Creativity Quote by Andy Summers

Andy Summers isn’t praising a gadget; he’s defending a mindset. Calling the guitar synthesizer a “great writing instrument” quietly demotes it from flashy stage trick to private tool of composition, the place where ideas get born before anyone argues about “authenticity.” In rock culture, the guitar is supposed to be honest wood-and-wire, a badge of sincerity. A synth grafted onto it can look like cheating, or worse, trend-chasing. Summers flips that suspicion by talking like a craftsperson: this is about writing, not showing off.

The phrasing is telling. “For me” sidesteps dogma and invites subjectivity: he’s not claiming the future of music, just naming what unlocks his process. It’s a musician’s version of a writer saying a certain pen makes thoughts move faster. The subtext is workflow. A guitar synth expands timbre without forcing him to abandon the physical language of the guitar - the hand shapes, the muscle memory, the attack and sustain he can articulate instinctively. That matters for someone like Summers, whose reputation is built on texture, space, and harmonic color as much as riffs.

Context does the rest. Coming out of an era when The Police and their peers were negotiating punk’s austerity against new-wave technology, the guitar synthesizer becomes a diplomatic bridge: modern sounds routed through a familiar instrument. Summers is hinting that innovation doesn’t have to announce itself. Sometimes it just needs to make the next chord progression possible.