John Frusciante Quotes

You're just sort of searching for this 'thing' and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't. All music is imperfect, but in jazz since you're improvising, at least the way I play, I'm trying to follow my train of thought in a solo.

With Zeppelin, I tried to play something different every night in my solos. I'd play for 20 minutes but the longest ever was 30 minutes. It's a long time, but whenI was playing it seemed to fly by.

I really didn't have a plan, I just went in and started playing. one of my specialties was to be able to play for a really long time without stopping and I would play these repeated patterns for hours and hours and I wouldn't seem to get tired.

Most people learn to improvise on their own, listening to records, endless hours of noodling on their instrument in the bedroom with all their spare time. That's traditionally how people learn.

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

I like to be sort of grounded with Fish. But, at the same time, I think probably what's unique about us is the way other dynamics happen, where I'll play off Trey for awhile. When we start playing a jam, I don't usually know what's going to happen, I don't have a plan.

I feel like every time I write a song, it feels like the first time I wrote a song. It's just as hard; it doesn't get easier, but that's why I love it: because it's a challenge every time. I also feel like I'm learning new ways.

Sometimes when you're writing on a ukulele, you're in a totally new land, rhythmically or melodically.

I also thought of playing improvisational jazz and I did take lessons for a while. At first I tried to write fiction by making up things that were completely alien to my life.

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.

To me, the object of practicing is to allow you to play what you hear. But you're always hearing new things, so you never get to the end of it.

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.

The jazz chord substitutions in a country song... that was another thing that bent people's ears. I guess that my favorites are the unique ones. It's not how fast you play. It's that unique blending of different stuff I'm most proud of.

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.

When I start writing, I'll have a vague concept or I'll just have a title, and the song just goes on its own direction. Usually it goes in many directions within each song. They get really convoluted sometimes.

Sometimes I think that I want to do something strictly basic, really simple. Just with a few chords. But I won't have anything more than two or three sentences in my head. That kind of evaporates once I start playing and then it goes off in whatever direction.

Music always turns into music. As soon as I play a key, push a key down, there's no theory any more. When I go and I hear a sound on the keyboard, all theories go out the window.

Guitar playing is both extremely easy for me and extremely difficult for me at the same time.

I look at my clarinet sometimes and I think, I wonder what's going to come out of there tonight? You never know.

Just the type of music that was around at the same time as I was writing. Some of it was wicked, definitely. But there was just one direction which I thought could be pushed that no one was pushing.

I think the best riffs and the best songs come when you're jamming and having a good time.

I free-form it, rock n' roll it. I'm a creature of risk, so I don't know how I'm going to explore a Beethoven symphony until I'm doing 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.