Miles Davis Quotes

People think that singing and playing is easy. It's not. It's easy to strum along, but if you actually want to really play, where it's important, that's a hard thing and not too many people are good at it.

Soundgarden and Metallica, The Ramones, Everclear... I think they all wanted to see if we still knew how to play.

We all want to play great music all the time, but if that is not possible, you have to hit as many right notes as you can.

It's really hard for me to sing and play bass.

You have to be very strong to play my music. The drummer has to be in great shape. Same with the guitarist. You have to be a monster to play with Chubby!

Sometimes the simplest forms of music are the hardest to play. Especially for musicians that are accomplished.

We're just musically and rhythmically retarded. We play so hard that we can't tune our guitars fast enough. People can relate to that.

Among the numerous pleasures of Vienna the hotel evenings are famous. During supper Strauss or Lanner play waltzes...After every waltz they get huge applause; and if they play a Quodlibet, or jumble of opera, song and dance, the hearers are so overjoyed that they don't know what to do with themselves. It shows the corrupt taste of the Viennese public.

You're on the stage and you've got all those people yelling at you, so you better be right in the moment, reacting to that. It's completely live and organic. Even 20 years later, it's the same thing. You may be even better on your instrument. Hopefully, you are.

It's a real buzz, even in front of 20 people, to make a complete fool of yourself. But people seemed to like it. And the thing is, if people started throwing tomatoes at me, I wouldn't have gone on with it.

If you can play the piano, you can play any instrument.

People think that I play effortlessly. I remember doing a record date with Bill Evans and afterwards he said to me, you make it sound so easy but when I get right up next to you you're working hard and making it sound easy!

I love music, and I can play a little. But anyone can see the difference between someone who's talented and someone that's not.

People want you to play the songs they know. I try not to reflect too much, and I don't really like to focus too much on myself.

I have noticed that in plays where the characters on stage laugh a great deal, the people out front laugh very little.

Playing octaves was just a coincidence. And it's still such a challenge, like chord versions, block chords like cats play on piano. There are a lot of things that can be done with it, but each is a field of its own. I used to have headaches every time I played octaves, because it was extra strain, but the minute I'd quit I'd be all right. But now I don't have headaches when I play octaves.

If there's one thing I feel very strongly about, it's that there shouldn't be a distinction between pianists who play Ligeti and those who play Chopin. It might seem that they involve different skill sets, but I don't think that's true: whether playing Ives or Bach or Beethoven, you must bring the same imagination, the same sensitivity, and an ability to deal with same kinds of musical problems. The method behind my madness, anyway, is to keep plugging away at this idea.

I used to throw up before I went on stage, every time. Even though it's only 200 people in the audience, and a movie like RoboCop is going to be seen by many, many people, I know I'd be much more nervous doing a play than being on set shooting.

Unfortunately, every time I have somebody play an instrument, it's always like, they don't know how to do it.

I like Stan [Getz], because he has so much patience, the way he plays those melodies - other people can't get nothing out of a song, but he can, which takes a lot of imagination.

I think people don't realize how many hours of practice goes into becoming a musician and getting better.

The guitar is the easiest instrument to play and the hardest to play well.

It's fine with me if people want to applaud between movements of a concerto. It doesn't bother me - it's part of performance experience. Sometimes when they applaud if I'm still playing it's not as good, but there's always a way around it. Actually the applause gives me a little rest and chance to stretch, too.

You know how in high school you do these plays and people come up after the show and they're really excited for you? Well, that's what's happening to me right now.

When people don't like the way a play ends, they're likely to blame the play.