John Petrucci Quotes

You're a constant student, as a musician.

I thought it was too 'glam rock' to practice. The problem is that now I'm a pretty bad guitar player.

When I was younger, studying classical music, I really had to put in the time. Three hours a day is not even nice - you have to put in six.

I made music a priority every single day.

When I have the time at home, I'll practice three or four hours a day. I have to. And I'm a late starter; I started at age 17 and at age 51 I'm still learning.

When I have a chunk of time that I can really dedicate to music, I really want to get into it. I want to do some really hard stuff and push myself.

It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up.

If it takes me 10 years to be the musician I want to be, great.

My only ambition is to grow as a musician.

Playing music is a lifetime's work. And if you want to carry on with it, you have to try to better yourself. You have to see where the music can take you.

For years, my actual listening activity has been governed by what I perceived to be good for me as a musician, almost like the way an athlete trains for a given sporting task. I'd listen to something if I felt it would improve my sense of harmony or counterpoint, or whatever I was working on.

There's no musician who just wakes up one day and decides, 'This is what I want to do.' It takes some development.

I consider myself a part-time worker when it comes to the piano, but you need to play regularly to stay sharp.

When I started to make music I wasn't as serious at first.

To me, the object of practicing is to allow you to play what you hear. But you're always hearing new things, so you never get to the end of it.

I promise you, if you look at YouTube and see some of my first covers, you will hear that I don't sound good. But I was so obsessed with it and wanted so much to be good at it that I forced myself to figure out what sounds right and what sounds wrong.

Mastering music is more than learning technical skills. Practicing is about quality, not quantity. Some days I practice for hours; other days it will be just a few minutes.

A musician's whole life is to listen.

Music is a prerogative of those who are willing to spend time to study it, understand and love it, well aware of the fact that one life is not enough to improve just one single note of what has already been written and performed.

My parents encouraged us to commit to things, so if we wanted to learn an instrument, it was all the grades and all the theory.

Classical music is always a really great way for me to get my chops to where I want them to be.

I prefer to think of myself as a musician who is still learning and trying to do something every time out.

You can read all the textbooks and listen to all the records, but you have to play with musicians that are better than you.

You see, that is it with music, you never stop learning.

I feel like a lot of the fundamental material, I've assimilated. So now the question is: Am I going to really get into my spiritual inheritance of music and really develop my abilities?