Quote

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

Steve Vai

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Steve Vai
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: June 6
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Musician
Record Producer
Songwriter
Carle Place
New York
Acoustics
Gotta
Hold
Times
Back
Play

More quotes by Steve Vai

Image
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.
Steve Vai
Image
I've never really heard anybody imitating anything of mine the way they do with Edward Van Halen's stuff.
Steve Vai
Image
All musicians practice ear training constantly, whether or not they are cognizant of it. If, when listening to a piece of music, a musician is envisioning how to play it or is trying to play along, that musician is using his or her 'ear' - the understanding and recognition of musical elements - for guidance.
Steve Vai
Image
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.
Steve Vai
Image
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.
Steve Vai
Image
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.
Steve Vai
Image
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.
Steve Vai
Image
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.
Steve Vai
Image
So that's the challenge for me and that has always been the challenge - finding that melody, that riff, that thing that just lights me up and makes me feel like it's Christmas.
Steve Vai
Image
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.
Steve Vai
Image
If you want to play something that you can't, you need to see and hear yourself doing it in your minds eye. It will start to happen
Steve Vai
Image
We may be human, but we're still animals.
Steve Vai
Image
I was always one of those guys who was a seeker after truth. I want to know what's going on.
Steve Vai
Image
I loved the idea of recording. The idea of sound-on-sound-recording captured me as a young kid, and once I realized what it was I had an epiphany. Before I was even playing the guitar, I would create these lists of how I would record things and overdub them, like Led Zeppelin song, 'I could put this guitar on this track...' and so on.
Steve Vai
Image
When I was growing up, the blues did seem too simple to me. I was just a muso.
Steve Vai
Image
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.
Steve Vai
Image
It is only the most elite of elite musicians whose unconventional approach becomes convention.
Steve Vai
Image
Ray and I do not draw salaries. Any profits will be re-invested into marketing the music we believe in.
Steve Vai
Image
It's very hard to come across as a passionate human being in print. People can't hear the inflections in your voice.
Steve Vai
Image
If you want to play something that you hear, you need to listen with your mind's eye. You've heard of the mind's eye, right? Your mind has an ear too. It's a kind of listening, but it's not using your ears to listen. It's listening with your inner ear, and that's what you want to translate onto the guitar.
Steve Vai