Tom Scholz Quotes

Any talk of 'craft' makes me laugh. My music looks outward; it does not gaze upon itself in admiration. Artisanal is for cheesemakers. I don't know anything about music theory. Every time I approach my guitar, it's like the first time. There's no craft in that.

I do read music, but I prefer playing from the heart.

Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of a performance liberty, you're making a compositional choice. I don't know a serious performer who hasn't made compositional decisions, who hasn't engaged in the art of composition.

I'd listen to a song and say, 'Hang on, I like that piano thing,' so I'd play the guitar like that and get the vibe from it, and it just evolved from the get-go. It was pretty obvious what to do; You don't think about rock n' roll: you just do it.

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

With human beings it could be argued that all music-making is, in essence, grounded in improvisation.

The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.

Music is extremely intuitive, which acting too in a different way.

I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad's quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free.

It's funny, man, sometimes you record something that you plan on re-doing later, but then when you listen back to it, you decide to keep it because you realize that it's gonna be real tough to beat!

To be a good improviser, you have to study composition as a parallel. Because what improvisation is, on a high level, is spontaneous composition.

I don't know what aids creativity. All I know is that it feels natural to hold a guitar in my hands and sing.

I think the first take is best, as you are spontaneous, and after that, it becomes a mechanical thing. I don't believe in second take at all.

You shouldn't think about technique when you play. You have to be you. It cannot be about, 'I can play this, and I can show you that.'

I just freestyle. I don't actually write the words on paper. It's just whatever comes into my mind. I'll record three or four lines at a time, get a good take, and do three or four more. It may be whatever comes into my mind. But I care about my craft a lot more than a lot of other people.

Sound is what drives my solos, not verbal concepts, I never think 'I'm going to use a Lydian Dominant scale and then go up a half-step', even though that might be exactly what I end up doing.

Composition is selective improvisation.

The combination of what's written and just being in the moment is always the best way. You gotta start out with something solid and then you play.

I like to improvise.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

Sometimes I feel like a melody doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's just something that comes, is accumulated from me playing on the piano, and then this little creature just appears.

Good music comes out of people playing together, knowing what they want to do and going for it. You have to sweat over it and bug it to death. You can't do it by pushing buttons and watching a TV screen.

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

That's what it is that you rehearse - the making of music, not the playing of notes as abstractions.