Matt Cameron Quotes

It's easy to put on a Deep Purple record and say, 'That sounds great.' But why? Part of it is individual practice, but by playing together, a talent of meshing happens.

Music is all about training in harmony, training to understand and use musical energy for our greater pleasure by attuning to the natural laws of the universe.

When I think back now to the recording sessions, there is more improvisation than one hears. It's an ideal combination of arrangements and improvisation. Only a few people are able to listen and say what is composed and what is improvised. It's a unit.

When you play with another piano player, it's just second nature to play the parts that need to be played.

Lots of times I'll play lead and rhythm together.

A bass player has to think and play like a bass player. A drummer has to play and think like a drummer, and stay out of the way of the vocalist. The guitar player has to respect everybody else.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

So I am one of those bass players who can do something and musically, it was back then and now it is even more, if you noticed on the new album, I am not playing all the time anymore.

You can be a singer, and you can be a guitar player, but putting them together is another animal.

I don't need to hear Bill to go through a song. I need to hear Keith to go through a song. I know Bill will be playing what I'm playing anyway. I need to hear Keith because it's all there: the time, the chord changes, and all the licks you have to follow.

I always communicate musically. I want my band not only to learn the form and feel of the song by ear, like I do, but also have the freedom to contribute.

I didn't have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn't 'practice' it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

A lot of times, I played bass on songs. Gene plays guitar on some songs.

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

You can go crazy and play solos in the right place, and that's great because it can intensify and bring an emotional lift. But the thing is you don't want to get in the way of the song.

I'm an interpreter of music.

But I find that the keyboard is the complete instrument you know?

Harmonies are nice.

That's what it is that you rehearse - the making of music, not the playing of notes as abstractions.

I listened to many different types of instruments and music, and have always tried to look at the bass as an instrument as opposed to only a bass.

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

Classical - perhaps I should say 'orchestral' - music is so digital, so cut up, rhythmically, pitchwise and in terms of the roles of the musicians. It's all in little boxes. The reason you get child prodigies in chess, arithmetic, and classical composition is that they are all worlds of discontinuous, parceled-up possibilities.

Eliminating the piano means that I've always worked closer with the bass than most players.

I love bands that can collaborate, and I feel like the Rolling Stones wouldn't be nearly as great as they are if it wasn't for them having a real group.

My music is simple stuff. Anybody can sit down, look at a set of symbols and produce sounds the music represents.