Mike Portnoy Quotes

I thank the Creator of the universe to have discovered the discipline of music was the greatest gift that I could have been given, the possibility to be a student working in the world.

Soccer presented no challenge to me. Playing felt like breathing: I always had a magical connection to the ball. But it didn't feel like an adventure. Music was more of a challenge and, in the end, felt more interesting.

I just want to make the best music I can make.

I think the main focus as a musician should be to play the music you love to play, and the rest is going to come naturally.

When I perform, I like to immerse myself in the music, and I just try to get off on the diversity of music.

People don't understand what music really is. I've been a musician since I was 6 years old. I got my first piano, was playing recitals at 8, 10 I picked up a guitar, 12 I picked up my first Pearl Master drum set. I was an artist before I was an 'artist.'

You know, as you compose music, you're just off in your own world. You have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.

I'm continuing to learn more about music - it's an ocean, and you can never really say that you know everything. I'm grateful that I'm still living and making music among the greats.

But the greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out. You want the listener to find the song on their own. If you give too much away, it takes away from the imagination.

I just try to get inside the song and imagine what comes next.

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

That's always been a dream for me, to be able to collaborate and make music with the people that inspired you to make music.

To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.

Thomas Dolby is part mad scientist, part nature boy, and entirely moved by the power of music.

Everyone wants to get into soundtracks. Everyone wants to do songs here and there. But, I think they want it for different reasons. I think I'm just tumbling through my life, enjoying playing with everybody.

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

My intentions have been, and are always, to just really get behind what my ideas are musically and to just ride this thing out, cause it feels good, and I think for the most part it's good music. Even when it's not, I'd like to still search for something that could be even like a little bit mind-blowing or shocking to me.

You are the music while the music lasts.

So the thing is to put out music for music's sake.

It has been a pleasure to play with all these artists. Pretenders was a real highlight, but also Damon, aka Badly Drawn Boy, Sinead... Ian Brown... all of these people I learn from and love to work with.

You're just playing, playing, playing, and then an image or something will come into your mind, and basically you're just narrating it with music, letting it move along.

Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix.

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.

Music is my thing. It's my thing; it's what I love. It's what I do. It's football to me; it's Christmas to me; religion to me; poetry to me.

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