Top 66 Quotes & Sayings by John McLaughlin
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English musician John McLaughlin.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I don't have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it.
When I was five, I heard the end of Beethoven's 'Ninth Symphony' with my mother, and I got goosebumps all over my body.
If I had to live on record sales, I'd be pushing up the daisies.
Interplay and interaction are the integral parts of music - they're as important as the notes.
I've been studying the cultures of Asia for many years, and I'm very attracted to the culture of Japan, in particular to the impact Zen has had on the Japanese mind and spirit.
My entire life is dedicated to music, and at my age, that makes a lot of years! But all the work and dedication is only that I'm able to forget myself and let the music do the 'talking.'
I'm not a classical player. I don't want to be a classical player. I love to improvise, because things happen that never happen anywhere else.
The Beatles, they brought a whole new dimension to pop music. Of course, the psychedelic period is much more interesting to me, starting with 'Rubber Soul' and on to the 'White Album.' Great, great records. I was such a Beatles fan. I was very sad when they broke up.
Music is closer to poetry than anything.
I was 11 years old, and I had been playing classical piano for three years, and suddenly the guitar came and landed in my arms. I fell in love with that instrument, and I still love it today. I love it so much.
In my opinion, there is one singular problem with religions in general: they are exclusive. To me, this exclusivity is not right.
In my world, if you want to make a record to make money, you're already off to a bad start.
To pay attention to flattery or criticism is a waste of time for artists.
I've been more or less vegetarian for about 40 years. Health diet really helps. I do meditation every day, and either yoga or sport several times a week.
There are two kinds of success. One is musical or artistic and the other is commercial.
I don't have any message in the music. Music will be fine as long as you take care of yourself.
The Mahavishnu Orchestra - when it came out, it was an explosion, completely unexpected as far as I was concerned. I was just forming a band.
The first LP, 'Inner Mounting Flame,' is, of course, one of my favorites, and also 'Visions of the Emerald Beyond.' But the others are also very dear to me.
Only in spontaneity can we be who we truly are.
The guitar l learned on was probably worth $4 or something, but it was priceless to me. It meant so much.
As far as favorite tunes, 'You Know You Know' is one, and why it is important is difficult to say. The rhythmic cycle is very interesting and challenging to play, since it can be considered three bars of 4/4 or four bars of 3/4. 'The Dance of Maya' is another, and I have to mention 'Sanctuary.'
You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and you could be yawning your head off when you hear them. So, it's not what you do, but the way you're doing it and in the end that's all that we have.
When Mahavishnu came out in '71, the unbelievable reaction to the band was a real shock to me. It was a shock to everybody.
At the risk of sounding hopelessly romantic, love is the key element. I really love to play with different musicians who come from different cultural backgrounds.
The moment you start to talk about playing music, you destroy music. It cannot be talked about. It can only be played, enjoyed and listened to.
I find Indian music very funky. I mean it's very soulful, with their own kind of blues. But it's the only other school on the planet that develops improvisation to the high degree that you find in jazz music. So we have a lot of common ground.
I have a profound affection for Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism's particular ways of meditating.
You realize as you get older that tomorrow is not guaranteed for anybody.
I already experimented with free jazz in the 1960s and, in my opinion, to play free jazz, you have to be a perfect musician and a perfect human being - and none of us are!
I'm not the sort of chap who can sit down and write music. When it comes, I'm happy.
One of the advantages of playing in a club is that even with bass and drums, the atmosphere remains intimate with the audience.
In 1978, I was in Paris - I was in someone's car and listening to the radio - and on comes Paco de Lucia. I'd never heard of this chap, and I just thought, 'I have to meet him.' And I was very lucky; I found him very quickly. Crazily enough, he happened to be in Paris!
Frankly speaking, if I care what people write, whether it is positive or negative, I believe, personally, I'm on the wrong path.
I discovered flamenco when I was 14, before I even got involved with jazz music. I was so crazy about flamenco music. I wanted to be a flamenco guitar player.
I have a great affection for Indian culture and music.
The mathematics of rhythm are universal. They don't belong to any particular culture.
Every day, I discover something utterly unbelievable when I play.
The day I stop making music would be the day I keel over, really.
Miles Davis himself, I discovered him when I was 15, and he rocked my world.
Spirituality is worthless if it's not practical. Music is my work. I am a musician.
Everyone can lock into the rhythm on a tune. It's organic in nature. It connects the band as a whole and connects the band to the audience.
The whole point of working and practicing your whole life is so that you're ready when that moment arrives; when the inspiration arrives, you are ready to be at the disposal of inspiration.
Music speaks from spirit to spirit and in that sense you could call it a true spiritual language.
In a way records are like paintings. Instead of using paints and brushes we use sounds and instruments.
When Indian musicians play a raga it's very restrictive. But, in a way these restraints are essential to liberate yourself through them, if that makes sense. I'm very much of this school of rhythm, it's the direction I'm drawn in when I'm writing and improvising.
I believe everybody is spiritual and no one is any more spiritual than anyone else.
If I can get out of the way, if I can be pure enough, if I can be selfless enough, and if I can be generous and loving and caring enough to abandon what I have in my own preconceived silly notions of what I think I am - and become truly who in fact I am, which is really just another child of God - then the music can really use me. And therein lies my fulfillment. That's when the music starts to happen.
I think I'm built like a painter. I have friends who are painters and they reflect a similar psychological attitude towards their work. They don't know what's coming next, they just wait for the message, for orders to come and then off they go on their next project.
Absolutely, all guitars are different. You can go into a store and grab five guitars, all the same model, and even though they look identical they're not identical. They play differently, they feel a bit different and they sound slightly different.
The biggest government waste: The death penalty. An individual death-penalty case could climb to $100 million, much of it spent at the litigation level. Also, DNA evidence has exonerated nearly 300 death-row inmates.
Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?
I'm never trying to preach to anybody with my music, but I'm aware of the universal nature of the human experience and I try to reach out and connect with people in that manner.
I'm not any different from you or the guy down the street or across the globe, we're all connected in some way and hopefully my music can integrate that feeling of human connectedness.
When I hear a great musician, I can feel his life inside the music.
I practice all the scales. Everyone should know lots of scales. Actually, I feel there are only scales. What is a chord, if not the notes of a scale hooked together?
Music that touches the transcendental aspect of a human being is reserved for a marginal audience
You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and you could be yawning your head off when you hear them. So, it's not what you do, but the way you're doing it and in the end that's all that we have
The music dictates to me which instrument I use. I'm basically waiting for orders as it were.
For me, rhythm is a type of divine mathematics in a way. No matter where you're from, we can all understand the mathematics of rhythm. I try to apply this mathematical thinking to my playing.
When you open box after box of old comics and they're ALL "Archie," you have suffered a trauma from which it is difficult to ever recover.
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