Quotes About Artistry

It's hard to say this about a guy like Eddie Van Halen, one of the greatest guitar players who ever lived, but he's really limited to a style and they're locked into it.

I love players like Thurston Moore. I mean, you can put notes down on a sheet of paper, and if you practice and get your chops up, you can play like an Eddie Van Halen or a Steve Vai. But nobody can do what Thurston Moore does; he's his own guy. He talks through his instrument in a language that's all his own.

I think all my albums have concentrated on songs, I've never taken the typical Van Halen route to try and become a guitar hero.

There have been times I've planted stuff in songs where four years later I'll be singing it from a subconscious, kind of chameleon little lizard mind... and at a certain moment, all of a sudden, I'll hear a line from a different vantage point and it'll change its meaning. It's something I wrote but it changed because I did.

I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer.

After every movie, I always kick myself for the same things-didn't do enough, not enough variation, not enough interesting choices, too bland.

Generally what I produce is new. Of course, they are often variations on the same subject.

To me I think artists in general make a statement - and for the rest of their lives - every album, every book - are variations on a theme.

I love making music. I love being involved in arranging music. It's very natural to know what I want to hear next and come up with ideas that are variations of what might be good.

An actor's job is to find variations of the same emotion in his being so that every time he expresses grief or joy, it doesn't look the same.

I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.

I have a very varied taste in music from Boards of Canada to Radiohead. So I just love making music and being in the studio.

I like kind of varied songs, not just the same song all the time. And I thought things like 'Too Sentimental' is a different thing for us, but it works and we love the way they all came out. There's definitely varied songs on there.

George Balanchine is my role model because his work is so varied. You can see two ballets of his and not even realize that they are by the same choreographer.

Personally, I like records that are very varied in sound. Not just like, 'Oh, here's 12 super heavy tracks,' and they're all the same tempo.

'Take Me Apart' doesn't feel cohesive in a singular way but in a varied way. You can fixate on individual songs, and there are references from all over the place: Anita Baker to Bjork. I wanted to show all the facets of myself.

It varies from song to song, although Buck Owens and I recently collaborated on writing a duet together and am looking forward with a great deal of anticipation to recording that track for the new studio album.

I enjoy doing both of them very much, concert work particularly, and the division varies from season to season.

It varies from song to song, but melody was always easy for me.

To me, it's pretty much the same thing - I just love playing music. But the cool thing about DJing is that I get to play other people's music, I can mix it up between our songs and a variety of musical genres. It also enables me to be more intimate with the audience.

We try to write things that work on a variety of levels at the same time: A sleek exterior with a turbulent lyric.

I can go from doing an electronic track to hip-hop to even folk songs. I think people like that variety in me.

Today, the scope for variety has shrunk drastically. There are only a handful of topnotch composers like A. R. Rahman, Anu Malik, Jatin-Lalit... that's it.

As an actor, you want as much variety as you can muster up. Otherwise you just keep playing the same chord over and over again.