Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I seek out hard things. I tried to imitate other singers. It was a self-discovery for me to move from imitating others to me growing to sing in my own voice. The opera was difficult and it felt like a personal conquest.
The one thing I've learned in the last ten years is that successful artists don't get paid to write and sing songs, they get paid for the psychological roller coaster they're going to have to ride. That's the hard work.
It was my 16th birthday - my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do - write songs and sing them to people.
The fact that I am blind is not what defines my life. It should be of no more interest than my blood type. People wonder if there is a relationship between my lack of sight and the way I sing. But there's no connection.
I don't always have to sing a song. There is something besides 'The Man That Got Away' or 'Over the Rainbow' or 'The Trolley Song.' There's a woman. There are three children. There's me! There's a lot of life going here.
There was a time we decided that it was songs that were done especially from my background because of the things we were dealing with, but nowadays, anybody who has a need, and can find the need, they can sing the blues.
When I sing a tune, the lyrics are important to me. Most of the standard lyrics I know well. And as soon as I hear an arrangement, I get ideas, kind of like blowing a horn. I guess I never sing a tune the same way twice.
I didn't understand that I could sing until I was like 11 or 12. My mom heard me singing around the house and she said, What are you doing? You really can sing! So then I started going to school and singing to the girls.
I'm shocked at how early everything closes here. But people start earlier. I miss the late nightlife in NYC, but then again I sing and burn so much energy in the show that it's probably good - I get to go home and sleep.
I have heartaches, I have blues. No matter what you got, the blues is there. 'Cause that's all I know - the blues. And I can sing the blues so deep until you can have this room full of money and I can give you the blues.
When I picked up guitar, it wasn't like, 'OK, I'm going to be Kenny Chesney.' It was like, 'I want to play a chord,' and then it was like, 'I want to play another one, then play a song, then sing while playing the song.'
My favorite type of music to sing to would be rock and roll, Tenacious D, Led Zeppelin, some Queen - I love all of them. I love singing to them because they're all just great voices. I love listening to very obscure jazz.
The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it. Dreamers - keep on dreaming and keep working hard to achieve your goals. There are many difficulties, but what matters is to stay focused and have perseverance.
That's the good thing about music: you can sing about people's lives in its stages and feelings. Some songs can put something in context that you couldn't. They can free your mind or can make you think or can be redeeming.
I knew the full 'Judy Garland Carnegie Hall' double album set at age 2. And then my mother wondered why I was gay. I was like, 'Are you nuts? You would make me get on the table to sing Judy Garland songs and you're upset?'
If you can play guitar and sing, you can probably get a gig down the road playing at a restaurant, but don't throw your life away chasing something that is so elusive it will only lead you to regret and may turn you bitter.
Music is fun, but I'm an ice skater. I may sing songs and do shows, make movies and other things... that's all well and good and I enjoy it, and I would never trade any of those for anything. But figure skating is who I am.
In the past, when I'd recorded during a break in a tour, it was so easy to sing, because I felt strong. Also, like so many new mothers, I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, and sleeping is such a huge part of being able to sing.
I'm not a big fan of lead vocalists, people who sing but don't play. I never wanted to be in a band where the guy who was up front just sang. I've always thought it better when one of the musicians sings, like Steve Winwood.
When you sing on stage, the songs are part of the narrative, but in 'Unconditional Love,' it was just singing for singing's sake. It was playing at being pop star. As a young boy growing up in North Wales, that was my fantasy.
A musical, in its true form, is where emotions reach a height where true spoken word cannot be enough, and you must sing. That's all it is. It's not posh; it's not out of your reach. It's the most visceral way to tell a story.
I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it.
Some people say I've got a five-octave range, which is ridiculous. That would mean I'd sing like Mariah Carey or that alien in 'The Fifth Element.' And I'm nothing like that blue alien. I've got a range of about 3 1/2 octaves.
As kids, we spontaneously sing and dance and tell stories, and along the way, someone comes and says, 'No. You shouldn't be doing that.' And we slowly begin to unlearn our passions. I think you have to hold on to those things.
Whenever I get an idea for a song, even before jotting down the notes, I can hear it in the orchestra, I can smell it in the scenery, I can see the kind of actor who will sing it, and I am aware of an audience listening to it.
I don't listen to a lot of new stuff. I just like the old stuff. It's all quite dramatic and atmospheric. You'd have an entire story in song. I never listen to, like, white music - I couldn't sing you a Zeppelin or Floyd song.
I preferred not to be laden down with a big instrument. If you're behind a guitar, you get used to being behind a guitar, and you don't really perform because you can't. I wanted to be able to just hold on to the mike and sing.
I come up with the ideas for my videos, and I write the lyrics and choreograph them, and I direct them and tell everyone what to do and how I want them to sing the parts and do the tongue pops and eye rolls and stuff like that.
When you're singing, you're using extra muscles, and it requires a lot of exercise and breathing. You can't do that if you're a sissy. If I have any fitness advice for people, I'd tell them to sing more. It's good therapy, too.
Mind you, I've always been musical... Mother used to sit me on her knee and I'd whisper, 'Mummy, Mummy, sing me a lullaby do,' and she'd say: 'Certainly my angel, my wee bundle of happiness, hold my beer while I fetch me banjo.'
I had heard a live show, where my voice didn't sound the way I wanted to hear it and I got paranoid. I'm not an amazing singer, I just belt it out in this crappy old way, but for a while I had it in my head that I couldn't sing.
When I'm writing, I'm thinking about how the songs are going to play live. Fifty bars of rap don't translate onstage. No matter how potent the music, you lose the crowd. They want a hook; they want to sing your stuff back to you.
'I Will Not Be Broken' has really become very healing for me. Any time you go through a cataclysmic event... it's going to inform the richness that you sing from... The experiences of life make all your emotions, I think, deeper.
I was with Tina Turner when she first saw Janis Joplin, and she said to Janis, 'Honey, you can't continue to sing like that, or you'll have no voice,' and Janis' response was just to laugh and take a swig on her Southern Comfort.
Just, whenever you can, get up and sing at a gig or jam. If you have a chance, take it and keep on getting up. Keep going - but not If people boo, 'cause that's just mean. I think that could be setting yourself for disappointment.
The B-52s, you know, our songs are about volcanoes or lobsters. Cindy and I sing them like our lives depend on them. I feel very emotional when I'm singing 'Rock Lobster,' but I've wanted to sing more about my personal experience.
I worked at an ice cream parlor called Chadwicks. We wore old-timey outfits and had to bang a drum, play a kazoo, and sing 'Happy Birthday' to people while giving them free birthday sundaes. Lots of ice cream scooping and $1 tips.
There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
I miss the days when girls would wear full long dresses and just stand onstage and sing. That's what I'm trying to bring back: that timeless element. I want to create music that people will be listening to in fifty years, you know?
It is a little scary to go across the whole country, and basically the world, and be like, 'What's up? I'm gay, and you should let me get married everywhere.' I don't feel like I'm a spokesperson. I just sing what my experience is.
I know that I can sing really loud. It's like having that really big Evinrude engine on the back of your fishing boat. But I've been trying to be more dynamic with my voice, and not just singing on 10 all of the time out of terror.
For me, I just want to sing about life. And since I come from a spiritual background, I turned to jazz, because I feel it's still sacred, like gospel. It's serious music, but it allows room to sing about so much other stuff as well.
I love puppies, and I love animals in general. Besides that, I do martial arts: extreme martial arts. I also play real guitar and drums, and sing. And I'm taking some college classes, hoping to major in English and creative writing.
I'm tired of being around men all the time. I'm going to start a band called Skirt with three girls and I'll play the guitar and sing backing vocals in drag. I went window shopping when I was in New York, saw a lot of amazing dresses.
I just sing. But I have a fun hobby: I love to do archery. I'm pretty good on target. I'm not sure about the distances - maybe only 7 or 10 feet, so far, but I've scored the bull's eye several times, but usually always hit the target.
Unfortunately, most of the songs that I write I don't write them with guitar in mind. I just write it as a song and that was probably one of the ones that left an opening for it. The song's all right, I wouldn't choose to sing it now.
Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing.' It really made me think about the importance of happy music.
I was asked to act when I couldn't act. I was asked to sing 'Funny Face' when I couldn't sing, and dance with Fred Astaire when I couldn't dance - and do all kinds of things I wasn't prepared for. Then I tried like mad to cope with it.
These songs are old friends I have entertained myself with when I'm washing the dishes, driving to the store and walking down the aisles. The ones that you sing when you're driving in the car and as a singer you always go back to them.
I had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.