Steve Vai Quotes

Jeff Beck is my idol .. sometimes he finds notes that I just do not have on my guitar. Frank Zappa's another one .. I loved Frank Zappa ... I do think Van Halen reinvented the guitar ... he's an excellent musician, a shrewd guitarist and as a person he's wonderful.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

From my time in 'King Crimson,' I'd describe a Progressive band as one that keeps trying to break musical barriers, and keeps trying to do new music.

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.

As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you're trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving a guitar style as a songwriter is much easier, I think, than developing a true style of your own just from listening to music or playing other people's music.

When I started to play with my fingernails, it was not just for volume. The most important thing was giving the guitar different colors in its voices.

My hope is to continue to make new music and go with the flow. I think I'll always be creative. I want to keep making good music, put myself into positions where I need to rise to the occasion of playing in front of an audience, and continually get better at what I'm doing.

Any good music must be an innovation.

I just play the guitar and write songs.

I feel that when you care about your music, taking risks is something you should do to keep things exciting.

In a way, the history of jazz's development is a small mirror of classical music's development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form.

If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns.

There is a terrible conservatism, like a cancer, right in the heartlands of music-making, a tremendous resistance to change, an absolute horror of the idea that more people might connect with music. That infuriates me more than I can say.

Beethoven's symphonies are not 'relaxing.' They are the most exciting things that have ever been created by a human being.

Music should always be an adventure.

If we look at music history closely, it is not difficult to isolate certain elements of great potency which were to nourish the art of music for decades, if not centuries.

A lot of songs are derivative of each other. Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration.

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 very much a traditionalist, but I think it's important to know about tradition so that you can evolve the music you are deciding to make.

I realized pretty soon that I have to do more than just play bass in the background way. So, I developed a kind of playing which only a handful of musicians accepted.

That's the miracle of music. No one can reinterpret a Picasso, but a song can be remixed and covered and interpreted in an infinite number of ways. It's a living thing.

What I love about each album is the opportunity to expand on what we've done in the past - to push myself and the band creatively, vocally, and lyrically.

I think it was inevitable that I get into synthesizer music. I always wanted to deal with sound more than anything else. I couldn't get the sounds I wanted out of the piano.

I love hearing the same songs over and over again - as long as queens challenge themselves to come up with new ways of performing them.

Nothing I'm doing musically is revolutionary in any way, shape, or form.