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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

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Steve Vai
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: June 6
Actor
Composer
Guitarist
Musician
Record Producer
Songwriter
Carle Place
New York
Nations
Plays
Arch
Artist
Tone
Favored
Play
Albums
Arches
Fingers
Johnny
Independent
Released
Record
Label
Records
Labels
Gibson
Called
Album
Marshall

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Possessing a healthy imagination is a necessary ingredient for creativity.
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My past is very interesting, and I treasure it, but to write about it, it's just not on my radar.
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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.
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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.
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It's very hard to come across as a passionate human being in print. People can't hear the inflections in your voice.
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If I remain true to what's in my heart, that's all the success I need.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!'
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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.
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Find what you're best at and exaggerate it.
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Besides being a guitar player, I'm a big fan of the guitar. I love that damn instrument.
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I wanted to be a composer before anything else. And my sister was listening to Led Zeppelin in the other room! When I heard that, it was a game-changer.
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A lot of those little things that I really like doing are just moments of cool articulation, just little moments of phrasing that probably go over everybody's head.
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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.
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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.
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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
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