Best Acoustic Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“My dad had an acoustic guitar, and I remember I was like 12 when I started learning to play chords.”

“I write everything from an acoustic guitar.”

“Not that I needed to make a dance record, but it dawned on me that I tend to write a lot of acoustic ballads and mid-tempo type tunes. I realized it was time for something a little more upbeat and positive and that's what I ended up with on 'Happy Hour.'”

“When I was about 14, I got on the bus, and my sister's friend's brother handed me a burnt CD that said 'American Idiot,' and that was pretty much the first time that I fell in love with music. I couldn't stop listening to it. I saw an acoustic guitar sitting around the house, and I picked it up.”

“Most of the stuff I did isn't acoustic. Just guitar related.”

“I used to take the kids in groups and, just for my own creativity, just start to play acoustic guitar and role play with them. I had a popular program and all of a sudden I was teaching teachers how to be creative.”

“My first review in NOW Magazine - I played one machine, so I went to a soloist night, where everyone else played acoustic guitar. And I think the comment was, 'Peaches made a one-woman, hair-raising throwdown, and then we got back to music.' To me that was a win - I was like, 'Wow, I have broken the mould.'”

“I don't love using synthesizers, but I do use synthesizers. I'm more inspired by acoustic instruments - as long as there's something making the sound it's something I really like.”

“All the songs I've written, if they don't sound good on acoustic guitar, they won't sound good at 11.”

“I've never been one of those musicians to differentiate between acoustic and electronic sounds. I just see it all as sound sources to be used. This translates into my live shows as well.”

“I love playing acoustic guitar because I strum with my hands to feel more connected.”

“I play a little acoustic bass and a little guitar. In our house there are instruments everywhere, and I love picking them up and just noodling around. I pick up my husband's tin whistle sometimes. He's really proficient, but it's about the second most annoying instrument - after the banjo - if you don't know how to play it.”

“It is really hard to write something high-energy and upbeat on acoustic guitar.”

“Back in the Eighties, I used to write ballads on my acoustic guitar, so it seems very natural to me to go back to a little singing.”

“In 2002 I did a big tour of Europe, by train, by myself, on foot, all the time walking from train station to the venue, in a weird town, in a weird country. I'd brought an acoustic guitar with me but it got broken somehow in transit.”

“My favorite acoustic is the Nancy Wilson Signature Martin.”

“Most of everything I've ever written actually was written on acoustic. 'Do You Feel' was written on electric. 'I'm in You' was written on piano.”

“I play acoustic when I need to play acoustic, and I say I'm probably a better acoustic player than I am electric.”

“Doing the acoustic at Carnegie is basically advised because electric music tends to get, let's just say, acoustically unsound.”

“I have always just experimented, and I come from a very ancient, acoustic root. It was very hard to put a finger on me.”

“I got a toy guitar at a fundraiser and was trying to write songs with it that were ridiculous. After a week, my parents bought me a real acoustic guitar, and I started taking guitar lessons.”

“I played acoustic guitar so intensely, for so long - for nine hours a day as a 10-year-old, writing songs through the night, on tour constantly from when I was 19 - that I destroyed my arms and shoulders in the process.”

“I write on the acoustic guitar, I write some on the piano, but I've been messing around with these guitar pedals and drum machines, educating myself in that world.”

“When I was a kid and writing more acoustic songs, I was doing it more for the attention than for the love of the music. I knew I needed to change something because I wasn't having fun and wasn't liking the songs I was writing.”

“For me, it's always been about a mix of hip-hop, acoustic singer/songwriters, and piano rock. I pull all those together. Each song may lean more heavily on one than the other, but they all have all three pieces.”

“I know how to play the acoustic guitar, but I'm learning to play the electric guitar now. I'm sure it will be a wonderful experience.”

“My foundation is acoustic guitar, and it is finger-picking and all of that and sort of an orchestral style of playing. Lead guitar came later, more out of the necessity to do so because of expectations in a particular situation.”

“When I started writing songs for Temple of the Dog, I went to my room with my acoustic guitar, and I was happy staying in that mode. It was more chordal based and more lyric driven. I enjoyed not making riff-based songs built around a guitar idea.”

“I've always liked the electric guitar better. Even though the acoustic can be a very sexy and mysterious instrument, I can go to way more places with an electric.”

“For me, the keyboard is always an additional sound to the piano. Piano is the main instrument; I can't go anywhere without acoustic piano. It's been my best friend since I was 6 years old.”

“'Funny' is really cool live. You break it down into an acoustic set, and sometimes I'll do that one unplugged and off the mic, depending on the venue.”

“I wrote all my songs on my main instruments, and the songs I would record in my bedroom were just acoustic guitar, mandolin, and sometimes bass. I really like the texture the mandolin added to my music, but my fingers were too big to play it... I could only do little riffs and whatever.”

“I got my first guitar when I was 11. It was an electric, and I can remember just wanting to be Avril Lavigne! But I got annoyed with having to plug it in and play with amps and pedals and stuff. Then I got given a cheap acoustic, a Tanglewood, and I thought it was awesome because I could play it anywhere!”

“I've always liked acoustic blues. I liked Bob Dylan a lot.”

“I'm triggering acoustic instruments. I'm literally beating, smacking, hitting, blowing, doing physical things. It's an incredibly exciting way to make music.”

“We know about man's impact on the ocean in terms of fishing and overfishing, but we don't really know much about what's happening underneath the water. And in fact, shipping has a role to play here, because shipping noise has contributed to damaging the acoustic habitats of ocean creatures.”

“When you're playing rock music to 10,000 people, you almost attack the audience. When you play acoustic you're waiting for the audience to respond. It's a reverse energy, and you're more vulnerable. It's really intense.”

“It's hard for me to use any electronic sounds at all, really. I'm always just layering acoustic sounds.”

“I remember writing Sunday Morning' and Gwen wasn't feeling well that day and I had an acoustic guitar and I started singing, Somebody is feeling quite ill ' and that became Sunday Morning.'”

“To me, I don't see any difference between a synthesizer and an acoustic instrument. It's what's done on it that counts.”

“I aspire to be someone like Gillian Welch. What she does is play part of a group with two acoustic guitars with harmonies. She plays folk. However, there is no one that sounds like Gillian Welch. I aspire to come up with a unique sound like she has.”

“I was wearing leather studded jackets, but I was playing acoustic folk music, so it was quite a weird mix.”

“Let's face it - the electric guitar is way sexier than the acoustic.”

“And I only really like to play the acoustic guitar.”

“When I started doing the acoustic shows, people would be yelling for 'Hooligan's Holiday' and 'Smoke The Sky,' and I had no idea of how to pull them off.”

“There were not very many girls in rock n' roll together with men that had a heavy rock sound as well as a more acoustic sound like Heart.”

“I collect as many acoustic guitars as I need for a specific purpose. Acoustic guitars are really just tools for me.”

“I'm probably a more intentional acoustic player than I am an electric player because of lack of influences. I just play acoustic to see what happens.”

“I always think that, for me, being someone who comes out of electric guitar experimentation, the idea of playing acoustic guitar is, in itself, kind of a radical move.”

“Choosing an acoustic guitar for a live setting can be different from picking out one for recording. One doesn't always work for the other. The sonic properties can be vastly different.”

“I find that I get nervous before I play. Even sound checks can give me anxiety and screw with my mind. But as long as I can play a little acoustic guitar backstage if I'm feeling nervous, so I don't have to walk in there cold turkey, I'll be fine.”

“I like to check out of reality for a little bit when I listen to music and kind of go somewhere, so I feel like the more broken-down acoustic songs tell stories to me the best.”

“When Taylor Swift was first beginning to really take off, a couple of guys I knew in her band called and offered me a job on her tour playing acoustic guitar and singing background vocals, and they thought I would be a really good fit for it.”

“With 'Acoustic Soul,' I saw my music as sparse. But I didn't do that because I was making a commitment to be commercial. That's what made 'Acoustic Soul' so difficult to produce. It took 2 1/2 years because I couldn't figure out what I wanted and still be commercial.”

“When I was younger and played acoustic guitar music, I got a lot of Sheeran comparisons, along with guys like Paolo Nutini and James Morrison.”

“At 13, I loved how so many of my peers sang and played acoustic guitar, so I started recording videos with covers of famous songs and posting them online.”

“Oftentimes, especially in the context of an acoustic song, I'm motivated to write by some amount of melancholy.”

“I like to play acoustic slide. I like that. I just... I can do it, you know. But it ain't my cup of tea.”

“I come from a jazzy, acoustic, folky background. Everything has to work with melodies; the words have to have meaning.”

“The transformation that happens when a young artist goes on the road - you put the acoustic guitar down and start to play the electric a little louder - it gets a little bit ragged.”

“I normally write on acoustic guitar, although piano is the instrument that I actually studied. Occasionally, I'll write on the piano or sometimes with no instrument at all.”

“My first time doing music was on acoustic guitar. I had a friend from Texas who taught me so much country, I entered a few country competitions. But eventually, I got tired of it.”

“At my high school, there were always kids carrying acoustic guitars around, which is why I named my band the Mountain Goats. I didn't want to seem like one of those guys who brought his guitar to the party whether you asked him to or not.”

“I was in Redwood for almost six years. It was an acoustic trio that I still think was the best band I've ever been a part of. We do have a double CD of the Redwood stuff available called 'Lost But Not Really.' I'm very proud of the old Redwood stuff.”

“I write alternative, folkie pop. It's very acoustic.”

“I practice on the acoustic guitar a little bit, but I think I have reached the peak of my talent.”

“My guitar playing is a synthesis of traditional American acoustic style and Urban Pop and R&B.”

“As much as I love acoustic Neil Young - and I do deeply - I may be more passionate about the electric. Luckily it's not a contest, and we never have to make that choice. But Neil Young on an electric guitar - I feel like I've never seen or heard anything like it.”

“Like, when I write a song, the song comes first before production. Everything is written on an acoustic guitar so you can strip away everything from it and have it be equally as entertaining and good without the bells and whistles.”

“My dad always played a lot of music, so I heard him playing all the time, and then I decided that I wanted to learn to play guitar, so I got an acoustic and started taking lessons. I wanted to be able to shred like Yngwie Malmsteen.”

“I was 16 when I started playing. I borrowed a friend's acoustic guitar, and I had a Beatles chord book. I just taught myself that way.”

“Did Muddy Waters play an acoustic? Well of course he did. But did he turn his back on being able to plug it in and play louder? No, he plugged in and turned it up and got miles and miles ahead of the game in one fateful act of just plugging in.”

“I played recorder in assembly, then I became passionate about the guitar, I don't know why. I started on electric then moved to acoustic - my brother was playing bass in the next room.”

“I've always loved acoustic music because I've always loved to hear someone's words or just watch them and just get into them. The distancing thing about rock is it's so assaulting.”

“In certain ways I still feel like I'm finding my way. I feel pretty comfortable playing acoustic guitar and singing, but then I feel pretty good sitting on a reggae groove as well.”

“What resonates with me now is the acoustic guitar and piano.”

“I even played bass for a while. Besides playing electric guitar, I'd also get asked to play some acoustic stuff. But, since I didn't have an acoustic guitar at the time, I used to borrow one from a friend so I could play folk joints.”

“I was down with Lucinda Williams and Mary Chapin-Carpenter. We did an acoustic tour, just the three of us, three chicks and three guitars.”

“There were bars that began to have acoustic musicians play, it was 1970: Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, America, The Eagles, all that kind of stuff was popular. It was very easy for me to just kind of move in and be noticed.”

“How do I explain Neil Young? Great question! I explain Neil Young as, I would kill to see his acoustic shows.”

“If you feel that you're not getting enough out of a song, change the instrument - go from an acoustic to an electric or vice versa, or try an open tuning. Do something to shake it up.”

“For me, the best thing I can do is play live. The best way for me to put over what I'm trying to do is to play live. Whether it's an acoustic show, electric or whatever... if I shine at all, that's where it all really happens - it just took me a while to rediscover that.”

“Honestly, if I was to learn how to play the guitar it would be an acoustic guitar. That's just the way I am. I'm not all loud.”

“My bajo sexto, a big Mexican acoustic guitar, comes from a shop in L.A. run by three generations of Mexicans.”

“I started out with acoustic guitar and loop pedal because I thought I wanted to be Ed Sheeran.”

“My musical output has been consistently acoustic, but my taste has not. I love everything. As long as it's good, I'm in.”

“The way I think about things or hear things in my head is actually much closer to acoustic instruments. I don't have weird synthesized fantasy of music in my head.”

“John Mayer and Jack Johnson are two of my all-time favorites. I love Colbie Caillat and really cool, beach-y, guitar, acoustic type music.”

“If you can't play it on an acoustic guitar or a grand piano then it's not a song.”

“Originally, AXS TV came to me last year and asked me if I'd be interested in doing an acoustic 'Live from the Grammy Museum' performance. But I was bound and determined to do an electric show with this great band to dispel any notion that I wasn't a 'rock guy' in Styx.”

“I worked out the keyboard parts on the progressive rock classic 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway' and somehow managed to play it all on acoustic guitar.”

“I have been playing acoustic music for a very long time, and it's something that I am very comfortable doing, so if I made a record, it would probably be a mixture of that and some other things that I'm interested in.”

“If I'm opening up for George Jones or playing a complete honky-tonk, I do true country music. But if it's a complete rock club, I'll do some country and a little bit of this hillbilly acoustic country metal or whatever it's called.”

“If I want to do an orchestral record, if I want to do an acoustic record, if I want to do a death-metal record, if I want to do a jazz record - I can move in whichever direction I want, and no one is going to get upset about that. Except maybe my manager and my record company.”

“I'm also performing regularly in Southern California with two bands. As a solo artist doing acoustic sets and a member of the Jenerators, my rock n roll band that has been around for a long time now.”

“I do some solo, acoustic stuff, but I also like plugging in my electric guitar and playing loud with a band.”

“The first thing you realise very quickly when you decide to do an acoustic version of an electric song is your solo either becomes either very truncated, very different, or non-existent, because even if you play a clean solo, it's different with the Kryptonite... with the acoustic.”

“I actually bought a travel guitar, and that guitar is really cool. You can actually fold the guitar, and you can plug headphones into it, but it's acoustic, or semi-acoustic.”

“The best way to do that is to pick up a new instrument or an instrument that you don't typically write on and see where it takes you. Whether it's using an acoustic guitar, or piano, or electronics as tools, all of these lead to creating different types of songs and I used all of these methods for this record.”

“I've actually always wanted to make something like an acoustic record.”