Patty Griffin Quotes

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

We don't do lots of jamming on stage, but I think we have the attitude of exploring things and trying something new.

In terms of music, I can try anything I want, even something that doesn't work at all, because I'm not putting my career in jeopardy.

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

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

People think that when they're playing it safe, they're trying to preserve what they have, but there is no preservation of what you have in music. There's no safety in music.

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 think music needs danger; it needs risk.

I got to realizing that I wanted to record, I wanted to experiment. And doing those same old songs the same old way - I said, 'I think it's time for me to have some fun.'

I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing; I don't know if it's any good. I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line.

Miles Davis would have this lineup of all these amazing musicians and one day would just say, 'We're done.' After tons of great records and tickets sold, he said, 'Now I'm going to grow my hair out and play my horn through a wah-wah pedal.' Rather than play it safe, he went on.

Especially with Fantomas, i'm just trying to stretch out what the band can do. Figuring out, really, on the job or on recordings, what I can or can't get away with.

If you're always playing the correct notes, there's something wrong - you're not searching; you're not reaching for anything.

The fun for me musically is that you never quite know what works and why. So why pretend you do? Why not just put things together and discover, in the creative process, if and why they work? That approach has served me well.

The musicians in the band, and myself as a performer, love the risks of the unpredictable and the feeling of jumping off cliffs musically.

The wonderful thing about Jazz is its willingness to take chances.

Maybe the biggest thing that I've learned musically is that anything is possible. Things can work when maybe they don't seem like they can.

You just keep playing. If someone special comes along and organizes it in a new way, then you'll have another approach and everybody will jump on it to try to learn.

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.

When you're playing the same dirty dozen night after night, the moments that keep it fresh are those when you just let go and trust everyone.

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.

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.

One has to draw upon one's own musical thoughts and one's own musical acumen, and not to be afraid to let that come into one's work. Perhaps that comes with more experience, but perhaps it also comes with daring, and believing that you should.

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.

Musically, I always wanted to experiment.