Lee Konitz Quotes

The instrumental stuff is a good challenge, and it keeps my fingers athletically tuned, but I'm totally happy to bang away on some chords, sing some harmonies and play some wailing blues solos after the second chorus.

You really have to play with the space in a riff so it can be allowed to breathe.

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.

I've done a lot of performance practice, Baroque playing, and some of the joy and the challenge of it is figuring out what the composer intended... You have music of the 17th century - it's all whole notes and half notes. But inside of that, there are so many things that one can do, at least according to what we know about performance practice.

For me, theory has always opened things up to where I can walk into a room and just by hearing something I know exactly where to go on the guitar. I have a better time playing because I have a variety of colors to bring to the table.

I noticed a lot of guitar players neglected the rhythm part of rhythm guitar and decided I would try to focus in that. As my skill and knowledge of the instrument grew, I found lead started to come naturally. Sometimes I play guitar like a frustrated drummer. Ha ha!

Guitar playing is both extremely easy for me and extremely difficult for me at the same time.

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 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.

I play in tune like a cello player and use legitimate vibrato. There are no tricks; it's just all in the hands!

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.

We have to put expressions in a song when we sing 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.'

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.

Rachmaninov's hands were big. My hands are small. But only hands small.

We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm.

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

You have to know composition to be a good improviser.

I think the fundamental part of my technique is my vibrato.

I can sing fine and I can play guitar fine, but put 'em together and it becomes a thoughtful effort.

There is no such thing as a wrong note.

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

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!!

What drew me to the violin was mastering the instrument technically, which I'm continuing to do.

My uncle gave me a trumpet, but I loved the Louis Armstrong sound and the Harry James sound and I played by ear and I played always soulful or very direct from the gut.