J. D. Souther Quotes

I'm an advocate of music in schools. It's important to me that music is in as many schools as possible across this country and across the world. I think that it's a lost art form because kids aren't as exposed to it as maybe they used to be, or should be. I was exposed heavily to jazz and that's why I love it.

If I couldn't act, I'd really love to try music.

I'd like to expand on doing what I love and venture out a bit more. I would like to play consistantly good music. Eventually someday I would like to open up a school and teach kids about music.

When I was 17, I taught music; I had 65 students a week, and I did that for a year. So that's pretty regular. But it was great to give the gift of music to people, seeing them learn. It's great to influence young people in a creative way.

I'm hoping to do more with my music. I did the stage musical 'Spring Awakening' recently and it reignited the love I have for singing.

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

No matter what, I'm always interested in making music.

I love conducting. What I'm tired of is music administration. I don't want that. I just want to make music.

People don't have fun making music all the time.

I'm a pianist - I studied jazz piano in college.

I listen to old jazz and classical music, and that's it.

I progressed through so many different styles of music through my teen years, both as a player and a vocalist, particularly the jazz and pop of the early 20th Century.

When I was confronted with official tuition, the academic thing, I could see no relationship whatever between that and the music I'd been writing since I was 11.

Music is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

In a way, I'm lucky that I was never classically trained and never went to a music college. I'm just from a normal working class family and happened to get obsessed with music as a teenager.

I just love making music, and I wouldn't want to stop.

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.

America does not need gorgeous halls and concert rooms for its musical development, but music schools with competent teachers, and many, very many, free scholarships for talented young disciples who are unable to pay the expense of study.

I see it as more of a teenage activity than, you know, she's only 11, but you know, I think it's great that she knows so many girls who want to play music. And I see it more as a teen activity than I do as going into music.

I wasn't very aware of pop music because I attended an arts school. For me, it was all about jazz.

The only job I'd ever had that might be considered not playing music was teaching guitar, which I did in college for a while, but that still falls in the same category.

It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of 'culture.'

The quality of instruction is very high at the Silverlake Conservatory of Music. It's not about being a rock star. It's about the fundamentals of music, theory and technique on a particular instrument, and playing in an ensemble or private setting.

I grew up in a school that had a big music program, and it was incredible. It's what I looked forward to during the day. I had chorus, strings, band.

I'm very interested, for instance, in music in education - getting young people not only to listen to, but participate in the music that I write. I consider this one of the most vital aspects of my work.