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Creativity Quote by Stanley Jordan

"I'd like to be able to tap with my action this low without buzzing"

About this Quote

It’s a musician’s complaint that doubles as a philosophy of touch: Stanley Jordan wants the guitar to respond to almost nothing. The line is obsessively technical on the surface - action “this low” is setup talk, the microscopic geometry between string and fret. But the real target is control. Buzzing is what happens when your instrument starts contributing its own opinion. Jordan is chasing a state where the guitar becomes a pressure-sensitive interface, not a stubborn box of wood and metal that fights back.

That tracks with his whole cultural footprint. Jordan isn’t just a jazz guitarist; he’s one of the people who made two-handed tapping feel like a legitimate language, not a novelty trick. Tapping turns the right hand into a second fretting hand, which means you’re effectively playing piano-style voicings across the neck. That only works when the instrument is set up for extremely light contact, because the technique relies on precision and speed, not brute force.

There’s subtext in “I’d like to be able to.” It’s aspiration, not entitlement. He’s acknowledging the physical limits of materials and physics - strings vibrate in arcs; wood moves; humidity is real. The quote reveals a perfectionist’s realism: you can dream of frictionless expression, but you still have to negotiate with the instrument’s tolerance for noise. In a wider sense, it’s about virtuosity as engineering. Great tone, in Jordan’s world, isn’t mysticism; it’s the product of a setup so sensitive that even a whisper of intent becomes music.

Quote Details

TopicMusic
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Jordan, Stanley. (2026, January 15). I'd like to be able to tap with my action this low without buzzing. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/id-like-to-be-able-to-tap-with-my-action-this-low-163107/

Chicago Style
Jordan, Stanley. "I'd like to be able to tap with my action this low without buzzing." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/id-like-to-be-able-to-tap-with-my-action-this-low-163107/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I'd like to be able to tap with my action this low without buzzing." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/id-like-to-be-able-to-tap-with-my-action-this-low-163107/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Stanley Add to List
Stanley Jordan on Low Action Tapping
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About the Author

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Stanley Jordan (born July 31, 1959) is a Musician from USA.

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