For me, fiction isn't very cathartic. It can be a broad, long catharsis, but it's a whole different thing - whereas music is physical. Essentially, it goes in through your ear. Fiction is cerebral, necessarily. It can do emotional stuff. But they don't really compare - not for me.

I could never overstate the importance of a musician's need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good 'inner ear' - the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening - is the most important element in becoming a good musician.

On 'Takeaway' we wear these little earpieces because the show is live, but if you push them into your ear they go further into your eardrum and really hurt. One woman flung her arms around us and crushed my head so the earpiece went in. I nearly fainted. I lost my vision for a bit.

I slept in van Gogh's bed. I worked in the room where he painted. I saw the place where he was cared for when he cut off his ear. I lived in the jail cell where he stayed. And I looked out the window. You remember that picture of the cornfields through the bars? That was what I saw.

I got a call from my agent saying you have an offer to voice a cartoon by the name of 'My Little Pony.' And that's pretty much what went in my ear. So I asked him the three questions that actors always ask. I need to see the script, when and how much, which were legitimate questions.

The more people who come from musical backgrounds and go into promotion, production, songwriting, A&R, plus get their business head together, the better. They'll not only understand the business aspect, they'll also have a true passion and ear for how quality is represented musically.

When things are difficult, awful, stressful, the thing that always gets you through is a sense of humour. I don't mean - well, maybe I do - laugh at the hangman as he puts the noose around your neck. But an eye, an ear, for the ridiculous, the absurd in life, can get you through a lot.

When I'm sat in the pub with my mates, they've got their stories: Richard and Tracy have split up, they went to Arsenal and this fight broke out... My anecdotes are like, 'I was in this bar, and Michelle Pfeiffer rang, and I had wax in my ear, so I couldn't hear what she was saying...'

The Wonderful pistachios campaign is a great example - I don't involve myself with a project I don't feel passionate about. I could talk your ear off about internal statistics for WWE and what we have planned for the future. Why do I know that stuff? Because I like to do all that stuff.

For me personally, I was just worried that transitioning from a podcast, which is a very intimate sort of experience - people tell me they listen to my podcast while they're at the gym or on road trips, so you're in someone's ear - to being on television - that's a lot of space to fill.

If the nose has become a deeply disillusioned and grief-stricken organ in the modern world, then what of the ear? The poor little ear - such an innocent, intelligent and sensitive creature; in these times of such flagrant sonic brutality, the sense within the ear has much to contend with.

Life throws up enough road blocks to keep you from writing; you can't be adding to them yourself by saying you can only write in one specific place. I'm in New York half the time and Texas half the time, and I work wherever - in my computer bag I have some foam ear plugs that I can put in.

All things are in a state of vibration. Vibrations from objects in our surroundings are constantly impinging upon us and carry to our senses a cognition of the external world. The vibrations in the ether act upon our eyes so that we see, and vibrations in the air transmit sounds to the ear.

Engaging in a sycophantic way with any politician in the short term is tempting. It offers the lure of access and the promise of influence. But ultimately, it can lead to misreading the environment, giving too much of an ear to the politician's circle, and confining your audience to partisans.

Ministers should not pray so loud, and long, as to exhaust the strength. It is not necessary to weary the throat and lungs in prayer. God's ear is ever open to hear the heart-felt petitions of his humble servants, and he does not require them to wear out the organs of speech in addressing him.

We concentrate so much on anniversaries and birthdays that you forget it's the Tuesday that's tough that really counts. Sometimes she just needs some flowers or even just that ear. It's the little things that count. It's the regular days of the year that you have to keep your attention on her.

In Australia, I grew up watching 'The Mickey Mouse Club,' my son grew up watching 'Sesame Street,' my grandson's growing up watching 'Dora The Explorer.' So we are sort of saturated with American culture from the day we're born, and to those of those who do have an ear for it, it's second nature.

When I grew up, a director was Cecil B DeMille, a guy sitting down with a megaphone speaking. He was the voice of God, the image of God. When I went to start making docs, I quickly turned the megaphone to my ear not to my mouth. It's more about funneling in the words and listening as doc filmmaker.

One of the things that the Grateful Dead did, way back when, was we spent a lot of time just turning each other on to music. If somebody was listening to something that really caught their ear, they'd make sure that everybody else in the band heard it, and that came home for us in innumerable ways.

I've grown up with a piano in the house, and that's where I started to be able to learn things by ear. Guitar kind of happened, and I was using it just for writing at first. Then, I was writing so much that I began to realise that I knew how to play, and that's when I started getting nerdy about it.

It is not unusual for the eye or ear to play tricks with one, but when such illusions and delusions are taken for the Spirit forms of the departed and voices of the dead instead of being recognized as some subjective phenomena brought about by a physical cause, the situation takes on a grave aspect.

One of the hardest things for me to do is watch myself. The first time I see it, I am obsessed with my left ear or my right ear or some other physical attribute, or the fact that I'm 60 or whatever shallow ego thought is running through my head. I'm just destroyed that I'm not Cary Grant or whatever.

I never really trained to be a musician, but I've been playing guitar since I was around, like, 13 years old. For me, the guitar has always been the instrument that I've played. I play a little piano. I taught myself everything by ear. I don't read music at all, which has not really been a hindrance.

I find this mortifying to admit, but I have one of those balls that helps my posture. They're hard to sit on, so it stops me from sitting too long... I also wear a pair of 3M(TM) PELTOR(TM) Optime(TM) II Ear Muffs. They're the same ones that people wear on the tarmac among the planes - noise blockers.

In this age of communications that span both distance and time, the only tool we have that approximates a 'whisper' is encryption. When I cannot whisper in my wife's ear or the ears of my business partners, and have to communicate electronically, then encryption is our tool to keep our secrets secret.

When I was a kid, we went to St. Augustine, Fla., and I was lying on the couch one night with a Q-tip, cleaning my ear out after I'd taken a shower. I hit my arm on something, jabbed the Q-tip through my ear drum, busted my ear drum and couldn't get back in the water the rest of the time we were there.

Despair is a cop-out, the ultimate abdication of all responsibility, in which people feel justified in their feelings of impotence. But if, on the other hand, you feel that your work in the world does make a difference and that you do have the power to change things, the nay-sayers will turn a deaf ear.

I like serving family-style or setting up a buffet. Everyone just goes to town, scoops their own food, and mixes their own drinks. You know how people love to come and watch you in the kitchen now and talk your ear off? If you give them something to do and something to drink, they don't do that as much.

A scale is just the notes that are in a chord played one at a time instead of together. That's what has allowed me to go through the possible notes that work with a chord and make choices about which ones I like best. I go through by ear; you can do it by theory too, but the best way is to learn by ear.

Elvis came along when I was 10. My father gave me a bass ukulele. I taught myself how to play from a book to play some chords, so I was laying down 'Hound Dog' and things like that when I was 10 years old in 1955. That's the way I was. My ear was glued to the radio. I knew right then what I wanted to do.

I have always felt a special affinity with V. S. Pritchett. He worked from the ear, primarily, as I do, and he was an all-rounder, writing short stories, novels, memoir, travelogue, critical biography. He lived to be almost 100, and he never stopped, and his work is unified by a great generosity of spirit.

I remember I was at a press conference where somebody came up to me with absolute confidence, like he knew me forever, and whispered in my ear, 'You should sing a song now. The Indian audience will enjoy it. Your songs will improve India and Pakistan's relations.' I clarified to him that I wasn't Ali Zafar.

All musicians practice ear training constantly, whether or not they are cognizant of it. If, when listening to a piece of music, a musician is envisioning how to play it or is trying to play along, that musician is using his or her 'ear' - the understanding and recognition of musical elements - for guidance.

Just sitting on the bed watching TV. And they said someone with a left inner ear infection, ear pops up, whoa! And uh, yeah, that's me. And you know, they just prayed that it be healed and it sure was. It went away and that was that. And I knew I was healed. What are the chances, eh? That was the Lord working!

Grooming-wise, it is now a constant battle as I progressively turn into my father. I have to keep on top of ear and nose hair - things you never believe will happen to you. Suddenly I have a shaving brush in my ear and I don't know where it's come from, and the more hair I take the out, the more it surges back.

My third day playing saxophone, I was in front of a congregation. I still didn't know the names of all the notes. I was playing by ear, following along, but it was such an encouraging environment, I couldn't fail. It was all, 'Yeah baby, you sound real good' no matter what you play. It was a great way to learn.

Whenever I score for Manchester City, my mother calls me. As soon as the ball hits the back of the net, the phone rings. It doesn't matter if she's back home in Brazil or if she's in the stadium watching me. She calls me every time. So I run to the corner flag, and I put my hand to my ear, and I say, 'Alo Mae!'

My brother was listening to his transistor radio. He kept switching the earpiece from one ear to the other, which I thought was his idea of a joke. 'You can't do that,' I said. 'You can only hear out of one ear.' 'No, I can hear out of both,' he answered. And that was how I discovered I was deaf in my right ear.

I realized quickly what Mandela and Tambo meant to ordinary Africans. It was a place where they could come and find a sympathetic ear and a competent ally, a place where they would not be either turned away or cheated, a place where they might actually feel proud to be represented by men of their own skin color.

My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music.

I learned everything by ear and played all the different instruments. So then I was able to find a guitar. That was, like, in the seventh grade. And then I didn't know how to put my fingers on all the different strings, so I had to figure out how to do it upside down and backwards, and I still play that way today.

About four days a week, I do pretty good at having a morning prayer time. But even at that, it's a rambling sort of thing. What I have learned to do better is to try to keep my mind turned toward God and ear inclined toward God throughout the day, and I think I'm doing better at that, but I've got a long way to go.

I mostly play my dynasty or against someone in the hotel. I don't really like online games. I can't stand people yelling in my ear over a headset. I'd rather just play someone like Dwight Howard out in Orlando or people back home. For games like that, it's cool, but just signing on and playing random people, I hate it.

There is no reason to suppose that taste is in any way a lower sense than the other four; a fine palate is as much a gift as an eye that discerns beauty or an ear that appreciates and enjoys subtle harmonies of sound, and we are quite right to value the pleasures that all our senses give us and educate their perceptions.

I wanted there to be something to fill the space and to catch the listener's ear, but I didn't want there to be any 'Virtual Self' songs that had a clearly defined vocal with lyrics and top line. If you do hear any lyrics, it's just your brain filling in the gap, because those moments are just various syllables combined.

I'm trying to leave more of my calendar open for the spontaneous things. A lot of fun stuff that happened in previous years were things that were like, 'Hey are you available next week?' I wasn't really open unless it was planned months in advance. I'm excited to play it by ear and let a lot of stuff happen as it happens.

I think the speaker of the House in Congress should be like the Massachusetts speaker: all-powerful. He should appoint committee chairmen and remove them if they stray from the party line. He should be answerable only to the caucus, which can remove him at any time. I'd throw the seniority system out on its ear in Congress.

If you keep hearing the same thing over and over again from your fan base, you should pay attention to that. But that's just another bunch of loud voices in your ear. I would imagine it makes it very hard to stay in touch with your own gut. You try to think of it as just another episode, but that never works. It just isn't.

Both my grandmothers had upright pianos, and I just knew how to play since I was a child. Nobody taught me. I sounded like a grown-up, and then I learned how to read music. I played so well by ear I could fool the teacher to believe I could play the notes. She'd make the mistake of playing the song once, and I could play it.

I've been searching for a genre that would be most adequate to my vision of the world to convey how my ear hears and my eyes see life. I tried this and that, and finally, I chose a genre where human voices speak for themselves. But I don't just record a dry history of events and facts; I'm writing a history of human feelings.

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