Mat Kearney Quotes

I bought a guitar when I was twenty. But I didn't write a song until I was 25 or 26. I never learned to play others songs. I learned to play my own songs while I was learning how to make them better.

My other advice is to start writing songs and singing right away.

I always just sit down at the piano and make the main hook - what I want the track to be about melodically - and then I'll build everything else around that. But growing up, I did not play any instruments.

I wouldn't just have other people write songs and me go out and sing it. I would sit down with a guitar and write 11 or 12 good songs for an album and that is gonna take a long time.

The only thing that makes sense to me that I've learnt over the years is knocking tunes together.

I've been writing music since I was a teenager. I play keyboards. I'm not much of a player, but I can write. That will come along. I'd like to do a musical.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

I started trying to do my own music at home, and I was like, 'You know what, I can play the guitar, sort of. And I can do these things, sort of. And I can make these crazy noises on my computer, sort of. But I need a ridiculously good drummer. I need someone to help me with string arrangements.'

I love making music. I love being involved in arranging music. It's very natural to know what I want to hear next and come up with ideas that are variations of what might be good.

With 'Light,' I collaborated with a lot of different producers and musicians I respected, and we all wrote and worked on material which I then took to an old-school producer, David Kahne, and we put it all together. The lyrics came first - they were written before the music.

I'm a songwriter first.

I honestly don't listen to a lot of music - I spend so much time working at my own music.

I started out with piano when I was little. That, for songwriting, is my favorite instrument.

I'm about a 20-handicapper with a guitar. I can only play three songs on my own album. I did the lyrics, not the music.

I'm constantly working on music.

I started making music... I guess I was 12, and I started playing 'Guitar Hero.' And you know, it got to a point where on expert, you can only exceed to a certain point. And so, you know, I was like, 'Let's play real guitar. Let's not waste more time.' So, I got my mom, I told her to buy me a guitar for Christmas, and I started making music then.

I'm always working on music.

I compose melodies in my head and then interpret them musically with my guitar and keep them recorded. The guitar helps me to build unique chord structures on simple melodies.

I just want to focus on creating more music.

I consider myself a songwriter... I guess the business end is my songs and the fun part is playing the guitar.

I know melody. I know rhythm; I know bass guitar; I know the piano. I know everything about music that helps build the music that go along with creating the whole art form, you know what I'm saying?

I think that the process of making music is a hard one to describe as well.

I was feeling really restless in my hard-rock band. I wanted to learn more about storytelling in music, and that's what country music is.

I used to help Viv with the chords and melodies sometimes.

I started playing guitar before I can really remember, and I started writing really early, too.