David Wilcox on getting lost on guitar, 2006

"I’ve noticed that when I would go and hear people play, it always sounded better if I didn’t look. I almost wanted to have a little velvet curtain in front of the fretboard, because I’d hear somebody play something so cool, and I’d look up and say, 'Oh, I can see where he’s getting the nine off the open string.' And it would ruin it for me, because if I knew how to play it, it wasn’t mystical anymore. It would sort of dissect it and kill it. So I have always chosen to keep it alive, even if I have to hide the knowledge of it from myself. It’s so much more fun for me to hear and feel a progression than to know what it is."

From a feature Q&A in Acoustic Guitar, April 2007. For more on singer-songwriter David Wilcox, see his site.