Bill Bruford Quotes

I seldom play in a trio, but acoustic music is likely to be lighter, quicker, and quieter.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Music

The best practice you can get is on the bandstand, but in between gigs I feel I have to stay in shape.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Practice

I saw it as a challenge to play with Pat and we put hours and hours into it, usually on the bus. The trick was to find something that we both wanted to play within our different styles which would add up to being greater than the sum of its parts.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Up
• Different
• Challenge

Close to the Edge, Red, One of a kind, Discipline, Earthworks, The Sound of Surprise, all seem to me to be albums that captured the essence of the intention.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Red
• Discipline

Sometimes I had to room with Tony Kaye and that was awful.

Bill Bruford Yes

I mean, Chris is, I'm sure, a wonderful guy. But in those days he also very, very late. For all appointments and departures and arrivals and sound checks and anything.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Guy

I didn't write any music at all, and then, I remember Jon Anderson being very insistent saying that there were two kinds of musicians: the ones who wrote music and the ones who didn't.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Music
• Remember

I do remember the whole thing as being very argumentative, hot blooded... a permanent state of friction between Jon and Chris, Chris and me, me and Jon.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Remember

I listen to Bill Stewart play the drums and when I have finished doing that, I listen to Bill Stewart.

Bill Bruford Yes

I have been steadily exchanging a rock audience who were nervous about what they had just bought for a jazz audience who not only were happy with their purchase, but are increasingly coming again.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Happy
• Rock

We were from totally different social backgrounds. This is what is very hard for an American to understand, but we could have been five guys from Mars.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Different
• American

But what I think my emphasis is, is on the fact that I like music a lot.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Music

I don't really remember a whole lot of sex, drugs and rock n' roll, really.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Remember
• Rock
• Sex

My harmony is passable but is usually made more eloquent at the hands of Steve Hamilton.

Bill Bruford Yes

And we'd drink huge amounts of scotch and coke, which is a ghastly sweet drink... And now people don't drink nearly as much, for good reason. We're all a little wiser.

Bill Bruford Yes

• People
• Good
• Sweet

We used to drink an awful lot of alcohol.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Alcohol

So I have the classic amateur's technique; I know some very tricky bits and I have large gaping holes.

Bill Bruford Yes

The piano is kind of my second instrument.

Bill Bruford Yes

We all lived in the same house, or most of us did. And as far as I can make out we were confined to the property, because at twenty-four hours' notice we'd have to do a gig somewhere. So you couldn't leave the building for more than twelve hours in case a gig came through.

Bill Bruford Yes

• House

This amateurism however, can sometimes be helpful in forging a style; you have to work around your weaknesses.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Work
• Style

At the end of the whole day of working with people you want some privacy.

Bill Bruford Yes

• People

I practice at home, in between phone calls, and have much to do.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Home
• Practice

Plus I am being hounded by all the fabulous new drummers, Bill Stewart at the head of the pack.

Bill Bruford Yes

If it's fast, no I don't have enough piano technique. In that case, it's probably been done on some kind of synthesizer or sequencer. Then the score can then be printed out and so forth.

Bill Bruford Yes

• Done