Creativity Quote by Tony Levin

In a music culture obsessed with “correct” taste and virtuoso peacocking, Tony Levin’s line lands like a quiet rebuke. “Musical instincts” is doing the heavy lifting: he’s not talking about credentials, theory, or genre loyalty, but that half-formed, bodily sense of what feels right in sound and time. Calling those instincts “precious” frames them as something you protect, not something you litigate in comment sections or sand down to fit a bandleader’s agenda.

The subtext is classic Levin: the ego is the least interesting instrument in the room. As a career session player and band anchor (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, countless studio dates), he’s lived inside other people’s visions. Respecting different instincts isn’t kumbaya; it’s workflow. It’s how you keep a rehearsal from turning into a dominance contest, and how you make space for the bassist’s job: not to win attention, but to make everyone else sound inevitable.

There’s also a subtle democratic politics here. “We all” flattens hierarchy, pushing back against the romantic myth that musical truth flows only from the genius at the front mic. Levin’s phrasing insists that taste isn’t a moral failing, and that disagreement in feel or phrasing isn’t sabotage; it’s diversity of perception. In an era of algorithmic sameness and hot-take gatekeeping, he’s defending musicianship as a kind of listening ethic: respect the strange impulse, and you might get a new groove instead of a familiar argument.