Quotes About Mastery

I practice my saxophone three hours a day. I'm not saying I'm particularly special, but if you do something three hours a day for forty years, you get pretty good at it.

You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

A chimpanzee could learn what I do physically, but it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life.

Music comes from the musician, not the instrument.

As long as you've got your horn in your mouth, you're developing.

Nothing in music is hard, just unfamiliar.

Don't only practise your art, but force your way into its secrets.

After two takes you're imitating yourself.

Bach is the beginning and end of all music.

Play always as if in the presence of a master.

Mozart is the incarnation of music.

It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do.

If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

I didn't study music. I literally lived it.

Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything.

The final, unfinished fugue from The Art of Fugue is the greatest piece of music ever composed.

I did all you can do with a clarinet. Any more would have been less.

If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.

A good player can make any guitar sound good.

I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.

I can play all I know in eight bars.

For me, I think the only danger is being too much in love with guitar playing. The MUSIC is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument.

You see, that is it with music, you never stop learning.

You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!