Herbie Hancock Quotes

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

The music stuff has been very difficult. It's got to be right, and even then, it better be on key.

I'm an interpreter of music.

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.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

Music is at once the product of feeling and knowledge, for it requires from its disciples, composers and performers alike, not only talent and enthusiasm, but also that knowledge and perception which are the result of protracted study and reflection.

That's what it is that you rehearse - the making of music, not the playing of notes as abstractions.

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.

My music is simple stuff. Anybody can sit down, look at a set of symbols and produce sounds the music represents.

It does just boil down to music.

Music is all about training in harmony, training to understand and use musical energy for our greater pleasure by attuning to the natural laws of the universe.

I've never known how to read music in my life.

Scales played in the correct musical way are very exciting and rewarding.

The relation between practical and spiritual spheres in music is obvious, if only because it demands ears, finger, consciousness and intellect.

I was always pretty decent at fast stick work or doing stuff that seems impressive that's not really; I was pretty tasteful and had good ideas musically. But I had a terrible sense of tempo, which is like being a blind painter. The conductor would just rip into me, and it lasted for years.

To be a good improviser, you have to study composition as a parallel. Because what improvisation is, on a high level, is spontaneous composition.

I can't play piano well enough without making mistakes.

I play a very streamlined piano.

It's just music. It's playing clean and looking for the pretty notes.

I was really conscious of that when I went in because I felt that I was pretty solid on the first one, but I didn't have the groove exactly where I wanted it.

To do it always right, that is what music is to me.

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

If you want me to play only the notes without any specific dynamics, I will never make one mistake.

To play music, you have to understand it. I didn't understand 'Topographic Oceans.' That's why I hardly played on it. It frustrated me no end - and playing the whole thing on tour, I got farther and farther away from it.

No one should be allowed to make music as if he were made of wood. One must reproduce the musical text exactly, but not play like a stone.