Chris Cornell Quotes

Cello is my first instrument, then piano, drums, bass, violin, recorder, saxophone, but I'd never play them live!

The guitar is my favorite and the one, I guess, I'm best at. But I play enough of the different instruments to be able to write with them and to, hopefully, to make myself look impressive on stage.

So yeah, I play the piano for most of the show, but I like rock and roll.

When I play live in restaurants and cafes, I don't play my own stuff. I play jazz and 'American Songbook' standards, and I'll fuse it with top 40.

I knew nothing of the real life of a musician, but I seemed to see myself standing in front of great crowds of people, playing my accordion.

I never thought of myself as a performer or songwriter or singer.

I play the piano, but I'm not classically trained.

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 played guitar and bass. I didn't do much vocals, although I did have one band where I was the lead singer. But that was when I was in college.

I've sung other people's music all my life.

Songwriters aren't always performers, and even performing songwriters aren't always the kind of show-biz performers you think they'd be.

The one thing I do have is good ears. I don't mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.

A friend of mine once told me that I can't screw up when I play my own music. I also take voice lessons, play other peoples' songs out of music books, and occasionally figure out how to play other people's music from records. This keeps my ears, fingers, and mind working.

I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He's not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.

I love performing. I love getting out there. It's kind of like why I make music.

I just think a lot of people don't give credit to EDM producers or DJs. People think they're just button pushers and just get on stage and don't really perform.

I feel like I'm waving the flag for musicianship, trying to bring back bands that can play.

But I love singing, and I've been singing backup for friends' bands.

Rock and roll mainly but I can play passable jazz also.

I play enough guitar to get by. I don't like to play guitar live.

'm not saying I would never do acting again, because I love it, but there really is nothing compared to getting up in front of people and singing your music.

There are a lot of singers who cannot sing to save their lives. We have to accept it, but thank God there is such a thing as live shows. It's only when people are faced with live shows that the world gets to know how good or how bad they are.

I play the piano, drums, little bit of bass, guitar. I can play harmonica, a little bit of the ukulele. Pretty much anything that's a strumming, string type thing.

When I was in a band after high school and in college, I didn't even play the guitar. I played the bass because I couldn't play lead, and I didn't have the gear.

I am very musical. Am I a great singer? No. But I'm extremely musical.