Creativity Quote by Buddy Rich

Buddy Rich is arguing against the comforting lie that mastery is just repetition with better lighting. For a drummer famous for superhuman precision, the refusal to “come in with a set routine” lands as a flex and a manifesto: the point of technique isn’t to lock you into predictability, it’s to buy you freedom in real time.

The phrasing matters. “Come in” sounds like clocking into a job, like music is shift work. Rich rejects that industrial mindset. A “set routine” isn’t merely practice habits; it’s a pre-scripted identity, a way of insulating yourself from risk. He pivots to the body - “how you feel” - framing performance as a live instrument panel, not a museum of rehearsed gestures. Subtext: if you can’t play your mood, you’re not really playing, you’re executing.

Context sharpens the edge. Rich came up in big band culture where consistency and showmanship were expected nightly, and he led bands with a famously authoritarian streak. That tension makes the quote interesting: the same guy who demanded discipline also insists that discipline is useless unless it serves spontaneity. Jazz, after all, is built on the promise that tonight won’t be a carbon copy of last night. Rich is staking out an anti-formula ethos in an era when pop and television were increasingly standardizing sound. He’s reminding musicians - and maybe himself - that the audience comes for the danger: the feeling that the performance could fail, and therefore might fly.