Flying Lotus Quotes

I can play just about any keyboard but I can't read or write a note.

I think it's a bit of a myth that if you can read music you can write music. It doesn't work like that.

Yeah, I can read music and I know the names of chords.

When I first started writing songs, I was almost quite embarrassed that I couldn't read music and I still to this day don't really know what chords I'm playing, I don't know the name of them.

I didn't take lessons, and I don't know my scales.

I never got formal training in music. I would just sit with my ear to the speaker and my hand on the needle. I'd listen to Wanda Jackson and think, 'How did she do that?,' and lift the needle and try it myself.

To teach a child an instrument without first giving him preparatory training and without developing singing, reading and dictating to the highest level along with the playing is to build upon sand.

I was up playing violin at seven and translating that information to play guitar, piano at eight.

A friend of mine once told me that I can't screw up when I play my own music. I also take voice lessons, play other peoples' songs out of music books, and occasionally figure out how to play other people's music from records. This keeps my ears, fingers, and mind working.

It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.

It wasn't until after private lessons and learning bass lines that I even noticed bass in the music I was listening to at that age. My ears were blown wide open.

Slowly, over time, I learned enough that I started considering myself a musician, where I actually knew how to play instruments. But still, when I talk to my real musician friends, they're calling chords out, and I have no idea what they're talking about.

I had to learn chord shapes. I bought books with chord charts. I used to listen to all kinds of pop music.

Studying music in a conservatory would be stifling for me, although I respect people who can do it. And by no means am I an expert at notating music or music theory - that's not really my world.

I can't read a note of music. I just do it all from ear.

It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of 'culture.'

I have never learned to read or write music so I am not a virtuoso musician like the others you mentioned. I am completely unable to play like them because I never learned classical music, I just developed my own crazy style!

What I try to impart to a musician is to really try to practice the instrument in a really sincere way. Learn as much about music as you possibly can. Learn composition. Study to try to create compositions of your own and put your own personal touch on your music.

I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head.

I don't read music. I don't write or read music.

I don't read music. Not even essentially. Not even nonessentially.

I was pretty lucky to get into Berklee at all. I never really had any theory or music-reading capabilities; I was completely by ear.

I hadn't played any music since freshman year of college, more than thirty years ago, so I had to relearn everything. I started writing songs. Some were dance and trance songs (I listen to them a lot while I'm writing), and some were love songs, because that after all is what music is about - dancing and trancing and love and love's setbacks.

I've always considered transcribing to be an invaluable tool in the development of one's musical ear and, over the years, I have spent countless glorious hours transcribing different kinds of music, either guitar-oriented or not.

The one thing I do have is good ears. I don't mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.