Aimee Mann Quotes

The guitar for me is a translation device. It's not a goal. And in some ways, jazz isn't a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination - a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works.

Every note is a lifetime for itself.

Music is a lens through which to see who we are. Every phrase of every piece of music is trying to tell a story.

You're just playing, playing, playing, and then an image or something will come into your mind, and basically you're just narrating it with music, letting it move along.

I'm interested in music as an extension of character.

Nobody talks about music as having intrinsic meaning, how it engages the mind.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

I can tell you, dearest friend, that if it became known how much friendship, love and a world of human and spiritual references I have smuggled into these three movements, the adherents of programme music - should there be any left - would go mad with joy.

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it.

I don't play pyrotechnic scales. I play about frustration, patience, anger. Music is an extension of my soul.

Music was something I found on my own. I got my first guitar when I was around 10, and it just all developed over time.

Music is a whole oasis in my head. The creation process is so personal and fulfilling.

I think that a song, when it works, never mind a piece of long form music, even a song is something that speaks to itself but has a language all of its own, ideally.

If there's a song that stops meaning anything to me, then I'll quit playing it.

My music is homegrown from the garden of New Orleans. Music is everything to me short of breathing. Music also has a role to lift you up - not to be escapist but to take you out of misery.

I play only classical music. My pianos are my only big indulgence, but they're a necessity. When I'm playing the piano is literally the only time I can be completely abstract and disconnected from the regular world and yet be connected - to my music.

It's better for the listener to interpret their own meanings to the music.

I've always said music should make you laugh, make you cry or make you think.

Music always turns into music. As soon as I play a key, push a key down, there's no theory any more. When I go and I hear a sound on the keyboard, all theories go out the window.

My favorite song is called 'Reachout.' There are so many different stories told in that song. I think anyone who listens to it will gather a different meaning, but each answer is true. I also like the sound of it, period - there are a lot of classical influences.

My books are personal: I'm not saying they're the Bible of music.

Music is my life, it is a reflection of what I go through.

Each song is a lifetime, it begins and ends, and there's a journey taken within the songs.

I think the whole question of meaning in music is difficult enough even if you hear me playing live right now in the same room! What I mean and what you take from it may be two quite different things anyway.