Colin R. Davis Quotes

The most difficult problem in conducting is intonation. You must know what is wrong and how to correct it.

Conducting, I tried it once off the cuff, and quickly realized there were subtle aspects that I was missing. There is a lot more to it that I was able to grasp simply by watching conductors.

My advice to singers is always the same: 'Don't sing the song, sing the lyric.'

The real art of conducting consists in transitions.

When I started, I'd never had a conducting lesson in my life; I could just do it.

I studied other singers, so I would learn how to phrase, and learn how to breathe. And the main thing was, I learned how to inhabit my song.

I think this orchestra's strengths involve drama and voice.

We need improvement in the style of performance. There is no more advantage in a musician who plays and conducts than in one who is only a beater of rhythm.

I listen to a lot of singers, because I find phrasing to be one of the most essential elements of playing.

I play more rhythmically than I do a lot of notes.

Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.

In symphonic music, when you are conducting, you do the same thing. You are feeling the whole orchestra, thinking ahead so you can prepare for a change.

If you ask me about vocal technique, I don't know anything. I could never be a teacher. I just know what my teacher told me: 'Always sing with a full voice. When they tell you, less sound, more piano - no.'

If I have a song where I hit some really high notes, I want to try to bring in equivalently low notes somewhere in there.

When I first started singing - before 'Treat Me Like Fire' when I was working with a vocal coach - I realized that I wasn't even breathing when I was singing.

You really have to play with the space in a riff so it can be allowed to breathe.

When I sing, the sound is a totally different range, color, all of it. It's all about the breath. You take in a breath and you make a sound.

So much can be gained from watching other singers, seeing what they do and what they don't do, seeing how they look when they breathe, how wide they open their mouths for a high note.

To play the trumpet, you have to use that diaphragm, and it's the same if you want to sing correctly. You really need to push it out from there. And I think that's what has kept me going as a singer.

My vibrato was my weakness. With romantic pieces, I could be a lot more schmaltzy. My wider vibrato fit that.

Our job as composers becomes easy when directors have a good knowledge of music and know exactly what they want.

I have so much regard for the art of conducting. It's easy to look not so good up there.

Phrasing is the idea of finding sentences and using punctuation in speech. I often look at the score to see what's written in by the composer to see if I can find clues to those directions, like what direction did the composer have in mind, and I try to incorporate those things as much as possible.

You cannot enter a studio and just start crooning before the mike. It is essential to understand the mind of the composer, mood of the song, and meter of the tune.

Conducting is a natural way to participate in one's own music. Almost every 19th-century composer Mendelssohn, Mahler was conducting or playing his own music. Mozart did both.