Aging & Wisdom Quote by Ritchie Blackmore

Ritchie Blackmore is quietly drawing a line between competence and identity. “I can do the old hand vibrato just fine” is a flex delivered like a shrug: he knows the classic guitar vocabulary, the tasteful shiver that signals lineage, discipline, and the approved version of “expressive.” Then he swerves: “but I like attacking the strings.” That verb matters. Attacking isn’t just playing harder; it’s framing the guitar as something to be wrestled into speech, not politely coaxed. It’s a worldview in one phrase: technique is baseline, aggression is the signature.

The subtext is a small act of rebellion against guitar orthodoxy, especially the kind that treats refinement as moral superiority. Blackmore came up when rock guitar was splitting into camps - the blues-derived “feel” crowd versus the emerging class of players turning amplification into a weapon. His phrasing suggests he’s fluent in tradition but refuses to be domesticated by it. “Old” does double duty: respect for the canon, and a hint that the canon can become a cage.

Contextually, this maps onto his playing with Deep Purple and Rainbow, where the tone is often percussive, stabbing, almost orchestral in its insistence. He’s not denying beauty; he’s arguing that beauty can be forged through impact. It’s also a musician’s way of telling you what to listen for: the pick bite, the initial transient, the moment the note erupts. The thrill isn’t the wobble after the fact. It’s the strike.