Kenny Werner Quotes:

Nothing in music is hard, just unfamiliar.

Topics: Music Is, Unfamiliar

We are all part of a universal game. Returning to our essence while living in the world is the object of the game. The earth is the game board, and we are the pieces on the board. We move around and around until we remember who we really are, and then we can be taken off the board. At that point, we are no longer the game-piece, but the player; we've won the game.

Topics: Moving, Taken, Player

There is no easy or difficult; only familiar and unfamiliar.

Topics: Easy, Difficult, Familiar, Unfamiliar

In fear, we expect; with love, we accept.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Accepting

Just before I play, I like to feel that no-one has ever played the piano before, that I'm in complete virgin territory, and that every note I play is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Beautiful, Play, Piano

Ultimately, musicians of the world must come to realize the potential of their calling... If the musician is illuminated from within, he becomes a lamp that lights other lamps.

Topics: Light, Musician, Lamps

Music can shoot through the musician like lightening through the sky if that music is unobstructed by thoughts.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Sky, Musician, Music Is

It is good to view things as familiar or unfamiliar, rather than as difficult or easy.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Views, Easy, Difficult

Mastery is playing whatever you're capable of playing-every time-WITHOUT THINKING.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Thinking, Mastery, Capable

Intellect has to surrender to instinct when it is time to play.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Play, Surrender, Instinct

In many cases, the decision to study music has robbed them of the ability to play music. They have lost respect for music that comes from within because they have been programmed to feel "unworthy".

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Play, Decision, Study, Lost Respect

If one's life depends on doing something right, as in the case of the tightrope walker, one will practice on a much deeper level.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Practice, Levels, Cases

Bill Evans described his tunes as vehicles; they are vehicles for self-expression, or expression of the self.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Self, Expression, Tunes

Fear closes all doors to the true self, that brilliant center where the ecstasy lies.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Lying, Doors, Self

I never call myself modern or traditional, in our out, new or used, because I prefer not to be hemmed in by rigid definitions.

source: - Kenny Werner (1996). “Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within”, Jamey Aebersold Jazz Incorporated

Topics: Definitions, Modern, Used