Al Di Meola Quotes

United States, Guitarist
July 22, 1954

Al Laurence Di Meola is an American guitarist. Known for his works in jazz fusion and world music, he began his career as a guitarist of the group Return to Forever in 1974. Between the 1970s and 1980s, albums such as Elegant Gypsy and Friday Night in San Francisco earned him both critical and commercial success, the earlier receiving a gold certification from RIAA.

If you hear something you're unable to play, then you have room to grow.

Al Di Meola
- Play
- Grow
- Unable
Forget about every other lesson in the book. You have to be able to tap your foot or else none of what you doing you are not gonna have any control of your symptom.

Al Di Meola
- Lesson
- Foot
- Tap

A good way to work on alternate picking is to choose three or four notes, and work on those. Too often, players who are trying to improve their right hand dexterity get hung up by playing too many notes with the left hand.I hear a lot of players running whole scales from the sixth string to the first , and playing them really sloppy.Keeping it very basic-and using only a few notes-and playing slowly with perfect rhythm is a task in itself.

Al Di Meola
- Hand
- Rhythm
- Notes
One thing I learned a long time ago was my fretboard, in terms of all the scales in all the positions...You have to learn it - there are no two ways about it. I shift between positions so easily now that I really don't have to think about them much...I would suggest starting your scale education with the major and minor scales, and after that, diminished, augmented and whole-tone. Then depending on what kind of music you want to play, the modes should be learned. My theory about this kind of thing is that you should learn it all. Once you've learned it you can play whatever you want to play, and I think that your playing will be more advanced, and you'll have a better understanding of the instrument.

Al Di Meola
- Music
- Learned
- Modes