Ace Frehley Quotes

I do read music, but I prefer playing from the heart.

I don't even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment.

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

If I'm in the middle of a take and I start to think about what I'm doing, I just mess up and I have to stop and so I find that for me, you really need to trust your instinct.

Music has nothing to do with your technical ability.

I play as I feel.

I honestly can't characterize my style in words. It seems that whatever comes to me naturally, I play.

Words are the children of reason and, therefore, can't explain it. They really can't translate feeling because they're not part of it. That's why it bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not. It's feeling.

So, to come In with a set routine it's something I've never believed in. It should depend on how you feel, because you play what you feel.

Music is extremely intuitive, which acting too in a different way.

I don't know what aids creativity. All I know is that it feels natural to hold a guitar in my hands and sing.

Just because you have developed the craft on your instrument doesn't mean that you don't have the ability to be expressive emotionally on that instrument, or vice versa.

When you're in the moment and not over thinking the song is when things tend to really work. You're not so focused on the minutiae. You're focused on the overall feel, and that's the stuff that I get from the demos.

When I play guitar, it's automatic. I don't try to do something; I just do it. And it's already so ingrained in what I do, I don't think about it. I don't try to do something - I just do it. And the more I do it that way, the more I surprise myself. And if I surprise myself, that's the best thing.

I am very mistrustful of people who are constantly over intellectualising things. It kills passion. You have to allow yourself to lose control from time to time.

I am a slave to the rhythm. I am a palette. I just go with the moment. You've got to do it that way because if you're thinking, you're dead. Performing is not about thinking; it's about feeling.

People still call me the eternal amateur. After all, professionals are supposed to be able to conduct everything. But I can't unless I feel some connection inside. Conducting is not an end in itself for me.

There's no performance where I never have to think about setting up a phrase or making a technical adjustment while I'm performing.

With the piano I'm completely in control of the gestural situation-not that I'm going to play the piece myself, but I know what's difficult, what's impossible.

If you want me to play only the notes without any specific dynamics, I will never make one mistake.

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

The beauty of it is when you can just show up and hit the notes.

No one has any respect for someone who can play a million notes per minute but can't put together a decent tune that someone can sing to or feel some sort of emotion from.

I try not to intellectualise what I do.