I really think kids should understand that music is like learning the alphabet. You put small letters together to make words, and then you use these words to create a story, but with music. And they really need to know how to mix and match those letters and how to come up with something that is really interesting, or speak in metaphors as poets do to show us something maybe we didn't think about.

You stick your nose in the dirt until you find something that smells good.

From the time I started playing solo drums, doing clinics and stuff, you know I think one of the largest selling clinics I ever did was in Chicago.

I had been composing just for myself, and people would say I played so orchestrally, and wondered if I thought about having someone write a piece for me for an orchestra. And I thought, I don't want someone else to write that. You know I finally had made an overhead chart of my drums and what pitches the cymbals and toms were tuned to, and what have you. And I started to compose just with what I had for my solo drumming.

Money and fame are very inconvenient and very problematic.

I think by the time I finished college I was calling myself a professional because I was, you know. I was making a living playing music.

You just chip away until the puzzle is complete.