Ringo Starr Quotes

I do read music, but I prefer playing from the heart.

Don't play the way it goes. Play the way it is. And the way it is every time you play it, it's slightly different. Look for something. So that's the challenge not to be bored.

I never sing a song the same way twice.

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.

I may play the same songs night to night, but I never play them the same way.

I play like I always used to, with no agenda. And, every once in a while, I will play something I really hadn't thought about or even intended to play. And I'll go, 'Whoa! What was that?'

If there is one thing that makes me unique, it's that I riff a lot.

I'd listen to a song and say, 'Hang on, I like that piano thing,' so I'd play the guitar like that and get the vibe from it, and it just evolved from the get-go. It was pretty obvious what to do; You don't think about rock n' roll: you just do it.

You shouldn't think about technique when you play. You have to be you. It cannot be about, 'I can play this, and I can show you that.'

Sound is what drives my solos, not verbal concepts, I never think 'I'm going to use a Lydian Dominant scale and then go up a half-step', even though that might be exactly what I end up doing.

I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit.

I never work out my leads. Everything I do is usually totally spontaneous. If someone says, 'That was good; play that again,' I'm not able to do it.

Comedy is the ultimate truth. Jazz is hitting the notes that that no one else would hit, and comedy is saying words that no one else would say.

Most songs I write are spur-of-the-moment-type things. I have to be spontaneous. If not, songwriting can bore me. There is no pre-design or idea of what I am going to do when I go into the studio. It's all like that for me. I could go in and write two or three songs in an eight-hour session. You can't over-think songs. You just can't.

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

Every time Jimmy Scott sings, it's the same but slightly different. I don't know how he does that or where he gets that from. I think it's instinct. Nothing he does is by chance; he's in complete control of what he's doing. He's just beautiful and unique.

There's art in rhythm playing. Just find it. Make your own art. Find your place, and when it's your time to solo, it's your time to shine.

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.

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it's about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you'll never do it this way twice. I've studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

I don't work out a lead section and practice it for a day and then lay it down. I don't do that. The first time I do something I think is expressive or really cool, that's what's actually on the recording.

The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.

I'm not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I'm not thinking about anything other than - I'm just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I'm just going to do it.