There’s a lot of music that sounds like it’s literally computer-generated, totally divorced from a guy sitting down at an instrument.
I like people who can write and sing, and play an instrument.
You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.
‘Ray Donovan’ was all fiction and pure fun, to be working with such greats as Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight. My character was recurring, but my storyline was intricate to the whole thing. With the character that I played, I got to go through all aspects of my instrument. I got to bring it to tears and to laughter.
The state is nothing but an instrument of opression of one class by another – no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.
Occasionally, when I run into a great bass backstage at a festival I’ll play a few notes on the low E string, just to feel the instrument vibrate against my belly.
My father was an amateur oil painter, so some of his oil paintings were on our walls. There was one above the piano of a famous Ukrainian poet, Taras Shevchenko, playing an instrument known as a bandura. I remember that one kind of resonated with me; it was always central in the living room.
As a song-writer I have always written with one instrument – either guitar or piano – because I believe that if a song is strong enough to be performed completely stripped down then it is a good one to go on and record.
I stand before you a changed man. Use me as an example of an instrument of change.
With Whitney she has such a unique sound and powerful instrument that she made those songs her own. She might as well have written them because she brought such a power and passion to them that were very unique. She has a great gift.
Derivatives in and of themselves are not evil. There’s nothing evil about how they’re traded, how they’re accounted for, and how they’re financed, like any other financial instrument, if done properly.
It excites me when a person puts their whole self in a song or rhyme, or instrument. It fills me.
Where do these arms come from, these Saturday night specials that constitute the instrument of threats in bank robberies, or the hand grenades used by terrorists? How can their sales and their import be permitted?
I was 11 years old, and I had been playing classical piano for three years, and suddenly the guitar came and landed in my arms. I fell in love with that instrument, and I still love it today. I love it so much.
I think to be a good songwriter, you have to be able to play an instrument.
I despise people who revel in the ignorance of not being able to play their instrument.
Debussy is one of the few composers who actually created a new sound on the piano – or perhaps we should say a new smell, so perfumed are the vibrations which emanate from the instrument.
We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system has been perhaps the most prominent instrument for administering racism. But the racism doesn’t actually come from the criminal justice system.
I’m looking forward to some more solo acoustic dates. That’s a lot of fun for me, because I get to be alone with the song. And I get to hear every little nuance; if my instrument does something that I wasn’t expecting, I get to chase that. Chase that down a little bit.
Facetiousness is allowable when it is the most proper instrument of exposing things apparently base and vile to due contempt.
The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement. If you write a letter of resignation or something with an agenda, you’re simply using a pen to record what you have thought out.
We can see that the baby is as much an instrument of nourishment for us as we are for him.
I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I’m a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.
Performing outside is always kind of strange. Usually, you can’t hear something, whether it’s your voice or instrument, but it’s a fun challenge.
I think about everything first. I think about the scenario: the story and the characters, what I’m trying to say and I’ll think about that for a couple of days until it’s all locked in and then when I get to an instrument it’ll just fall out. But the song’s kind of all ready there in my head.
In the beginning of my twenties, I started transcendental meditation. For years, I did nothing else. Every holiday, I went to courses. Meditation is a real simple instrument. You don’t need a long beard or a sari. It’s meant to bring you to yourself. It’s as easy as that.
All modern MIDI synthesizers are capable of polyphony, which means they can play more than one note at a time and more than one instrument at a time.
I approach horror music differently than anything else. The very first time I watch an episode, I want to be playing an instrument to it so I can get that shock into the show.
And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.
When we treat music as an industrial commodity, and young people as merely consumers, we overlook the joy of participating in music… of learning to play an instrument, of joining a band or an orchestra, and playing gigs.
The piano is such a timeless instrument.
I didn’t want to get attached to one guitar; I didn’t want to have an instrument that was irreplaceable.
I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat. I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that’s been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.
The interesting thing about improvisation is you’re making something up in front of the audience. Now music helps you out a little bit because you have an instrument that’ll separate you from the audience.
It’s easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.
Never, never will justice be used in Haitian institutions as an instrument for political persecution.
I don’t play an instrument. I pretend. I try to.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
As soon as I choose the timbre of an instrument, that dominates how I compose.
I listen to other guitar players, yeah. It gives me new concepts and shows me where the instrument is going for the future and it is going some places. There are some musicians who are really putting out a good vibe with new theories. I try and keep up.
For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.
I remember my first trip to Toronto. There was this street musician playing an instrument I’ve never seen before – like, he had a hang drum on the left side and this random bagpipe, bodhran stick type of thing. It was the craziest thing ever! So I sampled it for a beat.
For an actor, if you’re not doing a job, you can’t just practice acting. Your instrument is your whole person.
It’s quite fun to mess with the human voice. It’s quite special in the sense that the voice is the #1 instrument that we can connect with; it doesn’t sound too alien. I think that’s the key is to find the line between sounding human and sounding robotic. That’s an area that I like to explore a lot.
Every time I sit down in front of my piano, I like to improvise with the instrument. It depends on my mood of that day what kind of melodies and rhythms I am playing around. Sometimes, even before starting to play I already have a quite clear picture of a song I would like to compose, or at least the sound of it.
Sometimes just allowing yourself to noodle without any structure will enable you to stumble upon great new ideas, culminating in creating your own distinct voice on the instrument.
Anything you can do to express yourself is a form of art. That’s why I love my craft so much. I always wanted to play other artists. If I can’t play an instrument, then I want to play a character that can. There is an artist behind everything, and I think that’s beautiful.
My mother was a dancer, so I like to use the body as part of the instrument of acting.
I think having musical training as a child was really, really important. I studied piano as a child. Piano is a great instrument to understand musical theory on. I think I have that in my brain somewhere.
Don’t try to follow any trends, just concentrate on writing great songs and knowing your instrument. All the other stuff will fall into place.
I collect many ethnic instruments, and as a guitarist, I’m usually able to play any sort of instrument – as long as it has strings. That’s why I like to experiment with different sounds.
Just really be yourself, and if being yourself means you play two snare drums and nothing else, then play two snare drums and nothing else! Really figure out who you are and how you want your drums to feel because it’s a very emotional instrument.
It’s the old-school jazz mentality that I connect with the most. I dig the idea of the seeker, the guy who’s always trying to figure out why he is doing music and trying to understand and make sense of his instrument in a world which deals with rigid instruction.
