Calls himself an 'anomaly'.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Ace Frehley
glacier1982 — 12 years ago(December 15, 2013 04:49 PM)
"I'm an anomaly. I'm an un-schooled musician, I don't know how to read music, but I'm one of the most famous guitar players in the world, so go figure."
Admittedly, I hate KISS. But of all the members I have the most respect for Ace. I recall seeing him on Stern saying he refused to rejoin KISS because the band was reduced to opening for Aerosmith, and he wouldn't open for any band that once opened for KISS. Rather than take an easy paycheck, he turned down the offer and I can respect that.
But!
Calling yourself an anomaly because you didn't formally learn music and became famous is fall down funny. If you could ask Jimi Hendrix to write out the sheet music for the solo in Purple Haze he would laugh in your face. Rock musicians aren't furiously scribbling away on lined paper like Mozart; they learn scales and improvise over simple backing chords. There's even an old joke about guitarists who are asked if they can read music, the response being "not enough to hurt my playing". They are literally thousands of acts today who have no musical talent at all and are famous performers. Look at the rap community alone. Ace must know some of his fans actually play guitar and know for a fact that playing in a minor pentatonic scale takes no musical training, making his quote complete bull$hit.