The way I look at it, they’re all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.
My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.
It was my band. I organized the band and Dizzy was in the band. Dizzy was the first musical director with the band. Charlie Parker was in the band. But, no, no, that was my band.
My musical influence is really from my father. He was a DJ in college. My parents met at New York University. So he listened to, you know, Motown, and he listened to Bob Dylan. He listened to Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones, but he also listened to reggae music. And he collected vinyl.
One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture – some might say the supremely important aspect – is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past.
Essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
But without the experience of actually singing or playing these things yourself, you don’t have the same kind of involvement or understanding of what these musical moves mean. And that is a very big problem in addressing the future of music.
My dream artists to collaborate with are probably Cee Lo Green and Imogen Heap. They’re completely out of my genre but they’re both musical geniuses.
I’m finishing building a house and setting up a shop to build custom electronical musical instruments.
When I use the Internet, it’s pretty much strictly for music. Checking out other people’s web sites, what’s going on, listening to music. It’s pretty much a musical thing for me.
No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.
I wore goofy hats to school and did musical theater. Most people thought I was a dork. But if you have a sense of humor about it, no one can bring you down.
Some of us must wait for the best human gifts until we come to heavenly places. Our natural desire for musical utterance is perhaps a prophecy that in a perfect world we shall all know how to sing.
The musical has always been in jeopardy – until – or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.
Anything can become a musical sound. The wind on telegraph wires is a great sound; get it into your machine and play it and it becomes interesting.
To get to record and to do things with the legends, and with the people that are your musical heroes, that’s the biggest honor as an artist.
Punk was more based on social change than on music, so it didn’t bother me too much. It wasn’t really a musical threat.
Playing live is everything. Sometimes being on the road is hard, and it’s a lot of work, and tiring. From a musical point of view, you improve all the time. Not only that, but you learn how to deal with people and deal with energy in a live setting.
What’s missing in the musical theater is producers willing to nurture new work, raise the money and put it on.
I did quite a lot of the arranging, fitting different sections together, tempo changes, all sorts of things like that. I actually acted as a bridge between Robert and Ian. Not so much composing, rather presenting musical ideas at each rehearsal.
I think the problem with a lot of the fusion music is that it’s extremely predictable, it’s a rock rhythm and the solos all play the same stuff and they play it over and over again and there’s a certain musical virtuosity involved in it.
I was constantly, always and forever, trying to perform the musical ‘Annie’ for anyone who would listen, and I have a terrible singing voice. It was the first thing that made me think I wanted to be an actress.
Being a purely instrumental album, it makes a musical statement, not a religious one, and I hope that people can feel the emotion of the great melodies, even without the words.
I was immersed in popular songs of the time, of the ’30s and ’40s. I was writing songs, making fun of the attitudes of those songs, in the musical style of the songs themselves; love songs, folk songs, marches, football.
Seeing Taylor Swift live in 2013 is seeing a maestro at the top of her or anyone’s game. No other pop auteur can touch her right now for emotional excess or musical reach – her punk is so punk, her disco is so disco. The red sequins on her guitar match the ones on her microphone, her shoes and 80 percent of the crowd.
I am not a music snob. If anything, my musical taste is bad by any critical standards.
People’s musical tastes are fickle, and music can be a fashion.
I always thought that there was something in hip-hop culture that was the misfit of all the musical styles, where they didn’t really belong. They’re kind of like, ‘No, we’re a real culture! We’re not going anywhere, you can’t get rid of us!’ I really liked that there was a rebelliousness about it. I connected with that.
The big thing in my family growing up is that everybody had to play a musical instrument. We were like the von Trapps.
I run around so much that I finally reasoned that composing is the one musical endeavour which you can do anywhere, anytime.
Actually John, Paul Rutherford, and Trevor Watts, and several other rather well known English jazz musicians had got their training by joining the Air Force, which was a pretty standard way for people to get some kind of musical education in those days.
It seems like pop singing has sort of influenced musical theatre in so many ways – you could argue good or bad, really – and musical theatre is written for that style so often, which is a completely different style.
I think it’s his perception of knowing how to make a record build, keeping the integrity of the song in the music and really adding a lot of musical elements to compliment my voice and to compliment the song.
For a director, a musical is a special kind of hell.
From day one, musical theater was my bread and butter.
I’ve dreamt of being in a movie musical for a long time. For some reason I never even thought ‘Les Mis’ would be possible.
I have absolutely no musical talent of my own!
I think that if I had grown up and had been in show business and the movies twenty five, thirty years earlier, I think I would have made a lot more musical movies.
I’m not musical myself.
I did commercials and voice-overs as a kid, and it just lead to musical theatre opportunities.
I’m grateful to be working. The most exciting thing for me is that I never get bored – I’ve done comedy, drama, musical theatre and now Shakespeare.
The many sounds of Memphis shaped my early musical career and continue to be an inspiration to this day.
A musical by its very nature doesn’t allow for a lot of nuances.
I believe I became one of the first singers to be launched via television exposure. I guess I was a new kind of musical stylist for a new kind of media.
How many chances to you get to make a musical about a serial killer? The minute Tim Burton approached me, I was in.
I was probably singing before I could talk. Musical theater is my passion. If I could afford it, I would just do dinner theater and live a simple life.
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.
New Orleans is like a big musical gumbo. The sound I have is from being in the city my whole life.
Music runs through everything I do – I even think musically; even when I was acting, but, especially, when I am directing. Directing is very musical.
Always I have lived with two sounds – one political, one musical.
The blues is instilled in every musical cell that floats around your body.
You know, Python should have won a Grammy for our musical work on the show.
Performing arts buildings are complex. The acoustics, the sight lines and all that have to just be perfect. So you begin with just making these things sublime as musical instruments. And if you fail there, you have failed it all.
Some musical directors have more chutzpah. They pick up the phone and talk people into giving. I prefer to call and say ‘thank you’ after the money has been contributed.
When I was coming up in high school, if you wanted to be in the musical it was during the winter, so I had to choose between playing basketball or being in the musical. And I ended up playing basketball.
I never played a musical instrument growing up but I knew kids who did and took it very seriously.
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.
Working with people, the musical part is one thing but the personal part is totally different and just as critical. If the friendship is there and it’s a lasting friendship, then it will take care of itself.
I’ve created several musical trends, really. That’s not because I’m so far out and fabulous. It’s because most bands have no ideas of their own. They’re so desperate they’ll grab at any old straw.
