Books to help connect with the music

• "Effortless Mastery", Kenny Werner.
• "Free Play, Improvisation in Life and Art", Stephen Nachmanovitch.
• "The Inner Game of Music", Barry Green.
• "The Mastery of Music, Ten Pathways to true Artistry", Barry Green.
• "The Perfect Wrong Note", Willaim Westney.
• "The Music Lesson", Victor Wooten.
• "Zen Guitar", Philip Toshio Sudo.

Some Favorite Quotes

If everyone liked what I did, I probably wouldn't be playing anything of depth.
- Joshua Redman

Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.
- Black Elk

I want to sing like birds sing. Not worrying who hears or what they think.
- Rumi

...just to start at the beginning and let the truth seep out, that's what I'll do...
- Jack Kerouac, "The Subterraneans"

Try to imagine the first musician. He was not playing for an audience, or a market, or working on his next recording, or working on his show, or working on his image. He was playing out of need, out of his need for the music.
- Keith Jarrett

The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can we do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them.
- Bob Dylan

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.
- John Coltrane

Jazz has always been a man telling the truth about himself.
- Quincy Jones

Music isn't about standing still and being safe.
- Miles Davis

It's the group sound that's important, even when you're playing a solo. You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That's jazz.
- Oscar Peterson

Self-consciousness is the enemy of creativity.
- Author unknown

Don't be concerned with trying to move the audience. Just move yourself and you will move the audience.
- Karolina Strassmeyer

Complacency kills the spirit.
- Dave Liebman

I stopped painting because they wanted me to paint like everybody else. I wanted to paint my own way.
- Georgia O'Keefe

Fill a space with a beautiful thing.
- Alfred Dow (This quote inspired Georgia O'Keeffe to start painting again, in her own style.)

What the artist does is less important than what he is.
- Pablo Picasso

No happiness can come from outside; you must create it in yourself.
- Ludwig von Beethoven

The future will belong to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
- Paul Wellstone