Johnny Ramone Quotes

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

What I do is, I look at rock guitar players, and I say to myself, 'What is this guy doing? What does he have that can inspire me?' I try to see what other people are doing and take what they have and turn it and twist it into my own thing.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.

What I look for in musicians is a sense of infinity.

I think its so cool that you can pick up the guitar and create something that didn't exist 5 minutes ago. You can write something that no ones ever heard before. You have music at your fingertips.

I've been really trying to hone the art of songwriting in a way that doesn't follow any sort of guideline.

Any good music must be an innovation.

What is nice about country music today is that most artists are not trying to do something everybody else is doing. They really are trying to develop their own uniqueness.

I'm not that knowledgeable with the guitar - I just find ways that are pretty creative, but it's all within the framework and the limitations of what I can do.

I think the people who are saying jazz has to sound a particular way, or, 'What you're doing isn't jazz,' are just scared because they can't do it. A lot of them just aren't talented enough to do anything new, honestly.

Just based on the primary adage of the necessity breeding innovation, it was just like 'Well, what makes me the guitar player that I am?' and I feel like I listen to so much different music, and I'm a student of so many genres of music, and I feel like it's fun to apply those things and anything super applicable to any type of music.

I like that people are still trying to guess what kind of music I'm making.

I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.

I'm dead serious about my craft and just really serious about making music in itself. I take pride in making songs and albums where no two songs sound alike. That's the challenge and that's what it's all about, to keep it original and fresh and funky.

We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.

I like people that can strap on a guitar and don't sweat the fact that you have to come up with a song in an hour. I want to work with someone who won't feel like they have to play along with Jason Molina. I want them to just have the confidence.

Until you learn to play what you want to hear, you're barking up the wrong tree.

We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.

To have everything written for you... It's not really creating. That's why I think symphony drummers are so limited. They 're limited to exactly what was played a hundred years before them by a thousand other drummers.

Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you're still playing a guitar.

I'm glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.

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

Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.

I love players like Thurston Moore. I mean, you can put notes down on a sheet of paper, and if you practice and get your chops up, you can play like an Eddie Van Halen or a Steve Vai. But nobody can do what Thurston Moore does; he's his own guy. He talks through his instrument in a language that's all his own.

I'm definitely a risk-taker with my music.