George Benson Quotes

What I have to do as a musician is do everything that is not on the music.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

If you're always playing the correct notes, there's something wrong - you're not searching; you're not reaching for anything.

Grab a guitar, put some kind of strings on it, a banjo string, then a violin string, then a guitar string, tune it any way you want, and make some noise, and see what you get. And work on it until you get something that you think is interesting. That's all there is to art for me.

I'm always trying to come up with something new and unique. I do a beatbox with a harmonica.

The apparatus has to serve our improbability and improvisation. Being good and playing the songs is not enough.

You know. I'll try anything. I'll do anything. I'll explore. Try different takes. All that kind of stuff to do sometimes, to do good performances, but always conducive to having a good time creatively.

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

There were no rules, other than that the song should sound good and be fun to play.

This band makes sure that we have whole sections of stuff that are free form so that they don't know what we are doing next, that is the fun part of playing. You are playing something that you haven't ever played before.

I play like I always used to, with no agenda. And, every once in a while, I will play something I really hadn't thought about or even intended to play. And I'll go, 'Whoa! What was that?'

You know what the material is so that you never play it the same way twice.

I try new stuff every time I perform. I have steps I do that I know are definite, and stuff I can make up right then and there and then forget.

Musically, I always wanted to experiment.

Theatre is a playground. It really is, and we should use that playground more.

A lot of improvisation and freedom went into 'Pinata.'

I love to create something new every night onstage; that makes a big difference.

I'd like to do a contemporary London thing, working with like-minded people, possibly through improvisation.

Every time, my syncopation is different, because I can never play the same fill twice. I just can't, never have been able to. Even as a Beatle, they'd say, 'Oh, double-track that.' I don't know how you do that, because when I'm in a fill I'm sort of this blackout, just this pure me coming out and I can't pure me the same, twice. So, that's that.

I don't know that many chords. I'd be loaded if I knew that many. But that's not my aim. My aim is to move from one vein to the other without any trouble. The biggest thing to me is keeping a feeling, regardless what you play. So many cats lose their feeling at various times, not through the whole tune, but at various times, and it causes them to have to build up and drop down, and you can feel it.

To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.

I imagine that when I am creating a song or a project or an album or putting some clothing together or cooking a meal, whatever it is, I don't really have a recipe. The fun part is to throw that big piece of clay in the middle of the table as hard as I can, and whatever shape it takes, that's what shape it takes, and then I start to carve away.

There aren't any labels - all jazz means is improvization and you can never play a tune the same way twice. So jazz spills over into everything.

Play is a necessary ingredient in art because there is a kind of wonder that goes on when you play. You're directing your activity toward a conclusion that isn't prescribed by a particular method.

I can strip down basic principles of certain things and apply it to everything else. And that keeps you interested, changing the art form, making it more avant-garde. Because I can't play any instruments.