Quotes About Music

I love 'Dogman' by King's X and Living Colour's 'Stain.'

For 'Narrow Stairs', the majority of the songs I brought in were guitar songs - songs we could sit in a room and just play. I can honestly say I had more fun and felt more inspired on this record than anything that we had done in a long time.

I frequently find after a rehearsal of a performance that I have more breath, and can walk better and climb stairs better than I could before. It's as if I've expanded my lungs doing it. Basically speaking, conducting is quite a healthy profession.

When I was 5 years old, I was coming up the stairs, and I saw my mom standing there, singing 'A Quiet Thing' a cappella, and it was such a differentiating moment for me. I realized that we are separate from each other - she has dreams and goals.

When I listen to and play the songs from 'Narrow Stairs' now, that record feels like a record where we had established a style that arguably was more our own than it was in the beginning. Going into that record, I felt a lot more confident in my songwriting. It was a fairly prolific time for me.

I never thought 'Stairway to Heaven' was a long song. I loved how there was this part and then there was another part that was completely different.

You know, they were returning to the language of the people and trying to use musical language, particularly as Copland did to create a musical language in which all Americans would feel that they had a stake.

Jazz is an interesting music. It's one of the few forms of music where everyone that's performing the music has a creative stake in the music. In jazz, everyone's improvising, and everyone's creating at the same time.

There are so many different things that lend themselves to what makes a song magical, that go beyond just the lyrics or the composition. But arrangement and production and performance have such huge stakes in what makes that sort of lightning-in-a-bottle moment.

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance.

I have to take time occasionally to get away from the pressures of this business. If I don't, I think I would get stale, and that would show in my music.

In 1948 the first severe crash occurred in my life when Stalin put out his decree on 'formalism.' There was a bulletin board in the Moscow Conservatory. They posted the decree, which said Shostakovich's compositions and Prokofiev's were no longer to be played.

I'm embarrassed to reveal that I never went to CBGB's in the '80s. I was never cool enough to be a punk, and I wouldn't have had the stamina, or the discipline, for straight-edge.

I enjoyed singing and playing guitar but didn't have the stamina to make music-making a career. In reality, writing was my real gift, and as soon as I figured that out I never looked back.

I don't care if it's somebody else's song. Most of the time, you'll find that I'll put my own stamp on it. But I started writing more because, you know, it's easy to regurgitate what somebody else is doing, but it's exciting to be able to come up with your own writing.

Music has lost the stamp of originality.

I feel like when you make an album, it really has to hold its ground. It has to make a stamp.

That was probably the stamp that went into my mind, because I worked in television for many years, doing that kind of music, so that really was my strong forte.

I made a stamp with Destiny's Child. We made a stamp together, above anything. And making a stamp on my own, I'm very proud.

I think too many artists from my era tend to just stamp out a record.

It can be a bit frustrating to always get the soft-rock stamp.

Honestly, as a rapper, the Freshman list is definitely the biggest milestone. Culture-wise - anything-wise - that's the biggest stamp.

My songs are a time stamp for a lot of people's lives.

I did something that's a no-no in the music industry. I cut my hair. For years, my hair was my stamp. 'Oh, that's the long-haired guy from the Black Eyed Peas.' But when I did it, it was like a breath of fresh air.