Ornette Coleman

It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something.

How can I turn emotion into knowledge? That’s what I try to do with my horn.

It’s easier to copy someone else than to find out how to avoid sounding like someone else.

Dog spelled backward is God. That’s pretty heavy.

I never thought about being famous or rich. I just thought, Oh, I’ll get a nice little girl and go and play every night, and I’d be happy. And that worked for a while. But the little girl’s mother didn’t trust a guy with a horn.

The hidden things, the subconscious that lies in the body and lets you know: You feel this, you play this.

It’s easy in music to tell what’s good. It’s hard to tell what’s bad.

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.

To keep creating you have to be about change.

Music does not come to you. You have to come to it and you’ll walk away with something you didn’t have before.

A band ought to have a sound all of its own. It ought to have a personality.

I’m not much on gimmicks. I never have been because they don’t last.

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about… Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

Art is a subject that is inundated with opinions. In fact, that’s all it is about is opinions.

Jazz is one of the few things you can do in society to express yourself freely and creatively.

My neighbors always listen to very hip Jazz… whether they like it or not.

I went through a struggle, and I really needed to get myself together and connect with my purpose, which is music.

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.

The extreme dynamic and percussive possibilities of an acoustic guitar amplified through a bridge pickup have, over many years of performing, informed not only the way I play, but the way I write and sing too. My guitar taught me to sing in textures, from the roundest lingering harmonic to the sharpest snap of a pulled string. Being a percussion instrument as well as a melodic instrument, my guitar also teaches me about the relationship between rhythm and melody. Portable. Did I mention it also taught me about being portable?

He almost adds a Chet-like sound to it.