Damien Chazelle Quotes

Christine Bass was my high school music teacher. She took a program on its last legs and within a few years turned into one of the best programs in the country. Our high school dominated national choir competitions all through her 20-plus year tenure.

About 13-14 years ago, I went back to my alma mater, Fairfax High School, and ran into the music teacher. She invited me to come speak to the kids about the viability of a music career. When I went into the room where I used to play every day in a big orchestra, they had nothing!

The best part of the high school in Hastings must have been the Music Department. Its orchestra and concert band did well in county competitions, and the dance band formed by its students was the best in the region. I played lead trumpet in all of them.

I did the marching band all throughout junior high and high school. Music was one of my favorite things in school.

In the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra we play such a diversity of music, with 10 arrangers in the band, we don't really worry about whether it's contemporary or not.

I found L.A. much less responsive to the name Juilliard than New York was. In New York, that name actually means something. People will look up from their desks when you walk in. In L.A. it's, 'Oh yeah, that's a music school. What do you play?'

You cannot help but notice that schools that take music seriously tend to be more academically successful.

That's what I tell my students at California Institute of the Arts where I taught for 27 years. I taught them if you strive to be a good person, maybe you might become a great jazz musician.

I used to write three- and four-part harmonies for my YWCA club in high school. We used to win all the song contests. But people would say, 'Look who her father is. He probably did the whole thing.'

I have always been involved in my school's music program.

I was in band all the way through high school, and I played in jazz competitions all across Iowa.

I started playing music around 13 or 14, played jazz in high school, and played other stuff in college. After college, I tried to make it as a musician. I lived in a big squalid house full of dudes outside of Boston. We were all musicians. We built this studio in the basement and played there all hours of the day.

I wanted to be known as a better musician more than anything.

I kinda gave my childhood to hip-hop, literally. I didn't go to parties in high school. All I did - well, I was DJing parties in high school.

I decided to study music my last year in high school.

I played the sax at school. I was in marching band.

Yeah, I grew up playing lots of jazz music in school.

Even in high school, music was just a really fun thing on the side. I don't think I grasped the fact that it could be a profession.

I'm doing a program with NAFME for music and education in schools, and for a week, we will be getting in a bus and traveling across the United States. We're starting at Disney World and ending at the Grand OIe Opry. We will be performing at different schools, and I wrote a song for the program called 'Always Sing.'

When the album 'Duke' came out, by Genesis, Phil Collins beat Dad in a drummers poll. My dad got me to learn 'Turn It On Again' by Genesis. I'd play it, and he'd go, 'Do it again,' until I got it right. I'd play it until I nailed it, and then he went, 'I don't see what the big deal is. My 12-year-old son could play that song.'

My good fortune was that I was born into a home where Mum and Dad encouraged me to learn the piano.

I played in orchestras all through high school and taught myself how to play guitar.

I was fortunate enough in my public school that they had a full music program, and no one escaped it. It was treated as a subject that was as important as everything else, and I believe it is.

I started playing in punk-rock bands and touring when I was 15, so I missed high school.

I now have plans to create a school for singers in Vienna, and I would love to found one in the Middle East, too, if possible.