Creativity Quote by Michael Schenker

Schenker frames amplification not as a technical add-on but as a nervous system: the amp is where intention becomes sensation, and sensation becomes the next decision. For a guitarist whose reputation rests on phrasing and melodic lead lines, that distinction matters. He’s pushing back against the fantasy of virtuosity as a closed loop of muscle memory, where your hands can outpace your ears and still count as “playing.” In his world, sound is the feedback that keeps the performance alive.

The subtext is almost combative: don’t ask him to be a machine, don’t treat stage volume as ego, don’t reduce tone to gear nerd trivia. “I play with feeling” is a claim about authorship. Feeling isn’t a mood he brings to the instrument; it’s something he discovers in real time, in the air between speaker and body. That’s why he needs to “hear what is coming out” to be inspired: the amplifier is a collaborator, shaping attack, sustain, and harmonics into something he can respond to. The next note isn’t planned; it’s negotiated.

Contextually, this lands in the post-60s rock tradition where electric tone becomes a signature voice and live performance is a kind of high-wire improvisation. His final line, “If I don’t hear it then I can’t feed myself,” makes the dependency explicit and a little raw. It’s not just about monitoring; it’s about identity. Take away the audible result and you don’t merely mute the guitar - you starve the artist’s self-generating momentum.