Creative Improvisation Quotes

I'm not committed to putting myself up for a blues guitarist, even though I love playing the blues.

I love music. I do play. It's like mathematics, and it's also emotional. It's nice to play, for no other reason than just to play.

What I like best about music is when time goes away.

Jazz is about freedom within discipline. Usually a dictatorship like in Russia and Germany will prevent jazz from being played because it just seemed to represent freedom, democracy and the United States.

The transformation of the impossible into reality is always the mark of a demonic will. The only way to recognize a military genius is by the fact that, during the war, he will mock the rules of warfare and will employ creative improvisation instead of tested methods and he will do so at the right moment.

Reinvent new combinations of what you already own. Improvise. Become more creative. Not because you have to, but because you want to. Evolution is the secret for the next step.

I don't know what anybody else in the world would want to thank America for, but man, it [jazz] works. What I like about it - and what public health people ought to like about it - it's safe sex.

Lonnie was ahead of his time, but at the same time he was right in there with Albert Collins's Cool Sounds.

The soul of rock 'n' roll is mistakes, and making mistakes work for you. The people who shy away from mistakes and play it safe have no business playing rock 'n' roll.

Hip Nip just sounds groovy. A drummer laid it on me.

The music is something outside myself that's also inside myself... Music and a sense of another presence always went hand in hand. Even when I was three, I would improvise music, and my maternal grandfather would act as an audience and used to applaud. I would imitate things like thunder and rain.

Basketball isn't a game; It's an art form. You master the fundamentals so you can forget 'em, so you can improvise and just concentrate on what really matters: getting buckets.

The hardest thing about movies is doing take 12, 13, and 14, and finding new ways to do the same lines. So the early takes are actually easier and I think there's more surprises in them.

I love players like Thurston Moore. I mean, you can put notes down on a sheet of paper, and if you practice and get your chops up, you can play like an Eddie Van Halen or a Steve Vai. But nobody can do what Thurston Moore does; he's his own guy. He talks through his instrument in a language that's all his own.

I don't do a lot of rehearsal. I don't like rehearsals. I rehearse the day or morning. I spend one hour and a half with all the actors, and we go over the scenes, and we change it and change the dialogue, and we do a lot of things to it, but prior to shooting, I don't really rehearse.

I don't like guitar solos that are like, 'Look at me, look at me!' I like guitar solos that are little songs within the songs.

If I'm proud of one thing in my playing, it's being able to slow it down and focus on the melody.

I didn't have bands that I was playing with growing up, so I learned to try to adapt and play these songs that were guitar songs on the piano, and sing them.

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.

When you have a clear idea of what your character is trying to accomplish, it makes it a lot easier to riff on things.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

Bob Dylan has a way with words that simply blows me away. When he forgets his lyrics he just makes up new ones on the spot, that is what I called talented!

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!

Jazz tickles your muscles, symphonies stretch your soul.

I love The Edge's guitar style; it is unique. There is an ancient world resonating in his guitar sound.