Andy Summers's Quotes

If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet.

In The Police, in a trio situation - which I've come back to now - it's just so wide open that it does actually provide this arena where you can play with a certain freedom.

It accumulates over the years and I've led so many bands of my own now and forced myself into new situations... You would hope that you play better and better - until you just get too feeble to do it anymore.

There was a period when I'd just come out of college where I'd been playing classical guitar and I suddenly realised that it wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

If you're a guitarist, you should not be intimidated by using your instrument as a synthesizer, but you shouldn't feel that you have to own one, either.

Actually, I think my hands are in the best shape they've ever been in terms of what I can do.

For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.

I actually think I play better now than I've ever played.

I am pretty embroiled in moving on and moving forward with music.

I don't have a great nostalgia for the past.

I don't like playing standards. I like to do my own cutting edge work.

I think rock records tend to be very expensive.

I think we are coming to a new era where people will record much faster.

I was totally into jazz in my teens.

I would like to play with electronic keyboards again.

I'm just trying to avoid any sort of generic kind of music - I don't want to do generic jazz or fusion.

If I'm playing a violin thing, for instance, I tend to respond to that sound with the way I finger.

It is not very practical in today's world when you tour all over the place having a big band.

It's been very hard for the guitar as a serious synthesizer to compete with keyboards.

It's hard to avoid the past but one goes forward.

More recently, I used guitar synthesizer extensively on the two albums I did with Robert Fripp.

My favorite sounds are the high, spacey ones that are very ambient.

Of course the playing is important but writing and the establishing of what you are going for is prime too.