Here at UCLA where I work, former basketball coach John Wooden is a legend. There is a great quote from him which applies to musicians as well as it applies to athletes (there are many similarities between the two). It goes like this:

"Don't let what you CAN'T do get in the way of what you CAN do."

I try to remember this because it helps me to enjoy my playing --and keeps me from beating myself up for not sounding like Lloyd Green.

Anyone else have any secrets for keeping a positive attitude toward playing?

Oh, here's one more: "You 'play' music, you don't 'work' music!" --David Lee Roth

"There comes a time when every man feels the urge to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats." HL Menken

So far "my" best are:

There are only so many ways to fry cat food.

Never let the truth become a whipping boy to a lie.

You can Smart yourself Dumb. Why can't you Dumb yourself Smart?

A little blood pleases the Muse. A lot pleases her more.

EJL.

quote:

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The motive of the critic who is really worth reading...is not the motive of the pedagogue, but the motive of the artist. It is no more and no less than the simple desire to function freely and beautifully, to give outward and objective form to ideas that bubble inwardly and have a fascinating lure in them, to get rid of them dramatically and make an articulate noise in the world.

- H.L. Mencken

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quote:

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When I think of anything properly describable as a beautiful idea, it is always in the form of music....Nothing moves me so profoundly as the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms. In fact, I get more out of them than I ever get out of books.

-H.L.Mencken

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quote:

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My early impulse to compose was no transient storm of puberty, explicable on purely endocrine grounds. It stuck to me through the years of maturity, and is still far from dead as I slide into the serenity of senility.... I have written and printed probably 10,000,000 words of English, and continue to this day to pour out more and more. It has wrung from others, some of them my superiors, probably a million words of notice, part of it pro but most of it con. In brief, my booth has been set up on a favorable pitch, and I have never lacked hearers for my ballyhoo. But all the same I shall die an inarticulate man, for my best ideas have beset me in a language I know only vaguely and speak only as a child.

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"Nobody ever lost a nickel underestimating the taste of the American people."

It was on the wall of an office I was in at a publishing company... a friend of mine put it up when she worked there.

Plus a favorite of mine: "God is in the details." --Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. - Gandhi

All of us are born with music inside us
Some play it
Some ignore it
And some never hear it
Dont leave this Earth with the music
Still inside you

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Sho-Bud ProII
"there's been an awful murder, down on music row!"

I offer, caveat emptor, a more in-depth look into Mencken's view of his fellow man; season with a pinch of compassion, to taste:

quote:

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The existence of most human beings is of absolutely no significance to history or to human progress. They live and die as anonymously and as nearly uselessly as so many bullfrogs or houseflies. They are, at best, undifferentiated slaves upon an endless assembly line, and at worst they are robots who leave their mark upon time only by occasionally falling into the machinery, and so incommoding their betters.

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quote:

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The masses are animals, beyond salvation. But I'm out to collar the rest.

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quote:

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Like Nietzsche, I console myself with the thought that I am the man of the future, emancipated from the prevailing delusions and superstitions, and gone beyond nationalism.

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H.L. Mencken

(variations):
"Ya can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear"

"Ya can't polish a turd"
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  ~ ~
  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com

[This message was edited by Smiley Roberts on 22 July 2003 at 11:38 PM.]

The future will be better tomorrow.
Dan Quayle

It's wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 4/30/91

We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle

We don't want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.
Dan Quayle

My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will never, never surrender to what is right.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle speaking to the Christian Coalition about the need for abstinence to avoid AIDS, 11/15/91 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)

Okay, I won't open it until then.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle after having been presented with an empty box that was to contain a gift from a sailing team in South America. He was told that the gift was not ready yet, but that it would be presented to him when they arrived in the United States.

I happen to be a Republican president -- ah, the vice president.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle (Newsweek 4/9/90)

Maybe you guys will get lucky this year and face the Orioles in the World Series.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle encouraging the Milwaukee Brewers after throwing out the opening pitch of the season. Both teams are in the American League. (5/3/92 Sunday Detroit News)

Are they taking DDT?
-- Vice President Dan Quayle asking doctors at a Manhattan AIDS clinic about their treatments of choice, 4/30/92 (reported in Esquire, 8/92, and NY Post early May 92)

A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle

I just don't believe in the basic concept that someone should make their whole career in public service.
-- Vice President (former senator, former congressman, etc..) Dan Quayle

This isn't a man who is leaving with his head between his legs.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle discussing John Sununu's resignation and apparent lack of flexibility, 12/6/91

Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, regarding David Duke's candidacy, 10/12/90, (reported in Esquire, 8/92)

We lead in exporting jobs.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle committing a Freudian slip while speaking to the Chamber of Commerce of Evansville, Indiana, a city which lost 4 large companies in the last four years. He quickly changed the word `jobs' to `products'. (NY Newsday 7/26/92 - taken from The Quayle Quarterly, Summer/Winter, 1992)

My grandfather... saw where inherited wealth ruined people. And my grandfather was right.
-- Vice-President Dan Quayle giving an analysis of his own situation: he has a half-million dollars worth of his family's newspaper stock holdings. (ABC's `Prime Time Live', August 10, 1992)

You can't just walk into a store and buy a gun. There's all sorts of registration, there are all sorts of state laws.
-- Senator Dan Quayle after criticizing Michael Dukakis for the Massachusetts furlough program. Quayle was soon informed that indeed in many states a person could just walk into a store and buy a gun. (reported in the NY Times, 8/27/88)

If you give a person a fish, they'll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they'll fish for a lifetime.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle while at a job training center in Atlanta celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Job Training Partnership Act, which Quayle helped to sponsor while a senator, 10/13/92. (reported in the NY Times, 10/14/92).

etc

-Squeaky Fromme-

Hear Hear

"Reading is good sh&^"

"There comes a time time in every job when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineer and get on with the work at hand"

Ricky

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Emmons LeGrande - 8x4
Session 400 Ltd
Dan-Echo, E-Bow, Ibanez Distortion, Boss Comp./Sustain, Ibanez Auto-Wah

My older brother was a big John Wooden fan and had that very same quote framed and mounted on his wall. Wooden had so many inspirational themes like that, I was surprised you mentioned this same one.

Ron

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HagFan

" Hi. I'm a Gemini. I like Long walks on the beach, evenings in front of warm fires, doing "spoons", kids, animals, gardens, all kinds of music.

Turn offs: Mean people. Liposuction addicts, speed freaks, people that end conversations with "shut-up", and extreme right or left wing nut cases.

Not into mind games. Just kiss yours goodbye, and avoid it all...."

Call me..

quote:

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...the gift of genius is nothing but the most complete objectivity...the capacity to remain in a state of pure perception, to remove from the service of the will the knowledge which originally existed only for this service. In other words, genius is the ability to leave entirely out of sight our own interest, our willing, our aims, and consequently to discard entirely our own personality for a time, in order to remain pure knowing subject, the clear eye of the world; and this not merely for moments, but with the necessary continuity and conscious thought to enable us to repeat by deliberate art what has been apprehended...

-- Arthur Schopenhauer

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"Genuis, or Human Intelligence has finite limits.

Stupidity, on the other hand is awe inspiringly boundless...."

I work with certain people with which I tend to avoid direct eye contact. Gazing into their eyes is like standing next to the edge of a cliff, and feeling ones self being drawn to The Abyss. Absolute Nothingness...

Two drummers, and one truck driver, I find myself wearing sunglasses when in the vicinity of for that reason...

EJL

[This message was edited by Eric West on 27 July 2003 at 12:35 PM.]

Possibly that since "we" actually do it, it's nice to have some humorous input that lets the rest of us know that "we" are in the company of those that see, and have seen the "negative side" and continue to play, maybe only to witness the next absurd or funny event.

Kind of like "Dr's ER Sayings". I'll bet there's less inspirational platitude, and more "buckets of guts" stuff that lets the dedicated know that they're not alone.

SOMETHING made Jimmy Day and his cohorts string that long chord on that Emmons PP that day, and drop it out a motel window to hear "the tone". I wonder what inspirational sayings he would pass on to us. I certainly miss that type of visage in some of the "too serious".

Me, I'm going to plug in and practice for a couple hours.

That seems to work.

When I do, I'll carry a chuckle or two from the board and this string.

Thanks to all that gave them to me. Hopefully my home-made quotes, and hillbilly witticisms didn't discourage anybody. It was not my intention.