If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Neil PeartRead
If you've got a problem, take it out on a drum.
Interpretation
The quote encourages expressing frustrations through creative outlets rather than negatively affecting others.
Neil Peart emphasizes the importance of channeling one's emotions, particularly frustrations or problems, into a creative medium such as playing the drums. This approach not only serves as a form of emotional release but also allows individuals to transform their struggles into art, promoting personal well-being and self-expression.
In practice
Using this quote in a motivational speech about music therapy.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring.
Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.
It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways.
What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.
I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.
The bass is the link between harmony and rhythm. It is the foundation of a band. It is what all the other instruments stand upon, but it is rarely recognized as that.
Don t play this piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast.
The cutthroat avenues of rock 'n' roll, I am fed up with. I don't want anything to do with it.
Obviously you have to have rhythm. If you have rhythm, then you can play anything you need. If you have rhythm and you love music, then play and play and play until you get to where you want to get. If you can pay the rent, great. If you can't, then you'd better be having fun.
My songs speak for themselves. The musicians who play on them and the way they sound and where they were recorded and the way they were recorded is the old Nashville way ... they sound as country or more country than a lot of things that are on country radio.
Rock and roll isn't a career or hobby - it's a life force ... it's just something I have to do.
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