Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.
My parents never really wanted me to be a musician at all, because in Peru you don’t earn any money that way. But when they realised it was genuinely what I wanted to do, they supported me always.
There was a time when a musician was forced to act in a video. Seeing a singer step too far outside of his comfort zone to pour all of his high-school-drama angst into a poorly scripted scenario was a sight to behold.
And of course, the musician – if he’s serious – always answers: My last album is my best, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it.
To be honest, I know this probably sounds corny or whatever because I’m a musician, but listening to music really helps me relax and calm down – listening to my favorite songs. Also, laughing and hanging out with my friends.
I’ve never been bored in my life, man. I’ve never been bored or lonely. Are you kidding? No way! I’m an orchestrator, a musician, a producer. I love everything. I’ve studied languages from Farsi to Greek to French, Swedish, Russian… How can you get bored?
Many think of the sciences as merely a fund of knowledge. Journalists never ask scientists anything other than what the applications are of scientific breakthroughs. Interestingly, I doubt they ever ask a musician, writer, or actor the same question. I wonder why.
While not a musician, my father was a music agent for years before becoming pop culture icon Famous Amos.
I’d rather be a musician than a rock star.
I do everything I can to be the best actor I can be, the best musician I can be. I try to take risks; I try not to let fear run my life.
The project which we developed, however, was for a sound piece and I was initially curious that a sculptor should be interested in working with a musician, especially on a project for radio.
I wouldn’t even begin to presume that the talent of an able actor is anything like the talents of a prodigious musician.
I think you have a limited amount of impact as an entertainer, performer, or musician.
The idea that I am cynical because I’m writing the books that I write is a bit like someone saying, ‘What, you’ve done a second album? Oh, I see, cashing in on your first album, are you?’ But I’m a musician! It’s sort of what I do.
As a young musician, you really want to play.
The sound was my greatest concern. There were certain difficulties getting used to the way every musician can hear his or herself, the way each of them relates to the musician in the next seat.
While my mother wanted me to be a musician, I wanted to become an electronic engineer.
I’d love to play a musician in a film.
The fact I had my father as an adversary was such a powerful tool to work with. I subconsciously fought him to the degree that I drove me to be one of the most successful musician in the world.
This is our culture, and I don’t care who the musician is, if he avoids black people, then he is scared of something. He doesn’t have confidence in himself or else he doesn’t believe in what he’s doing.
I was never interested in singing in the church choir or in school. I was more interested in becoming a musician.
I was approached by Oxfam to go to Mali as their ambassador and get involved in their various initiatives out there. But I felt that was missing the point of using me, a musician.
Being a musician is what I do, but it’s not what I am.
All my momma’s people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano.
A true musician, like Johnny Cash, should be able to walk into a room with nothing but an instrument and capture people’s attention for two hours.
It’s the same old story. Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. And therein lies the problem of being a professional black storyteller – writer, musician, filmmaker.
I hope America sees I am a goofy guy andI’m kind a crazy, I hope they see that I am a musician aswell, that I have music all around my body – I’m just exfoliating music, and I just hope America sees that.
Part of me believes that the completed record is the final measure of a pop musician’s accomplishment, just as the completed film is the final measure of a film artist’s accomplishments.
My dad is a football guy, not a music guy. He didn’t totally understand when I decided to be a musician.
I come from a council estate in Tower Hamlets, and by no means am I the only person who has done well – one of my friends is head of year in a great school in Twickenham. Another is a writer; another is an artist, a musician.
I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department. And I suppose because I am fairly well off and a famous musician, I’m up for grabs. And that makes me an eligible bachelor in the press.
I have always been far more interested in sound than technique, and how sounds work together, how they can be layered. I think electronic music, in its infancy anyway, allowed us to create music in a way that hadn’t really been possible before. It created a new kind of musician.
It’s much easier to have a diversified career as an electronic musician than it is as a drummer. Nothing against drummers. If you’re a drummer, you just wait around for people to ask you to play drums. But if you have your own studio and can make music, you have the ability to approach music a lot differently.
I would say to anyone starting out that if their priority in life is happiness, then don’t be a musician.
Leonard Bernstein was probably the most significant formative influence on me – he was such an encompassing musician. I spent my teenage years absorbing him, and my other interests stemmed off of that. Bernstein led me to Sondheim and to Gershwin, and Sondheim led me to listening to Joni Mitchell.
I think if I wasn’t a musician, I would be a high-school band director or orchestra director. I like working with large groups of musicians and bringing out the dynamics and accomplishing something as a team.
Chuck Berry told me if it wasn’t for Louis Jordan, he wouldn’t have probably ever even got into music. That Louis Jordan changed everything and made him want to become a musician.
If you’re a musician, there’s no instrument that can be withheld from you. If you’re drawn to it, develop the talent for it.
I used to sing with my father’s jazz band and then when I was ten years old a musician friend of his suggested that I try out for the first west coast production of Annie.
My musical background is like almost every non classical musician in the world. One day a special record was heard and that was it. I was hooked, started trying to play various instruments and was off to bar land to become a rock star. What else?
Of course, it does depend on the people, but sometimes I’m invited places to kind of brighten up a dinner table like a musician who’ll play the piano after dinner, and I know you’re not really invited for yourself. You’re just an ornament.
As a musician, I have always refrained from criticizing another artist.
Any saxophone player will have those influences come through in their music in a very different way. I can listen to the same 10 sax players as someone else for my entire life, and we’ll both play completely differently. That’s the beauty of being a musician.
I could never overstate the importance of a musician’s need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good ‘inner ear’ – the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening – is the most important element in becoming a good musician.
I wanted to get my recording and become a musician again, work; with other people, do that kind of thing because I kind of got away from that for a while once we started happening, you know, selling records, sold out concerts.
My musician friends could always practice what they loved doing, but I can’t go on a street corner and start reciting a monologue. Acting is very collaborative, and you always need other people with you – mainly an audience.
You don’t have to be a good musician if you’ve got certain computer skills.
Being as versatile as I am, I take offense to the notion that no serious musician would not be doing a late night talk show gig. One has to be open enough in other areas to be able to contribute to a show like this.
I feel blessed to be a musician, and I know it’s a power given to me from God that I must use in a very positive way.
I get really frustrated – actually, it almost makes me angry – when I see, sometimes, magazines will publish a musician’s playlist. They’ll go and they’ll ask, I don’t know, somebody from Aerosmith or whoever, Coldplay, to list their five favourite albums. And it’s always the same stuff!
I think it’s just an awkward time right now to be a musician.
As a filmmaker, like any artist, when something affects me emotionally I think about it in those terms. It’s my way of dealing with my thoughts, my fears and my hardships. I think the same can be said with any artist. For a musician, you’re going to write a song about something that affects you emotionally.
I was a frustrated musician, frustrated designer, frustrated art director, frustrated novelist, right. I’d fail at all these different professions.
