Education Quote by John Mayall

Mayall slips a whole philosophy of making art into an offhand brag that refuses to sound like one. “I also went to art school” is the credential drop, but it lands with a shrug: the training is real, yet it’s not the main event. The pivot comes fast - “learned to play a piano there” - followed by the quiet coup de grace: “but I play by ear.” That “but” isn’t anti-education so much as a boundary line. School can hand you tools; it can’t manufacture instinct.

In the blues-rock universe Mayall helped define, authenticity is a currency constantly at risk of counterfeiting. He’s a British musician working in a tradition mythologized as lived, not learned. So he frames his musicianship as both schooled and un-schooled: disciplined enough to respect craft, stubborn enough to trust the body’s knowledge. Playing “by ear” signals fluency in feel, the ability to respond in real time, to treat music as conversation rather than recitation.

There’s also a subtle correction of the listener’s assumptions about “art school” types: not precious, not theoretical, not trapped in technique. Mayall positions himself as a conduit - someone who studied form but chose immediacy. The line doubles as an ethos for his bandleading, too: you can surround yourself with virtuosos, but what matters is whether the music listens back.