Over the years, I’ve gathered quotes that I believe hold real value for the creative process and the journey of learning music. Some come from musicians and thinkers whose work has inspired me; others are my own reflections, shaped by personal experience. Together, they form a set of ideas I return to for guidance, perspective, and motivation.
Some thoughts of my own:
- Build complex ideas from a familiar already mastered ones.
- A listener doesn’t have to feel what I am feeling, they just have to feel.
- Stabilizing faster tempos: Begin at a slow, comfortable tempo, paying close attention to hand position and overall technique. Stay relaxed throughout. When you increase the tempo, aim to duplicate exactly the same hand positions, technique, and sense of relaxation you established at the slower speed.
- Sometimes a mediocre musical idea leads to a great one. If the later idea overshadows the first, the original may need to be discarded.
- Answer your phrases.
- A chord can be seen as a physical space. We can reach out and grab notes to play.
- For an up-tempo tune, slow down to half speed to allow more time to process the melody. When you return to the original tempo use the same level of focus.
- Exercise the resistance to play a note. Replace it with a rest.
- Hearing a note or melody doesn’t mean you have to play it. Make conscious choices — pause, redirect, and shape the music on your own terms.
- I hear improvised melodies in two distinct ways. The first is as pure melody — not “guitar melody,” but something that could be sung or imagined purely for its pleasing notes and rhythm. The second is guitar-driven, where the instrument itself shapes the line. In this mode, articulations, fingerings, and guitar-specific phrasing are part of the melody’s very genesis.
- Make a new discovery each day.
Quotes I’ve collected over the years:
- “Create space, then play something on it.” -Chick Corea
- “The drummer should be the best musician in the band.” -Pat Metheny
- “Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order, and leads to all that is good and just and beautifu.l” -Plato
- “Jazz demands that you bring to it things that are valuable to you, that are personal to you.” -Pat Metheny
- “Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.” -John Cleese