Allan Holdsworth Quotes

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.

People shouldn't knock the synthesizer. It's an aid, and it depends on how you use it, just like any other instrument.

A lot of other bass players have told me I'm the only bass player who plays with a pick but sounds like he's playing with the thumb and fingers, which is a great compliment.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument - learning to do your craft - that's the most important thing! It's not about what goes on in a computer!

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.

That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise.

If you're a guitarist, you should not be intimidated by using your instrument as a synthesizer, but you shouldn't feel that you have to own one, either.

The real architecture happens within the works themselves, and that was done by the composer. That's where the real skill is. In putting together a program, you're more a curator, but that's important as well. And then the interpreting of it is where our big job is.

Every time I went into the studio some engineer tried to impress me with how they're going to capture my sound with all kinds of tricks. But they limited the sound and never allowed me to play how I felt.

I've always been a fan of just writing songs and making music.

So I suppose that means we can actually play the instruments.

I play the real instruments. I don't waste my time with anything else.

People talk about innovations and evolutions and that kind of thing; I don't understand about that nonsense. It's like, all instruments are there to use all the time.

I was never worried that synthesizers would replace musicians. First of all, you have to be a musician in order to make music with a synthesizer.

They tried to get me to use a pick when I first joined the band. They had certain things they thought were appropriate. I tried to adapt as much as I could.

I tried so many different musics. I kind of burned out on classical and wanted to make it fun again. I started playing with indie bands and country bands and finally realized electronic music brought my style to life.

I was always pretty decent at fast stick work or doing stuff that seems impressive that's not really; I was pretty tasteful and had good ideas musically. But I had a terrible sense of tempo, which is like being a blind painter. The conductor would just rip into me, and it lasted for years.

Every note is a lifetime for itself.

I can produce any instrument, any sound that I can imagine; it may be percussive to the audience, but in my mind it may be a piano, a melody, or a tuba, or a harp, or a harmonica. My mission is to allow people to hear the dance in its purity and up against any other type of sound or music.

I don't think the important part of making music is the method used but rather the spirit put into it, so to speak.

I want to show people my interpretation of what creating music is, and this is where it comes from: the heart.

We make music that we believe in. That's all it is.

I know what my taste is, and I do like my touch on the piano.

I'm really proud of the fact that anywhere, at any time, I can make music. A lot of people can't do that.

If, while at the piano, you attempt to form little melodies, that is very well; but if they come into your mind of themselves, when you are not practising, you may be still more pleased; for the internal organ of music is then roused in you. The fingers must do what the head desires; not the contrary.