During a recent appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler said he learned his guitar style by strumming tennis rackets with his sister.
When asked about his guitar playing by presenter Lauren Laverne, he said:
“Well, it’s because of my big sister Ruth, and I think big sisters are very important in this world.”
Knopfler revealed that they used cheap tennis rackets as pretend guitars:
“We had these dodgy little tennis rackets that you could get for not very much money, we used to use the tennis racket as a guitar.”
His sister showed him how to hold it right-handed:
“I was playing it, I was pretending it was a guitar, and she turned it round so that I was holding it right-handed, and she said that’s the way you play it.”
Knopfler Thinks His Musicianship Deteriorated
In an April interview with Guitarist, Knopfler said his guitar playing had gotten a bit worse since the COVID-19 pandemic. He explained:
“Well, I’ve certainly been writing more songs and I don’t know whether that was [specifically] to do with the pandemic or not, or because I just had more time. But it certainly hasn’t helped my playing any.”
He continued:
“The musician part [of me] is much reduced, I think, but the writer part is as strong as ever. If a song wants to be born, then I try to let it happen, but I think the playing has deteriorated a little bit… I’d [find I’d] be ready to sit down and look at a song on the computer, but I wouldn’t be playing enough.”
The rocker thought he needed more practice:
“But that’s just something that seems to have happened recently, and I should really take steps to spend more time behind the instrument, to just get playing. It’s not that I’ve forgotten how to play it – I’m just rusty.”
Mark’s latest solo album, ‘One Deep River’ arrived on April 12, 2024, but he has no plans to tour as he finds it demanding. Knopfler’s last big show was at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 2019.