Johnny Christ Quotes

I play more rhythmically than I do a lot of notes.

Music deals with time and timing. It's so magical, but when you get into it, every little sound and every little space between the sounds, it's critical, so critical. And if it's not there, it not only feels wrong, but it ruins things.

If you listen to the way I speak, I have a lot of rhythm, use a lot of accents. When I'm playing my instrument, that concept comes through very clearly.

The thing I try to do the most is to play in terms of the song and play in terms of what I'm hearing.

Rhythm is God. I think, without rhythm, you can't create - there is no art.

In rock n' roll, there are notes that aren't like notes. They're something in between, and it's the way you scoop into it.

I've listened to musicians who say that using a metronone makes you robotic, that it decreases your 'feel.' That's ridiculous. Either you have feel or you don't. Feel is one of those intangibles that can't be taught. But if you do have feel, using a metronome will allow you to play cleaner - and that'll make your 'feel' have more, well, 'feeling.'

Well, rhythm is 90 percent of the interpretation.

Rhythm is something you either have or don't have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing.

Playing drums, for me, is like breathing. It's like thinking. It's like eating. It's like walking.

To me, there's way more to being a good drummer than precision and technique.

My techniques are basics, but my willingness to be in the pocket and see things is very high level.

One of the ways to use your depth is to play with speed.

Rhythm is the life of space of time danced through.

Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves.

Of course the most difficult thing on the violin is always intonation. The second one is rhythm. If you play in tune, in time with a good sound that's already high level. Those three are the main things.

After playing now for 60 years, it's still very challenging for me to play a simple melody and have it clean and touch the reed at the proper time in the proper way.

Music is the silence between the notes.

To me, playing an instrument and singing, all of these different things are just as natural to me as rhyming.

I don't think I handle the notes much differently from other pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, there is where the artistry lies!!

A lot of those little things that I really like doing are just moments of cool articulation, just little moments of phrasing that probably go over everybody's head.

Jazz is rhythm and meaning.

From a technical viewpoint, I have certain things I'd like to present in my solos. To do this, I have to get the right material. It has to swing, and it has to be varied.

The most important thing is to make a percussive instrument a singing instrument. Teachers should stress this aspect in their instruction, but it seems that very few of them actually do.