Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I feel like for me to write songs that I would be interested in as a listener, there has to be tension, and there has to be some kind of push and pull between reality and the potential of disaster.
Cause when you're sequencing a record, you want the listener to stick with it from beginning to end, and in order to do that, you really have to map out the journey from the first song to the last.
I'm not focused on radio or whether I'm going to get all the audiences... all I wanted were great songs that were universal to any listener - Black, White, Green, Yellow; any kind a age difference.
I think that's a responsibility I have, to not leave the listener with complete dread or depressing, dark thoughts, but to leave a little door open so that you can dance your way out if you want to.
I think when people listen to music, they can truly feel authenticity. For me personally, as a listener, there's certain songs where I'm just like, 'Man, I know that person was really feeling that.'
What we're doing is special and unique in its own way but still keeping it heavy. For me as a listener, part of the journey I'm on with Metallica, there's just a certain edge that needs to be there.
I can't live without Radio 4. It's worth the entire licence fee. I'm an obsessive listener; I get up, and Radio 4 goes on, but it goes off when 'Thought for the Day' starts, as that's a step too far.
A magic show and a concert are very similar in the way I like keeping things a mystery and not doing them the same way every time. The listener and the audience never know what's going to happen next.
But the greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out. You want the listener to find the song on their own. If you give too much away, it takes away from the imagination.
The video forum for me has been a source of great consternation because once you start projecting a look to a song, it robs the listener of their ability to adopt that song and make the lyric their own.
There's a beautiful, kind of seductive trap in being autobiographical in our writing of songs: We just get stuck in our own syrup, and it's so personal that it almost can be embarrassing to the listener.
What we perceive things to be when they come out of our mouth is not what the listener perceives it to be. They think it differently. They're not your blood. They're not your mind. You get in an argument.
The pictures are created by the listener, with a little help from the broadcaster. The pictures are perfect. If you're showing pictures, different things in that picture can distract from the spoken word.
I don't think you can be a good listener unless you're a good listener. I think it's something that you really have to do, and if you really do it, then you can do it. If you don't do it, then you can't do it.
I always felt, as a listener at a show, that when there was too much banter between the artist and the audience that it detracted from the show. I more enjoyed shows where the guys came out and they just played.
I'm not deluded enough to think that everyone who knows my name is a listener. You know, I hope that part of that interest - part of that public interest - has to do with me still making records that people like.
A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go.
On the other hand, there would be some value in different folks getting together to share expertise and technology; but to the listener, it wouldn't necessarily seem like a single station in the traditional sense.
It is not the purpose of the ad or commercial to make the reader or listener say, 'My what a clever ad.' It is the purpose of advertising to make the reader say, 'I believe I'll buy one when I'm shopping tomorrow'.
I would just like a woman someday, somewhere, at some point in my life to say to me, 'You're a great listener.' Haven't heard it yet, and that's a superior compliment to get from a woman. But I'm going to work on it.
I find it's nice when I can be a listener and absorb things coming at me. It's important, especially for me, when so much of my job is about putting things out into the world. So those quiet moments are rejuvenating.
As a child, I was an observer, a listener for the stories of grown-ups. I led a quiet, solitary life with my mother, interrupted in the evenings by the arrival of my father who preferred to live in a state of emergency.
I am my therapist, and I analyze what's happening and if I'm being hurt in the process. The result is songs that are very emotional, very deep, although I try to write them generally so they won't alienate the listener.
Everything needs to be catchy because a listener is either going to stay with the song or lose interest in the first five seconds. But people also like those songs they can relate to and say, 'Yeah, I went through that.'
I look for songs that the listener, when they hear it, they believe what I'm singing about, that I know what I'm singing about. That's my whole deal. I try to choose songs that a male or a female can perform and relate to.
I was a quiet kid - I didn't think I needed to be the funniest guy. I was always more of a listener. I went to 12 different schools, and I wasn't the charismatic dude, but I was captain of the track team and wrestling team.
I believe that classical music comes through listening and practice, and it can be fun both for the singer or performer and the listener or audience, as long as the performer is taught to recognise the pulse of the audience.
I think I compose as a listener: improvising and listening back excites me because I get to ideas that never would have occurred. Then I bring in the computers and samplers... and I begin to loop and process and change them.
I feel that when I listen to music - not that it's bad - it's not emotional. It has a gimmick to it. It's selling something: the artist, the producer, something. The emotional capacity is very small, for the listener as well.
I dread naming pieces of music because being instrumental, most of the time the songs that I write are instrumental, I want the listener to make up their own story as to what it is and get the emotion pure without using logic.
I'm a very good listener. I think that's one of the things that makes me a good producer. But it's a challenge for me because my custom is to listen and absorb what someone is saying and take it in, and not necessarily comment.
In examining witnesses, I learned to ask general questions so as to elicit details with powerful sensory associations: the colors, the sounds, the smells that lodge an image in the mind and put the listener in the burning house.
I don't want to sing songs that aren't worth while. Time is so rare. I just don't want to waste the listener's time and I think that my songs don't do that. That's what I pray for. I want songs that really touch people's hearts.
I was a keen observer and listener. I picked up on clues. I figured things out logically, and I enjoyed puzzles. I loved the clear, focused feeling that came when I concentrated on solving a problem and everything else faded out.
I should like to use another word: 'audience' or 'reader' or 'listener' seems inadequate. I suggest the old word 'witness,' which includes the act of seeing and knowing by personal experience, as well as the act of giving evidence.
Alien Chutney is just what the name suggests it is. Its music that is so funny and quirky and weird that it feels entirely alien to the listener; yet, the content and the subject matter is so Indian and relatable, it's still chutney.
I think the most important thing for a listener is to realize that he, too, should not listen to music in a passive way; that if you sit in a concert hall and expect to be moved or taken off your seat by the music, it will not happen.
Armenian folklore has it that three apples fell from Heaven: one for the teller of a story, one for the listener, and the third for the one who 'took it to heart.' What a pity Heaven awarded no apple to the one who wrote the story down.
A poem, necessarily, sits at a register that's different from our usual conversational voices. You have to listen more actively to get to the heart of what's being said, what you as a reader or listener are being asked to feel or notice.
You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.
You can communicate a sad message or perplexing message through happy chords or a happy melody, and I hope to have the listener pose more questions in their life as opposed to going along with the everyday and what's being pushed on them.
I put myself in the place of the listener when editing my writing. The last thing that I want to do is be preached at and told who to be or what to think when listening to an artist. However, I do want to be inspired. There's a fine line.
A good journalist, as you know, is a great listener. And so's a good writer. And I got to listen to people for almost 20 years. That serves me well, I hope, when I try to understand how a character might be feeling, or how they might react.
I think the true artist - musician, dancer, writer, actor - a true artist is able to sort of articulate pain and tragedy, in a way that sort of expresses what the listener or the beholder may have been feeling but was less able to communicate.
In their plush melodies and plummy platitudes, many Rodgers-and-Hammerstein songs were secular hymns, which so insinuated themselves into the ear of the Eisenhower-era listener that they became the liturgical music for the American mid-century.
Beethoven's fourth and seventh symphonies have a certain amount in common. Well, of course they're both written by Beethoven, but besides that, I would say their overall effect and idea is to provide the listener with an incredible sense of joy.
If you listen to the first, second, and third chorus of a song, they don't sound the same. It's the same melody and all that, but what really happens is that the energy changes. It's all about getting the listener to keep his or her concentration.
To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.
Good listeners have a huge advantage. For one, when they engage in conversation, they make people 'feel' heard. They 'feel' that someone really understands their wants, needs and desires. And for good reason; a good listener does care to understand.
There's definitely a couple of people I'll play stuff to when it's nearly finished just to see what they think; Mark, our producer, his wife is Australian and just listens to the radio - she's awesome - and, I guess, is quite a casual music listener.