Kenny Werner Quotes

Just before I play, I like to feel that no-one has ever played the piano before, that I'm in complete virgin territory, and that every note I play is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

Seeking new levels of technical mastery should be a life long pursuit - not because you want to impress, but to facilitate any direction the great spirit inside you wants to go.

Bill Evans described his tunes as vehicles; they are vehicles for self-expression, or expression of the self.

A quiet mind allows the artist to tap into the wellspring of Divine Music within.

Nothing in music is hard, just unfamiliar.

Ultimately, musicians of the world must come realise the potential of their calling.
Like the shamans, we may serve as healers, metaphysicians, inciters, exciters,
spiritual guides and sources of inspiration.
If the musician is illuminated from within,
he becomes a lamp that lights other lamps.
Then he is serving planet and its people,
healing what ails us. Such music is truly important.
It is said that "only one who obeys can truly command."
When the artist is immersed in a services,
giving himself up over and over again, another paradox occurs:
He is being seen by all others as a master.

Fear closes all doors to the true self, that brilliant center where the ecstasy lies.

The thing that becomes true about you is the thing you think the most often.

It is good to view things as familiar or unfamiliar, rather than as difficult or easy.

Mastery is playing whatever you're capable of playing-every time-WITHOUT THINKING.

In many cases, the decision to study music has robbed them of the ability to play music. They have lost respect for music that comes from within because they have been programmed to feel "unworthy".

I never call myself modern or traditional, in our out, new or used, because I prefer not to be hemmed in by rigid definitions.

There is no easy or difficult; only familiar and unfamiliar.