Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't think I've ever been true to jazz. There's always a kind of jazz element to what I do. There are a very few genres that I haven't tried out, really, in what I've been doing. As a jazz musician, you can kind of mess about with things with a certain level of musicianship, which helps.
I feel like I live in my own little world, to be honest. I mean, I love my record, but I don't feel tied to it. I sort of created my own little universe in the studio, and that's why all of those musicians who made a living in the Nashville music scene loved coming over to my place so much.
The only way that Hollywood ever skews toward liberal is because part of what we make out of Hollywood involves writers, actors, directors, musicians, set designers, and photographers. In general, people like that are going to be more progressive, more open minded, a little more altruistic.
But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.
I decided I wanted to be a musician when I saw the movie 'Amadeus' around 1987. I was five years old, so it was a good time to start piano lessons after seeing Tom Hulce who played Mozart play the harpsichord on his back with his hands crossed. Such a great movie to inspire a five-year-old.
I read to learn, tech myself stuff and teach myself math and do complex formulas, and it's very, very tough, but I enjoy doing that and keeping my mind active. It definitely comes in handy, I feel I have a pretty good grasp, at more than a lot of musicians, of the business and finance world.
The best musicians in the world were raised on the same kind of music I was raised on and that is black, soulful, authoritative, ultra-tight, ferocious, uppity, defiant music that from the Howlin' Wolf, the Muddy Waters, the Lightnin' Hopkins, the Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Little Richard.
Wyclef is a musician that tried to unite as many musicians at once as possible. I am trying to be successful at that. The greatest challenge is that, I just got arrested for protesting in NYC for cutting the school budgets... And I think that it's important to stand up. Schools are important.
Being a musician, especially at the major label where you work for so long, it becomes a cycle. Write a record, make a record, tour. It's just this cycle, and I don't think there's any life built into it with time to assimilate what's going on in front of you and what's going on in your head.
I've been a big believer in musicians turned actor, going back to Sinatra winning the Oscar for 'From Here To Eternity.' David Bowie in 'Man Who Fell to Earth,' Kris Kristofferson's been great in a bunch of films. Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey, I thought was great in 'Precious.
I've been grinding at music for over a decade now. Since I was 18, I decided that this is what I wanted to do. It's not an easy thing. When you start getting 25, 26, people are like, 'Oh you're a musician huh? That's what you're gonna do? When are you going to get a real job?' I never gave up.
I always loved the look of musicians. I've always admired them because they have a look - when I was growing up, it seemed that the ones I liked didn't need to have a stylist. Now there is this trend where everyone has a stylist, or follows the suggestions of a stylist, from designers on down.
Being a professional musician doesn't mean you spend 12 hours a day playing music. It means you spend up to 12 hours a day taking care of business, dealing with litigation, with the various characters who've stolen your interests, or fending off hostile lawsuits from former members of the band.
If a musician dares to get out of the box he's been put in, people get confused. They want people where they can find them! I am fortunate in some respects as I've always been known as someone who 'moves around' and tries different things. But generally, we are supposed to stay where we're put.
Christian musicians today, minus about ten bands, have never had to fight to be accepted or heard like general market bands have to make a living. It's just overlooked that the Christian market is safer and more lucrative, but requires musicianship that applies to the lowest common denominator.
I want to be taken seriously as the type of musician that plays stuff like an electric rake. I mean, how seriously do you take someone like Spike Jones? They take him pretty seriously - a really good musician who made a great contribution in terms of humor, which is part of what I try to do too.
There used to be a club in new york called Bradley's - I've never been there, it closed in the 80's - but I used to study with Junior Mance, and he would tell me about Bradley's. It was a very important place for a generation of jazz musicians in New York. It was really all about pianists there.
I grew up listening to a lot of that stuff, Motown and Stooges. But also early rock-and-roll like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. I feel like as I grew older, I've been working with different musicians, people that have are constantly showing me different things.
I want to live in a world where Miley (or any female musician) can twerk wildly at 20, wear a full-cover floral hippie mumu at 37, show up at 47 in see-through latex, and pose semi-naked, like Keith & co, on the cover of Rolling Stone at 57 and be APPLAUDED for being so comfortable with her body.
As a musician, I don't think I'm the greatest guitar player. I'm a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm.
More than anything, acting was more like a confidence thing. I love words - I love English - but I don't have a hugely academic brain, so I enjoyed it because it was a bit of a respite. I don't think I really had a sense I would actually be a musician or an actor; I just wanted to be around that.
My approach to music is very deep. I do not compromise with anybody or anything else in the world. I do not care. I want to really go beyond this materialistic world...not for the sake of enjoyment, entertainment, no. A musician must lift up the souls of the listeners, and take them towards Space.
Leonard Bernstein was probably the most significant formative influence on me - he was such an encompassing musician. I spent my teenage years absorbing him, and my other interests stemmed off of that. Bernstein led me to Sondheim and to Gershwin, and Sondheim led me to listening to Joni Mitchell.
There are only so many letters in the alphabet. When I talk to young musicians or authors and they ask for advice, I say, You gotta learn all the letters of your own personal alphabet. With music, you need to know all the different kinds of music and everything in and around your given instrument.
I feel really privileged that I've been able to be an activist and a musician for over 20 years now, and I've always been able to say whatever I want. I think that's something we Americans really take for granted, but it's a big deal, and it's not something most people in the world are able to do.
Kickstarter is such an amazing platform, it really is. It's something great for independent artists of all kinds because every musician and every artist needs help to produce the record, make the record. It's like the modern day patronage. It's turning to your direct fan. It's a good motivator too.
When you have a sense of calling, whether it's to be a musician, soloist, artist, in one of the technical fields, or a plumber, there is something deep and enriching when you realize it isn't just a casual choice, it's a divine calling. It's not limited to vocational Christian service by any means.
I always say that you should just listen to it and see what you think it sounds like it is. I don't think it should be labeled. Most musicians feel like that. No one wants to put their music in a category. But, I don't think it's all over the place. I don't go from metal to jazz, or anything crazy.
My start came with experimental musicians and live bands. I never played with DJ's because it wasn't really the correct fit. It fit in more with someone using a laptop to create their own electronic music. When you're doing music like that, it's hard to get more than 20 people to come to your show.
When my dad retired, he moved to Georgia, but I stayed in California. I was in San Francisco: that's where I first went from being a musician to making beats and producing. I was 18, 19. It started going pretty good for me out there in California, so I stayed in SF while my parents moved to Georgia.
I want to change and try new ideas - allowing your sonic identity to evolve in your music and not being afraid of that. You see musicians hit upon something that works, and then go, "Let's keep doing that for 10 years." And that idea kind of terrifies me a little bit. It becomes like a day job then.
It is jazz music that called me to be a musician and I have always sang the songs that moved me the most. Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs.
My life has had a lot of fits and starts: before I studied literature at all I was a musician, and began undergrad as a conservatory student. I started studying literature in my third year of college, when I took a poetry course with James Longenbach that was pretty extraordinary. It changed my life.
I went through a phase when I was 13 where I would only fall in love with people over the age of 19 or 20. I never had a real relationship with any of these people, but it was definitely the guy I wanted to hang out with and wanted to go on trips with. I would be like, 'But, Daddy, he's a musician!'.
'Cause a musician, you can't tell me, "I've got this message I want share with the public," and it's three-and-a-half minutes long. That's not it. If your message is only three-and-a-half minutes long, then we got nothing else to talk about. Because life is more complex than three-and-a-half minutes.
The life of any musician really doesn't fall into a normal schedule at all. Every week there are different rehearsals, different days and nights of performances, so we don't have a particular pattern that we can follow. For a conductor, it is a little bit worse because we have to allow for traveling.
I'm very motivated by the occasional creative payoff that comes when something goes really well, be it a song, a recording or performance. The payoff is enormous - when you get it. Most of the time, though, I'm filled with self-loathing and general frustration at the limitations I have as a musician.
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.
Don't decide that you're going to be a writer or musician and just expect it to happen because it's a big gamble and a lot less predictable than a conventional job. But you do increase the likelihood of success by working as hard as you can and holding yourself to the highest standard you can muster.
To be honest, I've never looked really hard for musicians. I'll just randomly meet people. I've never interviewed bandmates or anything like that. The reason I like playing with Chad and Devin is that they're just really, really good musicians and good players. There's not a lot of sloppiness going on.
I was in this public high school in Princeton, and it had this topnotch jazz program - if you were a musician of any kind of caliber, your holy grail was to be in that orchestra. It was that claim to fame of the school, of the town, other than the university. But it was better than the university band.
A lot of the musicians asked me if when I hit my high-Cs on the records I had a clarinet take the notes. Some [thought] I had invented some kind of gadget so I could play high register. They weren't satisfied until they handed me a trumpet that they had with them and had me swing it. Then they cheered.
Your body is merely a machine made to express the thoughts that flow through you and nothing more. It is but an instrument for you to express your imagings just as a piano is an instrument for a musician to express his imagings. Just as the piano is not the musician, so, likewise, your body is not you.
Here's the thing about Red Sox fans, or actually just fans from that region, in general: they appreciate the effort. And if you mail it in or if you give 80 percent, even with a win, they'll let you know that's not how you do it. They want - if it's comedian, if it's a musician, bring us your best show.
We're not just R&B guys. We can do pop, rock, blues . . . a wide variety. We are musicians and play several instruments. We understand how to record things live and work with an orchestra. We can also program with a drum machine and work with all the other computerized components that are current today.
A lot of people are really quick to say, "That song sounds like this." Or you - "He's tryin' to sound like this." And I'm always like, "You're damn right I am. That's how - that's why we're all here." You know, we all grew up idolizing another musician. That's how this works. That's how music is created.
Growing up, I listened to a lot of everything - I fell in love with music, when I discovered people like Lauryn Hill and Tracy Chapman, people whose voices I could really feel, people with a lot of soul. That's what I'm drawn to as a musician: Anybody that has their own voice and their own point of view.
The only reward the musician receives is music: the privilege of standing in the presence of music when it leans over and takes us into its confidence. As it is for the audience. In this moment everything else is irrelevant and without power. For those in music, this is the moment when life becomes real.
And you realise you're doing a public service in making people happy - as a musician you can give people something a doctor, a lawyer, a politician cannot give them that. It's not scientific. It's spiritual - a good feeling. And although you don't know them personally, the audience are like your friends.
When I decided to be a musician I reckoned that that was going to be the way of less profit, less money. I was sort of giving up the idea of making a lot of money. It was what I loved to do. I would have done it anyway. If I'd had to work at Taco Bell I'd have still been out at night trying to play music.