Billie Holiday Quotes

I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.

Musicians are also interpretive artists and we are just as creative as painters and writers. We interpret in a way that expresses ourselves.

Whichever chord progressions move me, whether it's rock, jazz, doo-wop or soul, I'm going to put it together and not be worried about whether people can put it in a lane or not.

There is a certain... chivalry to the style of singing I normally do. Part of the fun for me will be to leave that at the door.

It is rare that even a jazz musician finds an individual voice.

I found it liberating of necessity to devise my own style and my own tactics and to look for a voice on the instrument because there weren't really any that impacted strongly on me.

There is no work of art that has ever been made that is absolutely truthful about life.

When I record somebody else's song, I have to make it my own or it doesn't feel right. I'll say to myself, I wrote this and he doesn't know it!

The work of art is always unfaithful to its creator... Art lays at a higher level; it says something more, and almost always, it says something different from what the artist wanted to say.

Maybe it's egocentric or whatever, but when I'm playing Beethoven, Bach, Hendrix, or whoever it is, in the end, it just feels like my own music and I'm making it up as I'm going along.

When I sang, I couldn't help making those little curves. People would say, 'Why don't you sing straight?' But I have always had to put something in.

Behind the notes, something different is told, and that's what the interpreter must find out. He may sit down and play one passage one way and then perhaps exaggerate the next, but, in any event, he must do something with the music. The worst thing is not to do anything.

I'm a very style-driven composer, and I like to give every project its own unique stamp.

We have dance songs and ballad songs, but Baekhyun's voice plays a very important role. That's a really important speciality of Baekhyun.

When you say, 'Man, what kind of music does Outkast make?' You be like, 'They make Outkast music.' What kind of music does N.E.R.D. make? They make N.E.R.D. music. I want to be one of those people, because there's so many layers to the music I create that I don't want people to expect me to do one thing.

The song of the blues, the song of the music, was something a lot of people missed out on. They thought they had to swagger a certain way or bark at the mic, and you don't have to do that.

I have never followed anyone's style of singing.

I discovered that I didn't want to be strict like a German composer.

I just go out and sing my songs. I don't put on elaborate stage shows with ridiculous fancy dress.

I feel like the falsetto is my niche and my sound and something different.

Music is a living art. You re-create it.

After about three lessons [my] voice teacher said, "Don't take voice lessons. Do it your way. You're a song stylist. Always do it your way."

Music helps define the character and is an extension of the character somehow, so that you are able to use both the songs themselves and the way that you sing them to tell something about the character and his story, as well as develop a performance style.

I have to admit that more and more lately, the whole idea of jazz as an idiom is one that I've completely rejected. I just don't see it as an idiomatic thing any more...To me, if jazz is anything, it's a process, and maybe a verb, but it's not a thing. It's a form that demands that you bring to it things athat are valuable to you, that are personal to you. That, for me, is a pretty serious distinction that doesn't have anything to do with blues, or swing, or any of these other things that tend to be listed as essentials in order for music to be jazz with a capital J.

My rule was not to paint things as they were. I wasn't copying; I was remaking them as my own.