Top 33 Allan Holdsworth Quotes

I’m pretty selfish, I think. I’m probably a terrible dad. I don’t do too much with my kids. Obviously I love them and everything, but I just stay here in the studio all day.

I was working with another major label after Warner Bros, and they were telling me who to hire as musicians, what kind of music to play, what producer to use. I mean, what’s the point of putting me on the record?

Perhaps since I have been using the Synthaxe, it might have made it easier for people to listen to me, in a funny kind of way it takes for things to happen.

It’s obviously flattering when somebody likes something one is doing. But at the same time, I get embarrassed about it. It’s the ‘I’m not worthy syndrome.’

You never really get to be good at anything.

I went through a bad period where I was just not writing; I couldn’t create anything. I was out of ideas. But when I started playing on other people’s music, I realized how lucky I was to be doing this.

Record companies tell me to play something more commercial, but I don’t want to do anything else.

You wait all your life to be signed by a major label, and then when they sign you, they don’t want you to do what you want to do.

I love music – really a lot. That’s why I do it. But mine just never makes it, to me. There’s always something wrong with it, something I want to change. But I like that, because at least it keeps me looking, trying to find ways I can improve, which obviously are a lot.

My dad was a fine pianist and he had a lot of great records and beautiful music.

I don’t mind categories, but it’s so hard to find one that fits.

Most of the musicians I play with – aside from the form and structure of the music – the interpretation is up to them.

Whenever I watch a movie I like to imagine what sort of music I might compose for a scene, to create a particular kind of atmosphere, because when I see something I hear something.

I started out in rock, but I didn’t want to stay there, and haven’t.

I like lyrics a lot.

Standing and playing next to Tony Williams was pretty amazing. One of the things I learned about being a band leader from Tony was that he would never, ever tell me what to play or do.

I’d get another job before I would play music I don’t enjoy. But then, I’m really not qualified to do anything else.

The SynthAxe enables you to achieve a whole world of sonic textures that you cannot get with a guitar. There was nothing like it before and nothing like it since.

To me, I don’t see any difference between a synthesizer and an acoustic instrument. It’s what’s done on it that counts.

I don’t get a big recording budget or much promotion, but I have creative freedom.

My music is written with one goal in mind: to improvise. It’s like explaining a great story in words, but without words, much faster than you could with words. It’s like a direct line of instantaneous communication where you don’t have to wait for the end.

In essence, I feel I’m more jazz guitar player because I write vehicles geared for improvisation.

I’m a very tough critic of my guitar-playing. Sometimes I don’t even want to do it anymore.

As the chord changes go by, I don’t so much think about a static chord voicing changing. I just see the notes on the neck change.

In a way, I think the whole business is pretty corrupt. It’s like anything else where people make a lot of money – it’s really hard for the little guy.

For me, the only thing that makes one scale different from another is not the starting note; it’s the separation of the intervals.

I think the guy who tells you he knows about music is really dumb, or he’s lying to himself.

Music moves forward so quickly; music is an accumulation of knowledge, and musicians keep getting better and better.

It’s not my personality to brag in any way or be pretentious. It’s just not my nature.

The problem we have is that, some people call it ‘too rock’ to play on a jazz station, and it’s ‘too jazz’ to play on a rock station. So it’s difficult. It’s difficult to make it playing this kind of music.

I grew up listening to Ravel, Debussy, Bartok and jazz like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Charlie Christian and Django Reinhart. It was incredibly inspiring! And I was given a guitar and I said ‘What the hell is this?!’

We used to work with a promoter in Italy who used to book for shows with nine hour drives in between, so we got a new promoter.

To most people, jazz-fusion means this dreadful synthetic jazz-rock thing, this jazz-Muzak, which I detest. They also think of jazz as a specific form of music, while to me it’s just the opposite.