I actually think I play better now than I've ever played. |
I'm just trying to avoid any sort of generic kind of music - I don't want to do generic jazz or fusion. |
I was totally into jazz in my teens. |
I'm better for it and I prefer to keep things simple and see what sounds I can get out of my head and hands rather than relying on a sound that someone else created. |
If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet. |
Actually, I think my hands are in the best shape they've ever been in terms of what I can do. |
The most obvious thing you can't do with a guitar synthesizer is to really sound like a guitar. |
It accumulates over the years and I've led so many bands of my own now and forced myself into new situations... You would hope that you play better and better - until you just get too feeble to do it anymore. |
In The Police, in a trio situation - which I've come back to now - it's just so wide open that it does actually provide this arena where you can play with a certain freedom. |
There was a period when I'd just come out of college where I'd been playing classical guitar and I suddenly realised that it wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. |
I like to play with someone who can cover a lot of ground and someone with whom you can discuss the language at a reasonable level; otherwise it gets a bit frustrating. |
It's hard to avoid the past but one goes forward. |
If I'm playing a violin thing, for instance, I tend to respond to that sound with the way I finger. |
I am pretty embroiled in moving on and moving forward with music. |
It is not very practical in today's world when you tour all over the place having a big band. |
I think rock records tend to be very expensive. |
For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument. |
More recently, I used guitar synthesizer extensively on the two albums I did with Robert Fripp. |
Of course the playing is important but writing and the establishing of what you are going for is prime too. |
I don't like playing standards. I like to do my own cutting edge work. |