Lee Ritenour Quotes

Don't worry about what others say about your music. Pursue whatever you are hearing... but if everybody really hates your music maybe you could try some different approaches.

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.

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do, and then just go for it.

The way that I've always gone about making music, the rule of thumb, has just been to make what I love.

So it's not so much that I set out to do something different, it's just that the songs themselves require their own individual voice and attention.

I started trying to write songs when I was 8 or 9 years old.

You need to be different and stand out. You need to have a message. For me, it didn't come easily. The best advice I was ever given, though, is go away and write 100 songs. You need to find the music that's you.

I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

I'm still a kid in his bedroom, writing songs and playing them.

Don't be afraid to play what you feel and what you think no matter what it is. If you play long enough, you start to move past your influences and find your own music.

All I ever wanted to do, personally, was bring something new to what I loved: the thing that I loved the most, the music that I loved the most.

The thing that I tell young people is everybody is unique in their approach to the music, and you have to protect that.

I'm totally open to exploring different types of music. I just have to always remember to be true to who I am.

When children start to speak they find their own voice by imitating the sounds around them. It would follow that bands do the same. Bands will find their own voice at some point.

The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.

I had no aspirations to be a musician, but I picked up a guitar for two seconds and haven't put it down since.

When I was a kid, I wrote music - from the age of 11 until the age of 18.

I'm not trying to become a pop artist, and I'm not trying to make sure I stay a country artist. I'm just trying to make sure I make the best music I can, according to my way.

I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.

I found it liberating of necessity to devise my own style and my own tactics and to look for a voice on the instrument because there weren't really any that impacted strongly on me.

I'm by no means a pianist. I think that's safe to say, but the piano, for me, I would say it's the enabler. It gave me what I needed and gives me what I need in order to write a song. And I think playing or improvising on the piano is where I feel most liberated and sort of less conscious of all my insecurities or inadequacies.

I think it's important to really press on with the song writing and just go with it. There's no code, there's no craft... it's just let yourself shine through your music. If it's meant to be loved and heard, it'll happen.

I have a curiosity that compels me to find ways to make music that are fresh and new.

When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.