John Abercrombie Quotes

I think that providing obstructions in the live setting is when you get something that actually means something, as opposed to just aping your way through your greatest hits.

There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.

In music, the punctuation is absolutely strict, the bars and rests are absolutely defined. But our punctuation cannot be quite strict, because we have to relate it to the audience. In other words we are continually changing the score.

Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. All of the little infinite detail that went into the arrangements and giving ourselves lots of breathing room in terms of playing what we wanted to play and using up any ideas that we had - all of those were conceived to be performed.

It's 2019. People aren't going to shows to watch a band play the song exactly like the record.

Playing live is about going for it .. it's about bringing it ... you should see a bunch of people trying out stuff, actually performing, instead of learning the record and recreating it note for note. I can't play the show the same way every night .. I really need to be in a creative environment, every night or I'll go nuts ... my manager accuses me of singing just long enough to get me to my next guitar solo - which is true.

Music is there for us to explore. To intentionally limit yourself to one, two, or three genres is limitation at its worst. Music is huge; it's a gigantic history lesson, and if you are true music fan or a musician, you should explore it. It's all right there in front of us.

Not everybody likes or understands a drum solo, so I like to bring in effects and sounds to keep their interest.

There's something interesting about playing live; you're in the moment, and I think it would be beneficial.

The Shins is, in a way, a recording project that turned into a live band. So I don't really keep myself beholden to any rules when I'm in the studio for Shins. I just gotta get it done as best I can.

I don't feel a day older when it comes to my approach to music or what gets me off than when I was a teenager. I've always been into different kinds of stuff and when I play I like to play loud. I like my arm hairs to move and I like my body to vibrate 'cause I like the feel of it; I'm still a teenager at heart.

That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise.

Just because you know umpteen billion scales, it doesn't mean you have to use them all in a solo.

The greatest thing about music is everyone has their own style, and I respect all styles of music.

No, we've been performing our old songs a little differently each performance.

I can make any type of music, so I wouldn't want to describe myself as having one type of sound. I think music is about keeping it diverse.

If you improvise a riff and the crowd immediately reacts to it, you know you're on to something.

I love playing live, I don't like studios all that much. I need the reaction of the audience.

Well, when The Black Keys make a record, I never really feel limited. To me, it seems the possibilities are always endless. The big difference has been playing live and being able to recreate every little part of the record.

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

Shellac was asked to do a recreation of our first album, but we've always been a band that improvised our sets. That's critical to the way that we function on stage. Whatever the mood takes us on stage can vary from night to night with what you feel like playing.

Creating any type of art is all about mood. I've been making extreme music in one fashion or another for decades. And truthfully, Down has a big enough fan base to where I could remain content to do only that, but music is a vast territory and I am an explorer. And I'm a lover of all things considered extreme in music.

It's a constant challenge to get your arrangement and musical expression across to a new audience, especially when you're playing live every night like we are.

When I am performing live, I walk into a room, and I just try to get a feel for the vibe, and I am coming from different angles musically. I might come with a new song, I might come with some hip-hop, with some R&B. Once I find my way, then I am hitting you, and hitting you all night.

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.