Nina Simone Quotes

So writing a song is much harder than doing a classical piece for me, because in a classical piece, I can just let the mood dictate what's going to happen.

I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.

There was one thing Beethoven didn't do. When one of his string quartets was played, you can believe the second violin wasn't improvising.

My wife is a classically trained piano player, and she also orchestrates.

When I was playing piano, it was like, 'I'm going to write a song using all the white keys.' My music director, who knew my jazz background, suggested I try big-band music, so we spent a year experimenting with it in concert, and the audience reaction was really good.

My roots are in classical music and jazz, and I want the freedom of being able to improvise. This freedom is possible only in a live concert.

My background in music is classical - I did graduate school in music. At that time, I was studying composition, but I was studying classical guitar very seriously.

When I was nine years old, I started playing guitar, and I took classical guitar lessons and studied music theory. And played jazz for a while. And then when I was around fourteen years old, I discovered punk rock. And so I then tried to unlearn everything I had learned in classical music and jazz so I could play in punk rock bands.

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

As far as rock groups, I really like Stone Temple Pilots. As for classical composers, it's Bach. I love Paganini, too, the Italian composer who would break strings during a performance and finish playing on just one string. Someone I would have loved to play with is Jimi Hendrix.

Duke Ellington always had a style: original, clean with interesting color combinations. He had an artist's eye.

I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination.

My dad actually taught me how to play piano. I was classically trained, but I've started to branch off a little bit into blues and jazz. That's my new thing.

I don't regard myself as a great classical or jazz pianist. I like country music, but I'm not a great player. I just like music. Drums 'n' bass is pretty exciting and I'd love to explore it.

I really believe in melody.

Bernard Herrmann used to write all his scores by himself. So did Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky. I don't understand why this happens in the movie industry.

All of the musicians when I was young used to always say you had to tell a story when you're a musician.

Simon Hale, the British arranger, does all string and wood arrangements on my records.

I've composed a fair amount in my life, and some of them have made it on to the screen, some compositions that I've done, a few. And I like doing that. I had never really considered doing a full-length thing. I've worked with other people creating full-length pieces.

The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.

I currently spend a lot of time thinking about orchestration and every detail of a piece.

Heck, I'm no Henry Mancini or Michel Legrand. I just play the guitar and write songs.

I became a professional musician and played all kinds of music. I played bluegrass, I played classical music, and for many years, I played jazz.

For me, I'm sort of a wanna-be composer, and I love being involved with the arrangements.

If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.