All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own music in their minds!Yoko Ono
The focus of my playing is the groove, and every time I find a new rhythm, I find I can write a bunch of new songs.
Learning how to dance, or drum, or to swing my body in a new way is the fundamental way I find a new riff. Because when you learn to swing your body in a new way, you begin to swing with your instrument differently.Stone Gossard
The soul of rock 'n' roll is mistakes, and making mistakes work for you.
The people who shy away from mistakes and play it safe have no business playing rock 'n' roll.Paul Westerberg
There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.Sir Thomas Beecham
Repetition doesn't really exist.
As far as your mind is concerned, nothing happens the same twice, even if in every technical sense, the thing is identical. Your perception is constantly shifting. It doesn't stay in one place.Brian Eno
Trained vocalists have an amazing way of cracking crystal. Passionate vocalists have an amazing way of cracking hearts.Danielle Egnew
I asked Miles after the gig, "Miles, what am I supposed to be doing up there?"
He said, "When they play fast, you play slow. When they play slow, you play fast."Miles Davis
Having no silence in music is like having no black or white in a painting.Brian Eno
I love bass guitar, because it has so little to do, yet it's so important.Brian Eno
Anybody that forms a group, writes songs and releases records and says they don't care if people like them are complete liars.James Dean Bradfield
I remember being with my wife's family, who are are quite shy. We started playing Charades, and within 10 minutes people are singing the theme from such-and-such with all the acting that goes with it.
Because they're now in a frame which says, "You're not yourself, you're not responsible." I thought, that's not a bad philosophy of life.Brian Eno
If I can get out of the way, if I can be pure enough, if I can be selfless enough, and if I can be generous and loving and caring enough to abandon what I have and my own preconceived, silly notions of what I think I am - and become truly who in fact I am, which is really just another child of God - then the music can really use me.
And therein lies my fulfillment. That's when the music starts to happen.John McLaughlin
A good performer jumps on stage, looks out at the audience, and thinks, "Here I am!"
A great performer jumps on stage, looks out at the audience, and thinks, "There you are!"Steve Rapson
When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don't even notice.Sarah Vaughan
The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.Duke Ellington
As soon as you externalize an idea you see facets of it that weren't clear when it was just floating around in your head.Brian Eno
If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterwards.Joe Pass
The Blues is about making a lot of other people feel bad, and making money while you're at it.Bleeding-Gums Murphy
You've got to be able to hold a lot of contradictory ideas in your mind without going nuts.
I feel like to do my job right, when I walk out onstage I've got to feel like it's the most important thing in the world. I've also got to feel like, well, it's only rock and roll.
Somehow you've got to believe both of those things.Bruce Springsteen
When you listen to Miles Davis, how much of what you hear is music, and how much is context?
Context is everything that isn't physically contained in the grooves of the record. It includes your knowledge that everyone else says he's great: that must modify the way you hear him. That he was a handsome and imposing man, a member of a romantic minority, that he played with Charlie Parker, that he spans generations, that he underwent various addictions, that he married Cicely Tyson, that he dressed well, that Jean-Luc Godard liked him, that he wore shades and was very cool, that he himself said little about his work, and so on.
Surely all that affects how you hear him: I mean, could it possibly have felt the same if he'd been an overweight heating engineer from Oslo?
When you listen to music, aren't you also 'listening' to all the stuff around it, too?Brian Eno
"Hollywoodization": This is the process where things are evened out, rationalized, nicely lit from all sides, carefully balanced, studiously tested against all known formulae, referred to several committees, and finally made triumphantly unnoticeable.Brian Eno
Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.Jimi Hendrix
If it does right by the song, you've made the right choice.Robbie Robertson
Band playing is like cooking, you need to mix a little bit of everything and balance the ingredients to make it taste better.Cenon Mallari Jr.
After about three lessons, my voice teacher said, "Don't take voice lessons. Do it your way. You're a song stylist. Always do it your way."Johnny Cash
A non-musician is thrilled to be doing music - quite happy to sit there and plunk one note all day- and is very alert to the effect of that.
Nonmusicians really LISTEN sometimes, because that's the only thing they have available to them.Brian Eno
Recording represents the future. The concert hall represents the past.Glenn Gould
I like to play with people who can play simple and are not threatened by other musicians thinking they can't play. So that eliminates 99 percent of all musicians.Neil Young
You might not feel like playing pretty all the time. Instead you might want to play something nasty. You might want to play something out of context with the tune. It might be a note that creates so much tension it becomes unpleasant, but you want it to sound that way.George Benson
Whenever I start working on a song, I immediately try to forget everything, to empty my hands and head of anything that may be hanging over from another song or album.
I try to approach it like this is the first time I've ever played guitar. What am I going to do?The Edge
For me, I think the only danger is being too much in love with guitar playing.
The MUSIC is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument.Jerry Garcia
A friend of mine says that modern music is a form of space travel, because either you're going out into space with the music, into weird new sounds and weird new impossible landscapes. Modern composers...create psychoacoustic spaces that actually don't exist in nature.
So that's one kind of space travel, going outwards. But the other kind, of course, is inner space travel, travelling into the strange new psychological spaces in our souls.Brian Eno
I'll go for things that I know are going to be wrong, with a vengeance.Neil Young
Practice makes perfect. But on-the-fly makes art.Danielle Egnew
No one is able to make music actually, but some have learned how to make it happen.Lorenz Weiler
I always thought Jaco's talent was a curse, in a way. Because no matter how fucked up he got on the bandstand, he could still play. The same thing happened with Bird. Their great talent enabled both of them to continue doing drugs and getting away with it, because they kept getting encouragement from people around them who told them how great they sounded. Jaco would play a great solo, and he'd be sitting on top of the world again, feeling invincible, with an attitude like, "There's nothing wrong with me." Jaco's talent was like a double edged sword-it made it impossible for him to see how terrible things really were becoming.Mike Stern
I'll play it first and tell you what it is later.Miles Davis
I try to be prepared for the moment, through understanding and being warmed up, knowing all about chords and scales, so I don't even have to think and I can get right to what it is I want to say.Pat Metheny
If you're going to sweep the floor, sweep it better than anybody in town.
And if you're going to play the guitar, really, really, really get in it, and don't be jivin'.Carlos Santana
Approach your guitar intelligently, and if there are limits, don't deny them.
Work within your restrictions. Somethings you can do better than others, some things you can't do as well.
You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.Johnny Cash
Jazz is a very democratic musical form. It comes out of a communal experience. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.Max Roach
I lose myself at some point during almost every musical performance.
There's some point of struggle and super self-consciousness, but I always get lost at some point.
While I'm playing, there's a patten of struggling through something and then cracking through it by a weird combination of willpower and letting go.
That's the most enjoyable thing for me: "Uh-oh, he's gone!"David Torn
If you pick up a guitar and it says, "Take me! I'm yours!" - then that's the one for you.Frank Zappa
Only play what you hear. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything.Chick Corea
Singers are like Arabs. They abhor a vacuum. And a vacuum is defined as "when I'm not singing".Brian Eno
My own thing is in my head. I hear sounds and if I don't get them together, nobody else will.Jimi Hendrix
I've practiced my tone for almost 50 years, and if I can't hear my tone, I can't play. If I can't play, then I won't get paid. If I don't get paid, then I lose the house, you know?
It's like a chain reaction. If I lose my tone, I can't fuck, can't make love, can't do nothin'. I'll just walk into the ocean and die, if I lose my tone.Miles Davis
If you don't make a mistake, you're not trying hard enough.Charlie Parker
An audience is like a dame. If it ain't sincere, it's over.Frank Sinatra
You're gonna have to learn to get out there in front of those cameras and hold your head up. Take charge when you're singing.Patsy Cline
Creativity is making mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.Scott Adams
I play guitar because it lets me dream out loud.Michael Hedges
I don't try to sound like anyone but me anymore. If something is out of my element, I try to avoid it.Norah Jones
It was when I found out I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something. Ornette Coleman
The music has generated all the techniques I use.
When I sit down to learn to play something it is not because I want to master a technique. It is because I want to hear what an idea sounds like.Pat Martino
People are hearing a lot more context than music, so perhaps I accept that I am now primarily a context maker.
My art is not just what comes out of the end of my trumpet or appears on a record, but a larger experience which is intimately connected to who I appear to be, to my life and charisma.
The 'music', the sonic bit, could end up being quite a small part of the whole experience.
Developing the context- the package, the delivery system, the buzz, the spin, the story - might itself become the art. Like perfume...Brian Eno
Every guitarist has a special quality of sound.
The best ones will use a good ear, much sensitivity, and a thorough knowledge of music to prepare the nuances and colors of sound.Andres Segovia
If you're working with electronic media in the recording studio, judgment becomes a very important issue and skill becomes a less important issue.Brian Eno
I tried to play in front of the beat in a way that didn't rush it, or behind the beat n a way that didn't drag it.Rick Danko
The rest of the band will follow me down any dark alley. Sometimes there's a light at the end of the alley, and sometimes there's a black hole.
You don't get an adventure in music unless you're willing to take chances.Jerry Garcia
My chops were not as fast, but I just learned more on what was in my mind than what was in my chops.
I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it's the right one, and it will probably whip the guy with twenty notes.Les Paul
We should imagine we're making hypothetical film soundtracks, not making songs.
This is always a very liberating idea, because a film soundtrack doesn't have to have a center - the film itself is the center. It allows you to make music that is pure atmosphere.Brian Eno
If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me it's good.
But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is all about.Aretha Franklin
I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That's when I was born.Charlie Parker
Sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.Itzhak Perlman
After making a rough mix, Bono listens to and studies this comp over the next few days, changes a word or a line or a verse, rephrases and re-sings, and the process takes place again. In this way, he begins to hone in on a performance, an attitude, a persona. He discovers who is singing the song, and what kind of world that person inhabits.Brian Eno