Musician quotes
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"I thought for a minute about an actor and a musician simultaneously, but I think that's always very loaded as an actor when you become a "slash," and you do an actor "slash" anything. You better be really, really good at it."
"The place that I found where European musicians and American musicians come together is that odd middle world which is called uncertainty."
"Musicians are affected by the audience just as much as audiences are affected by the musicians. The only problem is that often times musicians won't allow themselves to admit to that fact."
"I can feel my father's spirit within me. I can feel similarities within us from the artistic perspective from being a musician. We have a lot of similarities."
"It sounds kind of stupid, but I've never not wanted to be a musician. It's been inside me since I was little so I don't know what else I would do."
"'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."
"Being a musician enables a person to bend the notes and express things that are inside you, no matter what."
"When someone really respects and admires us as musicians to the extent that they want to work with us, it's really flattering."
"I prefer to think of myself as a musician who is still learning and trying to do something every time out."
"Luther Vandross was a musician who sang. So after a while he was also the number one background singer in New York, so he would sing for Bette Midler, he sang on "Fame," he sang for David Bowie, he sang for - whoever needed backgrounds, he would arrange the parts and hook your record up. He also sang on commercials. McDonald's, Budweiser."
"My novels and poems are meant to be read aloud. That's why jazz musicians have been able to adapt my stuff."
"I really practiced hard and got to a certain level of technical proficiency. I overcame some of my limitations. I was a hard-working, dedicated bassoonist, but I have to say I'm not a natural musician."
"The soul of the great musician can only be expressed in music."
"The second album was like being on a completely different planet compared to when we were making the first album. ... Even though it was the same musicians, the same artist, the same studio, the same producer, - it felt like a completely different piece of a puzzle."
"Most true musicians don't do it for the money, they do it because they love it. When I did slam poetry, it was a great way for me to express myself, I loved it."
"Everybody can perform, there are so many outlets. Musicians are no longer limited. In the past, the record companies made most of the money. I for one am not sorry to see them fade away."
"Many of the African musicians are well-schooled and well-versed...what they do takes a high level of musicianship."
"For novelists or musicians, if they really want to create something, they need to go downstairs and find a passage to get into the second basement. What I want to do is go down there, but still stay sane."
"So for all that we might speak words in each other's vicinity, this could never develop into anything that could be called a conversation. It was as though we were speaking in different languages. If the Dalai Lama were on his deathbed and the jazz musician Eric Dolphy were to try to explain to him the importance of choosing one's engine oil in accordance with changes in the sound of the bass clarinet, that exchange might have been more worthwhile and effective than my conversations with Noboru Wataya."
"The best musicians transpose consciousness into sound; painters do the same for color and shape."
