"If you are able to discover your own keynote or chord and play it over gently to yourself, you will revive as if by magic. Your keynote can be ascertained by listening to some good music. When the note is played it will send a thrill right through you." - Vera Stanley Alder

The man that hath no music in himself Nor is not move'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons , stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. - William Shakespeare

An error may be only an unintentional rightness...Do not get too fussy about how every part of the thing sounds. Go ahead. All processes are at first awkward and clumsy and "funny." Do not be afraid of being wrong; just be afraid of being uninteresting. --T. Carl Whitmer

How you play a note is just as important as what the note is.
- Henry Kaiser

“....And as regards method, the improviser employs the oldest in music-making...Mankind's first musical performance couldn't have been anything other than a free improvisation. --Derek Bailey

“Free improvisation, in addition to being a highly skilled musical craft, is open to use by almost anyone--beginners, children, and non-musicians…”-Derek Bailey

You can’t make your music good. You can’t try to be good. You can try to be present and you can try to remain open so what is going to speak to you can speak through you. - Michael Hedges

Improvisation is the basis of learning to play a musical instrument. But what usually happens? You decide you want a certain instrument. You buy the instrument and then think to yourself, "I'll go and find a teacher, and who knows, in seven or eight years' time I might be able to play this thing." And in that way you miss a mass of important musical experience...a person's own investigation of an instrument--his exploration of it--is totally valid. --John Stevens

If somebody says to me "I can't improvise!"-- and they could be somebody with the biggest chunk of classical training imaginable in their background -- I would find that very inspiring. Because I know that within a very short time they will be doing it and saying "Oh, is that it?" And then they will do it again. You see, it's the most natural thing in the world. -John Stevens

Lessons

Music Quotes

Drum Lessons

Instruments

Percussion Store