Jon Brion Quotes

If you give me a bass guitar and you ask me to improvise something, or even be with some musicians and follow them, I wouldn't be able to do it. And I want to change that.

I think I'm better at live shows than I used to be because I'm way more comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses between songs. Now, rather than trying to talk or do a costume change, I'll use those moments for myself. I listen to what other people are playing, or just rest, or dance, even though I don't know how to.

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

We play melodic music, we play songs, we play all kinds of things and when you improvise you don't just shut out different languages, you use all the languages that you have.

If I play anything that sounds like a solo, it's gonna sound like a lyric.

You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

To me, the object of practicing is to allow you to play what you hear. But you're always hearing new things, so you never get to the end of it.

The thing about music is it's not an obscure pursuit, it's a very natural thing for human beings to do. Once you put in the effort, the learning curve is very fast.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

Yeah, it's more like playing what you think is appropriate for the moment. It's not about trying to force any particular style within the parameters - and the parameters we play in are pretty large!

I don't think I think when I play. I have a photographic memory for chords, and when I'm playing, the right chords appear in my mind like photographs long before I get to them.

The musicians recommend that I sing a sing the way it is written the first time and then start to look for other notes that aren't in the melody.

You can tune your guitar funky, and something's gonna come out. There's no secret to it - either you got it, or you don't.

The best way for me to teach myself an instrument is to just jam on it, and sound awful sometimes, and sound great other times.

The thing I love about music is, if you do it long enough, you get better and better at translating what's in your head to a medium. That's why I keep doing it.

I can't see us getting into, like, long solos.

Most of the musicians I play with - aside from the form and structure of the music - the interpretation is up to them.

I didn't know how to play lead guitar. There was a freedom in not knowing how to do it.

I just play music by listening and responding, so I don't know anything about writing songs or arranging and all of this stuff. You know, it's in my head, but I don't know how to get it out.

In the past, we never really had that kind of spontaneity on record. When you start touring, you play songs in a certain way and then I start to feel like it's tough to really get lost in my playing.

I'm improvising all the time. Everything I do is improvised. On the piano, at least.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. How do you get away from it? Improvise.

I just play, just you know, If i just sit down with the guitar and just do whatever for, you know, an half an hour or an hour whatever. That's pretty much, that should do it for me.

If someone can relate my guitar solo to an exercise in a book... that's no fun at all.

It takes you years to learn how to play like yourself.