John Petrucci Quotes

One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.

Neil Young does throw in a major seven chord here and there, so if you're a new guitar player learning Neil Young songs, you'll learn some seven chords, and some different positions. Nothing too complicated, just enough to kind of open up your knowledge a little bit.

I was a big fan of Jim Hall as well. I liked his comping style, his accompanying. And that he played, generally, four note chords, the top four strings of the guitar.

I can write hundreds of songs on simple power chords.

Just because you know umpteen billion scales, it doesn't mean you have to use them all in a solo.

I love when an artist can stand by themselves and play their guitar and hold a crowd, but I also love bells and whistles.

I haven't been walking around for years with some burning desire to do a solo record. If I had, maybe I'd have made a record that was experimental. Usually, the idea of a solo record is to get some weird stuff out of your system, but I don't think like that. I wasn't interested in making something that was a hard listen - maybe I'll get around to that some other time. I wanted it to sound effortless, not like I was trying to reinvent the wheel.

I love the Kinks, but I like all sorts of music. If I stay at home at night and play records, I just go through the whole spectrum, really. I just love music.

The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well.

I like to listen to different kinds of music - it just depends on my mood. I love Madonna, Russian singers... I like the Rolling Stones a lot!

What interested me about Chuck Berry was the way he could step out of the rhythm part with such ease, throwing in a nice, simple riff, and then drop straight into the feel of it again. We used to play a lot more rhythm stuff. We'd do away with the differences between lead and rhythm guitar. You can't go into a shop and ask for a "lead guitar". You're a guitar player, and you play a guitar.

Most of my songs are pretty sketchy. There's not a lot of bass sections. I don't write big bridges. Sometimes I'll try. But it's hard for me to focus that way, because I always think it's more interesting to just see what will happen next.

I played a little bit of everything. I got Ace of Bass, hip-hop songs, and dance hall [music].

[On bebop years] All I did was sing 'How High the Moon.' It seemed like the only song I ever sang.

Lionel [Richie] said, "Yeah, I learned chords and stuff playin' against your albums."

My blues are so simple, but so few people can play it right

I think minimalism is something I just got attracted to just in general because I like the empty space, if you think about it, like there's a lot of empty space. So there are sounds there, there are chords, like coordinates, to sort of tell you where the emotion is going, but then it leaves so much room for the voice to do other things.

When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.

One yearns unspeakably for a composer who gives out his pair of honest themes, and then develops them unashamed, and then hangs a brisk coda to them, and then shuts up.

I love music, I'm very eclectic. On my iPad I have the complete works of Ludwig van Beethoven.

You'd hear Willie Nelson, then Earth, Wind & Fire, then Chicago, then Billy Joel on the same radio station. Nowadays, everything is compartmentalized.

I really enjoy making different types of music than I do with the Backstreet Boys.

Elmore James only knew one lick, but you had the feeling that he meant it.

For a ridiculous analogy, let's take Purple Rain. If you were to put Purple Rain and The Sound of Music on the desk of a producer, he or she would know that the majority of moviegoers would rather listen to Prince. Since they are in the business of making money, no one can blame them. But if it ever came to the decision of making a film like that I'd say, "No." They are very easy films to make, though. In Purple Rain there is nothing complex about the way that they dance. Or sing. It would be a bit boring for an adult to make that film. It just wouldn't test their métier.

Well, I am not sure of when my album will be released but my music has a lot of different sounds. I'm a hip-hop/R&B girl at heart, but I love pop music as well, and I even have an affinity for country music. So I would say my music might have something for everyone.