Buddy Rich Quotes

I've never taken a lesson in my life, and I can play every instrument there is. I play by ear, but I can fool anybody into thinking I went to some conservatory of music.

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

I mean, if you decided to go out today and get you an instrument and do whatever it is that you do, no one can tell you how you're going to do it but when you do it.

You can tune your guitar funky, and something's gonna come out. There's no secret to it - either you got it, or you don't.

My playing is all about feel. I'm completely self taught: I never took any lessons or anything.

Songs seem to always spring from improvisation.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

I never actually had a guitar lesson. I taught myself the guitar from piano exercise books, which led me to have a pretty good technique on the guitar and allowed me to find different ways to do things.

You're just sort of searching for this 'thing' and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't. All music is imperfect, but in jazz since you're improvising, at least the way I play, I'm trying to follow my train of thought in a solo.

We all have different musical instincts, and I think they're precious and should be respected.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

I had been playing since I was 2 years old, never remembering a life without music, always playing everything naturally and mostly by ear, and all the grownups wanted were more scales and drudgery out of me.

I have no special talent, you know. I never took a writing course before I began to write.

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

I just start playing music and eventually I sing something, a line of a verse or a B section or a line of a chorus, and the line that I end up singing is related to the music I'm playing, if that makes any sense. And I go from there.

Improvised music involves a lot of intuition and I like developing intuition.

The first time I tried to write was when I was 14, after I got an electric guitar. I put a song together, and it wasn't that bad! The writing came natural to me.

I wrote my first song at 6. I spent every day with the guitar, and I just made up songs.

I tried several times to get the song right. The tune and the chords that I started with, there really wasn't anywhere else it could go. I stopped fighting it and let it take me away.

I just scribbled away and eventually a C-major chord was there. I didn't ever decide I was going to be a composer. It was like being tall. It's what I was. It's what I did.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

I taught myself how to play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the drums, and I kind of fake doing both of them. But drumming comes more natural to me, and it just feels better.

I taught myself to play the piano, because I wanted to play it.

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

Music always turns into music. As soon as I play a key, push a key down, there's no theory any more. When I go and I hear a sound on the keyboard, all theories go out the window.