draw salaries, Any profits will be re-invested into marketing the music we believe in.

You know, there’s times when you should play and there’s times when you gotta hold back.

I have an independent record label called Favored Nations on which I released an album by an artist called Johnny A, who plays an arch top Gibson through a Marshall, but the tone is all in his fingers.

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.

Play slow and perfect – that’s the way to becoming a virtuoso.

When I was growing up, the blues did seem too simple to me. I was just a muso.

I knew that I was going to have a life as a musician, because I always felt the pull. I don’t remember ever having to make a choice.

I know it is common nowadays for artists to start labels but this is a thoroughly constructed vehicle for inspired talent. This is a market that we’ve been living, breathing and eating for our entire lives – one where a huge void currently exists. Favored Nations is a long-term commitment.

Make an exercise out of everything you can’t do.

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.

It’s hilarious, because my guitar has what’s known as a tremolo bar or a whammy bar. And the whammy bar is probably the most alien thing on my guitar that could possibly relate to a classical guitar.

When I was a teenager in the ’70s, I was really into those great bands like Led Zeppelin and Queen and Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper.

If you want to be a virtuoso then you have to set your sights above me. You have to go beyond what I’m doing. And that’s for you to figure out. Because if you can do that, then I’m going to be trying to go beyond you.

History’s most treasured musicians were believed in and cultivated to reach their potential. Today, it would be difficult for those musicians to get deals. We have the insight and the tools to identify and bring to fruition the dormant talent that our artists possess.

If you’re feeling emotional when you’re creating something, it’ll sound that way.

Along with its enchanting and exquisite melodies, West Side Story has attitude and a tremendous amount of frenetic energy. It’s emotional, theatrical and technical. It’s everything.

I was always one of those guys who was a seeker after truth. I want to know what’s going on.

The cool thing about playing is that the more you do it, the better you get.

I can tell you this: I’m an extremely passionate individual. I try to be careful how I display it because you never know how people are going to take it.

The only time I’m miserable is when I can’t keep an instrument in tune.

My past is very interesting, and I treasure it, but to write about it, it’s just not on my radar.

Most people are fascinated to see someone play an instrument in an inspired way. We are moved by witnessing musical brilliance, and it was this notion that led me to purchase the GuitarTV domain 10 years ago.

I was a kid, 12 or something, when the Partridge Family was big on TV. I liked the curly cord running from the bass to the amps, which were real fancy. That cord looked so cool. I said, ‘Wow! I gotta play something like that!’

I created this picture of this character who would play the guitar effortlessly, who had no limitations, performing beautiful music, and he moved around with great acrobatic skills, just capturing the audience and being a great entertainer.

That’s the thing about great artists: They find the thing that’s most obvious to themselves, what’s most conscious and natural, and they put it out there and the audience comes.

I awake, I meditate, get the kids off to school, go to the gym, go to the Favored Nations office, and usually at around 1 pm I’m home and do music the rest of the day.

What I look for in music is artistry, sincerity, and simplicity, and Tom Waits has all of that. I want to make a connection to the creator.

When I was young, I wasn’t a misfit or anything. I had friends in all the different social groups. But I had issues – just personal issues, insecurities and other things that had happened in my life.

I’m a big fan of cultural music, and that’s how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American.

I have a deep love for life and my fellow human beings. I try to understand everything that everybody does, even if it seems wrong to me.

I was about seven or eight years old when I first heard West Side Story, and it had a huge impact on me. If you look at the elements of that record, it contains many of the things I enjoy doing today.

We have the insight and the tools to identify and bring to fruition the dormant talent that our artists possess. Favored Nations will be branded as the home base for inspired musical talent.

It just happens in life, where you resonate with a particular artist. Or it can be a kind of food or a fashion – you discover it and it gives you a whole new lease on life.

I’ve never really heard anybody imitating anything of mine the way they do with Edward Van Halen’s stuff.