Classical musicians do this all the time. They want perfection. So they piece things together. Eight bars of this and six bars of that. Glenn Gould said that with a recording he wanted to make perfect versions of pieces.
My dad is Jean-Paul Bourelly, a really prestige guitar player in Europe, and he toured with Miles Davis. I was always surrounded by the most prestige kind of musicians from Senegal, Trinidad, Poland, Nigeria, and all around the world.
Even though it’s become a really cliched thing to see musicians working for charity, it’s still effective and it still has to be done.
Regardless of who originally made it popular, any hit song becomes a challenge to the ingenuity and imagination of other musicians and performers.
Honestly, I envy painters, who can have a masterpiece in one morning. Or musicians, who can write something in 30 minutes and arrange it in an hour, sometimes. ‘Cause with this, with writing, you can occasionally feel like a caveman, like you’ve been working with pitch and tar on this brush.
I’ve always been around musicians and always been the songwriter who doesn’t end up playing the music.
Even the greatest musicians, they only represent themselves. You represent who you are and what your experiences are and what you have in your heart, and it’s the same for me. I represent who I am and what I’ve been through and what I’m bringing to the music.
And then the last album, ‘Get It’, was done over a shorter period of time and I started using other musicians, as opposed to playing all the instruments myself like I did on the other two.
The hardest thing with musicians is getting them not to play.
The Civil Rights for Musicians Act is about economic justice for African American artists. It’s about what’s right. And it’s about time.
I actually started playing in little cafes around New York, and I have a lot of good friends of mine who are musicians who are struggling in New York.
All musicians practice ear training constantly, whether or not they are cognizant of it. If, when listening to a piece of music, a musician is envisioning how to play it or is trying to play along, that musician is using his or her ‘ear’ – the understanding and recognition of musical elements – for guidance.
If we perform the romantic repertoire we need more musicians.
I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.
Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.
I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they’ll become a great musician.
Musicians and journalists are the canaries in the coalmine, but, eventually, as computers get more and more powerful, it will kill off all middle-class professions.
I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn years ago, which is to play records and slow them down to figure out the notes. At first I tried to imitate Red Garland, who was my favorite jazz pianist.
Comedians talk to other comedians the way jazz musicians can talk to each other.
I had a lot of Bengali friends in Delhi. The bands there had Bengali musicians: for example, Indian Ocean. We use to have a good amount of adda and sing songs through the night.
Various different people have inspired me throughout my career. From Francis Bacon to Vassareli, Coco Chanel to Christian Dior, Cecil Beaton, musicians, architects… the list is endless.
James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they’re fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together.
I was doing without for so long, not knowing the things that are normal for musicians. I was getting bookings regardless, people phoning or emailing me direct, and journalists were writing about me anyway.
I have met so many of my idols – like Ray Charles, Brian Setzer – all these cats that are legendary musicians. If they had said to me, ‘Hey man, I’m busy,’ it would have crushed my soul.
The National’s favorite experiences as musicians are when we are collaborating with people a little outside of our world as a band.
We were brash young fellows’. I was always hanging with the older crowd anyway. The musicians were the Hip Cats, and I was hanging with them anyway. I Just started out real early.
For most artists, you take what you have and who you are, and then you expand on it to make it more entertaining. Everyone knows actors aren’t the same people that they play in movies, but people somehow expect musicians to be a certain way all the time!
When I was a kid, I played the piano for six years, and all my family are musicians.
I happen to think that computers are the most important thing to happen to musicians since the invention of cat-gut which was a long time ago.
There’s no difference in a lot of people’s minds between good musicians and popular musicians.
I’ve never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I’ve always played with other musicians. It’s how I play, there’s no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play.
I’ve never understood musicians who don’t enjoy doing promotional interviews. I just can’t believe it. I always think, ‘Your life must have been so brilliant before you were in a band.’
I’m fascinated by musicians who don’t completely understand their territory; that’s when you do your best work.
I was very lucky that more experienced musicians allowed me to caterwaul until I figured out what it was really about.
The records that I like, they have life and warmth and soul in them. Like the slap back on Scotty Moore’s guitar on ‘Mystery Train.’ You’re not gonna get that in a computer. You’re gonna want a live room, you’re gonna wanna bounce the tape, you’re gonna want real musicians, in a room, vibin’ off of each other.
There’s a lot of variety of musicians in Korea. I cannot say they are the best in the world, but I can say that Korean artists are really dynamic artists, so I am going to show that from now on.
My parents were opera singers and voice teachers, so growing up, I admired musicians and dancers.
I can’t really say enough about Chris Potter. He is one of the greatest musicians I have ever known, and every second I have been on the band stand with him has been an absolute pleasure.
Cheech and I used to call ourselves musicians; we never called ourselves comedians. We were musicians that were funny.
I think all musicians have at one time or another experienced one physical problem or another. I have had tendinitis a couple of times, so I try to be really careful. It takes patience and persistence to overcome injury.
I was a ‘Big Brother’ fan. I thought they were better musicians than their detractors claimed, but more to the point, technical accomplishment was not something I cared about.
It’s an honor to live on a legacy, getting to do what we love to do and try to be the best musicians that we can possibly be.
I’ve got lots of friends who are musicians, and there is a fair proportion of broken marriages and relationships as a result. You are on the move all the time. It’s difficult if you have kids, and it’s hard to make money unless you are in the premier league.
I love musicians. I think artists are the most amazing people because they’re constantly creating beauty for the world. With all the crazy stuff going on in the world, then there’s artists reminding us of our humanity and reminding us of our heart and soul and what really matters.
I’m glad about what’s happening to the music business. This last crop of people we had in the 90s, who are going away now, they didn’t like music. They didn’t trust musicians. They wanted something else from it.
What intrigues me is that you get a good bunch of musicians together, and interesting things will happen.
Part of what I enjoy about writing classical music is communicating through the score and collaborating with such amazing musicians.
Some musicians feel they have to provide what their audiences expect. They lose the distinction between an artist and an entertainer. I am not an entertainer.
I want to talk to the bullied kids of the world. Tell them to hang on, it will get better. Know that an ‘Iron Chef,’ actors, musicians, artists and all successful people have probably been bullied in their life. And the best part of your life is yet to come. Whatever it takes to live, do it!
I’m quite ignorant about fashion and I’m colourblind, so it’s all a tad tricky. My only knowledge of that world comes through Christopher Bailey, whom I first met in 2008 when I did a campaign for Burberry that featured musicians, artists, actors and sportsmen.
I was drawn to it much to my father’s dismay. He wanted me to be a pianist like he was, but I had coarser tastes – like that old joke: What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicians? A drummer.
If North American musicians would only know how uncomfortable life is for European musicians.
