Chick Corea

I get interested in the various ways that music is being done in the culture, and some of it I like thoroughly enough to want to learn about it. The way I have been successful at doing that is to become part of it.

My one thing is I continue to be interested and want to be a student. I don’t want to be a master. When I’m learning something, I’m in my element.

Without a doubt, my richest relationships are my long-term friendships with musical partners, because we make music together. That’s what we love to do with our lives.

Every time I see a musician – it doesn’t matter what age – that inspires me, there’s always a secret little wish that maybe we’ll play together, because that’s how I learn and grow and so forth, you know. But hopefully there’s a lot more.

The fact that an artist is experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in it together.

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

But the guitar, my lady, whether well played or badly played, well strung or badly strung, is pleasant to hear and listen to; being so easy to learn, it attracts the busiest of talented people and makes them put aside loftier occupations so that they may hold a guitar in their hands.

The guitar is just a wonderful instrument. It’s everything: a bartender, a psychiatrist, a housewife. It’s everything, but it’s elusive.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

Every day when I sit down to play, I learn something new.

With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I’m teeming with the drive to write.

I’ve been told that nobody sings the word ‘hunger’ like I do.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.

Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.

No one remembers who wrote the tune, putting pen to paper in some lonely place. They remember who had the hit.

Trios offer simple instrumentation, but the orchestral possibilities are so profound.

I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.

As far back as I can remember, singing was in my blood. My parents loved music, and I loved to sing. I was scatting at an early age.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales. I just wonder where I was when the talent was being given out, like George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Eric Clapton… oh, there’s many more! I wouldn’t want to be like them, you understand, but I’d like to be equal, if you will.