Does Michael play any instruments?
Jennifer Batten, MJ’s guitarist on the Bad and Dangerous tours, told a club member in Holland that Michael plays about every instrument used in modern music, including drums, percussion, keyboards, piano, guitar, and bass. He is credited on the HIStory album for playing keyboards, synthesizer, drums and percussion, and guitar. How does Michael compose his songs? MJ explained his composing process on the June 7, 1995 “Prime Time Live” special “Michael Jackson: The Man and His Music”, on the videotaped deposition he gave for the “Thriller”/”The Girl is Mine”/”We Are the World” copyright lawsuit, during his testimony in the “Dangerous” copyright lawsuit, and for the Internet Chat. He does not read or write music, so he sings the melody and vocally imitates the bassline, strings, and other parts into a tape recorder. As he said in the Internet Chat, “The process is creating a vocal rhythm to a click track — which is a sound, a timed beat. And you’re doing these mouth sounds to that beat.
