Evan Parker Quotes

If you hear Bing Crosby trying to swing, it doesn't work. He swings like a rusty gate.

I think I had a knack for music, but I think what I was more sort of talented at more than anything, because I don't think I'm a great singer, I think that I grew up imitating different voices that I heard.

We all love to sing along with our favorite songs. We sing in the car, in the shower, and at the karaoke bar. The problem is that half the time we don't know what we're singing. We're making up lyrics as we go along and hoping no one will notice.

This is one of my favorite things to do, working with a symphonic accompaniment, because I don't sing - and this is as close as I will come to singing.

I do sing a bit, a solo called 'Rubies,' and the female vocals on 'In Paradisum,' 'The Sound of Silence,' and 'Sapphire Clouds'.

I think every singer hears songs that make you want to sing them.

Perhaps many of the perplexing problems of the new music could be put into a new light if we were to reintroduce the ancient idea of music being a reflection of nature.

I'm not the best singer, but I like the way I sing my songs.

There's not only emotion in the way you sing but also in what you sing. That way I can compensate it.

The greatest musical instrument given to a human being is the voice.

I look upon meself as... You take a band that's made up of arms, legs, bodies... I happen to be the piece that talks. And does all that area of it, you know? I'm also very easy to recognize; the darkie in the middle jumping around with the guitar, you know. Dat boy's got rhydm!!!

My music is based on melody and when I play the piano, it's as if I'm singing with them. When you try to transform that into a vocal, there was very little adjustment.

Off-camera, I sound like Perry Como.

I would spend hours absorbing every intonation, every inflection - how the singer would convey a sentiment and how it would sound coming out of their head. All of those things I very carefully watched and absorbed, and so I guess I was studying my whole life, although not in any sort of conventional way.

I like to sing to Verdi, I like singing to Sibelius, and Mahler maybe.

I'm quite a particular singer, and I need to feel like I can bite into the song, in a way, to make it my own. You want the challenge of the songs having some attitude.

I never thought of myself as being a good songwriter. There are a ton of other people that are good songwriters, but I don't think I'm in the club. What I do well is perform, sometimes sing pretty good, and accompany myself well and arrange fairly well.

'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.

But I think it is more difficult to do a career as a lieder singer, and there have been less lieder singers.

As a singer, the biggest joy I have are the arrangements.

When I write a song and come up with an arrangement and a vocal part, it's always a challenge trying to find a singer who can interpret it sort of the way that I hear it, and it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean, singing is like playing an instrument - everybody does it a little bit different - singing maybe even more so.

Inspiration is enough to give expression to the tone in singing, especially when the song is without words.

I learned a lot from hanging out with Emmylou Harris. One of the biggest pointers she gave me was that if you don't know the words, drop the consonants: that way, you'll hide the sound.

The most important thing is to make a percussive instrument a singing instrument. Teachers should stress this aspect in their instruction, but it seems that very few of them actually do.

As a singer, you have to bring the soul to the song.