Dick Dale Quotes

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

I never took sheet music seriously. I could do better myself just by listening to other people and using my own intuition.

I play by ear - I'm self-taught. And so everything I do is through that technique.

Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.

When I look at my kids, and the ease with which they pick up music, I wish I had that.

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

My playing is all about feel. I'm completely self taught: I never took any lessons or anything.

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.

I was improvising before I was reading music. I was just trying to play things on the clarinet by ear. I think my ear is one of my greatest assets.

I had been playing since I was 2 years old, never remembering a life without music, always playing everything naturally and mostly by ear, and all the grownups wanted were more scales and drudgery out of me.

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

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.

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

Almost everything I've done, I've done through my own creativity. I don't think I ever had to listen to anyone else to learn how to play drums. I wish I could say that for about ten thousand other drummers.

I never took a music lesson in my life, it just came naturally.

Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy - and it made me feel something. That's when I realized music was inside me.

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.

For whatever reason, not all people are born with the particular gift of being able to express ourselves through music. And, believe me, it is a gift.

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.

There used to be a certain condescension to Mozart. His music was regarded as pleasant. He was a porcelain figure playing a porcelain harpsichord.

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.

You can't go to the store and buy a good ear and rhythm.

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.