Stanley Jordan

I never believed in a set routine. It should depend on how you feel, because you play what you feel.

Breathe…. breathe a lot!

Silence is what makes music sexy. I just move blocks of silence around. The notes are an afterthought.

I’m still searching even today for a sound, like the guy that’s searching for a home. I haven’t been able to find that completely. I’m satisfied at times with the sound of my guitar… but it is a little sound that I hear but I can’t tell anybody about it. I don’t know how. But if I ever get it, I’ll know.

I’m always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.

It bugs me when people try to analyze jazz as an intellectual theorem. It’s not. It’s feeling.

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?

And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.

To the person who uses music as a medium for the expression of ideas, feelings, images, or what have you; anything which facilitates this expression is properly his instrument.

Critics don’t buy records. They get ’em free.

Not too slow, not too fast. Kind of half-fast.

I saw a vibraphone for the first time and knew immediately I had found my means of expression.

Jazz is a complete lifestyle, something that you feel, something that you live.

The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.

I’ve had those people very interested in my writing. Since I think of myself as a composer, I feel really good. I’ve had lots of guys call me up. I’ve gotten two or three commissions to write things. I’ve written lots of movie scores.