Every time you pick up your guitar to play, play as if it's the last time.
Eric ClaptonRead
I remember hearing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and not really knowing anything about the geography or the culture of the music. But for some reason it did something to me - it resonated.
Interpretation
The quote expresses how music can deeply resonate with individuals regardless of their understanding of its cultural background.
In this quote, Eric Clapton reflects on the profound emotional impact that music can have, even in the absence of knowledge about its origins or the cultural context. He recalls the influential artists he listened to and emphasizes how their music resonated with him on an intrinsic level, highlighting the universal language of music that transcends geographical and cultural barriers.
In practice
During a music class, one might quote this to emphasize the universal nature of music.
Every time you pick up your guitar to play, play as if it's the last time.
There are people these days who can do things on the guitar which are beyond my reach. There's one guy who plays with Queen who can do things I would dream of doing. I sincerely mean that.
My original interests and intentions in guitar playing were primarily created on quality of tone, for instance, the way the instrument could be made to echo or simulate the human voice.
When I saw Jimi Hendrix I knew immediately that this guy was the real thing ... and when he played it was like a rough sketch of what he was going to become ... this guy was our generation, and he wasn't in a suit .. he played a Howlin' Wolf song 'Killing Floor', and then we (The Cream) had to carry on the set. It was pretty hard to follow.
My definition of Blues is that it's a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things but it's the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don't do it.
My selective memory of what drinking was like told me that standing at the bar in a pub, on a summer's evening with a long, tall glass of lager and lime was heaven, and I chose not to remember the nights on which I had sat with a bottle of vodka, a gram of coke and a shotgun, contemplating suicide.
Very few of the men whose names have become great in the early pioneering of jazz and of swing were trained in music at all. They were born musicians: they felt their music and played by ear and memory. That was the way it was with the great Dixieland Five.
I realized what Led Zeppelin was about around the end of our first U.S. tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York we were second to Iron Butterfly, and they didn't want to go on!
My mentor was Clara Ward of the famous Ward gospel singers of Philadelphia. And my dad was my coach. He coached me. And just my natural love for music is what drove me.
Young people have decided they like to listen to music in a certain way, through ear buds, and that's fine with me as long as it doesn't bother them that they're not hearing 90 percent of the music that way.
We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.
It wasn't until I hung out with Dead Prez and understood how to make, you know, raps with a message sound cool that I was able to just write "All Falls Down" in 15 minutes.
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