Jeff Beck

I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever.

[Stratocaster vs Les Paul] It’s a totally different animal. One is for very subtle and, I would say, more musical things that you can distract and abuse. You can’t do that with a Les Paul. It’s too delicate. It’s got a very delicate tone; most people don’t ever realize that because they are plugged into monstrous amplifiers which completely, instantaneously covers up the unique sound quality it has. All those years of development go straight out the window when you overload the amp.

I love it when people hear my music but can’t figure out what instrument I’m playing.

A Les Paul feels like a guitar and I play differently on that and I sound too much like someone else.

When Jazz broke through in England, I remember sneaking to listen on the radio much to my parent’s disapproval.

I don’t care about the rules, if I don’t break the rules at least 10x every song then I’m not doing my job.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

I became a singer to sing my songs. They’re so hip who else is going to sing them?

It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.

We open our minds, stretch forth, take chances and venture out musically to arrive at something new and different.

Music always turns into music. As soon as I play a key, push a key down, there’s no theory any more. When I go and I hear a sound on the keyboard, all theories go out the window.

I love it. When they stop imitating me then I’ll start wondering where I’m going wrong. Every day when I sit down to play, I learn something new.

I don’t know what they’re thinking about. Just because someone says, ‘I like what you do’ or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I’ve had that experience with record companies.

Jazz attracted me because in it I found a formal perfection and instrumental precision I admire in classical music, but which popular music doesn’t have.

Get out there and improvise and take chances and don’t be a perfectionist.

In Europe they look upon jazz as art. In America it’s a diversion. Somebody opens a restaurant and installs another band off to the side. People don’t listen.

Jazz is a beautiful woman whose older brother is a policeman.

Practicing is like getting your vocabulary together to use on the gig.

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

Jazz is an idea that is more powerful than the details of its history.