Shankar Mahadevan Quotes

The thing with music education is that it is good at teaching technique, but not texture. You only learn about that from listening to music and experimenting on your own.

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

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

I never learned to verbalize an abstract musical concept. No thank you. The whole point of being a serious musician is to avoid verbalization whenever you can.

I didn't have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn't 'practice' it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

I'm a natural piano player. So all the practicing I do at this point is in my head. If I don't play for a year, my chops aren't going to get any worse. I've spent my time playing scales, and I don't necessarily want to play any faster than I play. So everything I do at this point is more philosophical.

The thing about music is it's not an obscure pursuit, it's a very natural thing for human beings to do. Once you put in the effort, the learning curve is very fast.

I started studying music at the age of five and a half. My older sister was taking piano lessons. When her teacher left our apartment, I would get up on the piano bench and start picking out the notes that were part of my sister's lessons.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

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

However, I began composing as soon as I started taking piano lessons.

I think musically.

I can't even read music. All I know is whether I think it sounds good and if I like what I'm doing.

Fundamentally, if there is any secret, it is about the need to find that peace and calm in our personal space with music, as most of 'learning music' is about listening to music and practicing over and over again.

The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.

Just like using an instrument, a song calls for different things.

When I feel like improvising, I always improvise on the guitar, never on the lute. It's as natural to me as breathing.

I wish I could play music. I think I get as closeas possible with the editing of the films. Over the years musichas been an even more important influence than-or as important as-film.There's no doubt about it. Painting, movement, dance, sculpture-it'sall in cinema.

My father taught me to read music and play the piano-but not well, even though people have said that I'm a natural musician.

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

I'm an interpreter of music.

Everyone who makes music is a good collaborator at their foundation because in order to make music, you have to connect to it in a way that other people can't.

I can't read music. That's not where I come from musically. I come strictly from feeling, and that feeling comes from rock & roll.