Quotes About Music

To me, there's no question that using a metronome develops your speed and accuracy. If you're learning scales or you're jamming on parts that you can't quite pull off, it's a must.

Go-go is so drum and Congo based. It's almost like music from Africa. The drums like on 'Planet Paradise' are deeply African-rooted. It's really bouncy and the same speed as go-go music. That's an example of the influence go-go had on me.

I play a Monk song, it's like you get possessed. And then you have to break that spell. You have to remind yourself that you are an individual, or that you aren't Thelonious Monk.

We had a large spell in 1985-86, but we would have had to move to the States and be available all the time, so we chose to remain a European act.

It's very important to me that every person takes away their own meaning from a song, and it's why I don't always love spelling out what a song is about for somebody.

I spend a lot of time with the grandchildren. They love it when we sing together. It's fantastic to hear them, and they really can sing. I don't talk to them so much about 'Abba' and the past, but as they get older, they will become more aware.

Working on good music is what brings happiness to my heart and I cannot think of a better way to spend my birthday.

Humans are kind of story-propagating creatures. If you think of how we spend our days, think of all the time you spend on entertainment. How much of your entertainment centers around stories? Most pieces of music tell stories. Even hanging out with your friends, you talk, you tell stories to each other. They're all stories. We live in stories.

To write lyrics and sing stuff used to be a real chore for me, especially before this 'Diamond Eyes' record. I was spending years making records.

I really enjoy DJing but I couldn't DJ exclusively. I couldn't produce exclusively either, that would involve spending a lot of time in isolation. But l do enjoy performing the music l create to people. It's a release for me.

I'm against spending money to record.

I've become more introverted as I've got older. I used to be an outgoing person who joked around a lot, but as the amount of energy I expend by sharing my music has increased, I like to balance it by spending time by myself and recuperating.

Music is like a really sacred, awesome thing. That first 45 minutes to two hours that you're on stage spending time with music every night is always really great.

I feel blessed that I found not just a profession, but a 24/7 way of life that I purely love. That curiosity to be current, to listen to the Hozier album, to be early in recognition of a Lorde and spending time with her and Miguel, the pleasure of seeing new talent erupt... I love it.

I've spent so much of my life examining the smallest details. In some ways, it's where I feel most at home. For me, it's super-important to understand all of the different nuances of light and shade. But if you can't paint in primary colours, no one's going to listen to your songs, because they need to feel like something.

Even when you write it, someone's got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you're still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I'm really pro-human beings, pro-expression of everything.

The lion's share of what I hear right now are people who, intentional or accidental, have avoided all jazz prior to 1960. And all the musicians who were successful in the '60s spent their entire lives, prior to 1960, listening to all the musicians these people avoid.

At first, I was only interested in music, but I spent so much time in the clubs and seeing fashions change. So naturally, I developed an interest in it.

I feel comfortable singing in the great cathedrals of the world because I spent so much time as a child singing in church. And it isn't very different. Of course, nothing looks quite like Notre Dame de Paris.

I've spent a lot of time playing Bach partitas. One of my first jobs was to play for ballet and modern classes, so the music in 'Partita' is kind of like choreography for me.

I bought a guitar CD-ROM because we had a new computer, but I had no attention span for that. I spent about three hours on it desperate to be brilliant. Eventually, I got some proper lessons.

There's been not a dime spent on marketing for any record I've ever put out.

I don't know what the sound is or the song is until I've spent a lot of time on it. I'm always chipping away at it, rethinking it.

Signing to a major, there weren't many bands from our sphere that were doing it. I mean, obviously R.E.M. had done it, and Husker Du and the Replacements had done it, and maybe Soul Asylum, but that was probably about it. Those four bands were pretty much the only ones from that milieu that had signed to a major.