John Corigliano Quotes

You don't want to be a one-trick pony. On a lot of Smiths songs, I used a pick or a plectrum, and for some of the slow songs, I used my thumbs and my fingers. That's why I love the bass - it's adaptable, and you can express yourself so well with it.

I'm not saying I wouldn't play a seven-string. It's just that I've never needed one. Most dudes who play seven-strings don't sound any different than someone playing a six-string that's tuned down.

That's the kind of musical freedom I like: jazz, rock, blues, anything. You adopt different attitudes when you play different music.

I am comfortable with anything I sing: jazz, gospel, classical. It doesn't matter. I can do it all.

Pat Benatar might need a rock band, but I can just sit with a blues guitar for an hour and a half and do folk songs and great contemporary ballads, and not many people can pull that off.

If you put your hand on the piano, you play a note. It's in tune. But if you put it on the violin, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. You have to figure it out.

There's been a time where I was like, I wanna be a folk singer; no, I wanna sing soul. I want to sing classical music. I want to sing R&B. I want to be on Broadway. I just wanna sing. Whatever comes out of my mouth, that's what I want to do.

We're able to play different genres and be very specific in sounding like we know what we're doing.

The reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I'm trying so many things at one time, you see? I haven't sorted them out. I have a whole bag of things that I'm trying to work through and get the one essential.

My policy is not how fast you play, it's not how much you play but it's what you play and where you play it ... play for the commercial side of the music ... the word I still use today is called "simplicity" .. it is so important that you use simplicity in your playing and in your music.

I don't really think of Dire Straits as a sound, you know. It. just depends on the song, and the stuff we're doing is so varied.

I had never heard anyone play like Benny Goodman and had never seen anyone like him on the stage. I realize now that what impressed me and stayed with me in memory was - the sounds he made. He played so purely. The music seemed to come from him, not just the instrument he played with such mastery.

Every performer should learn a little bit of everything. Most performers today only play the guitar.

There are lots of really good guitarists, but they play with the same pedals that everybody else does. Everybody buys the same pedals, so the sounds tend to be the same. I am looking for different ways of doing that without having to spend days and weeks and months fooling around with pedals, which I don't enjoy.

Anytime a person can play the blues, he has a soul and he has a 'lift' to play anything else he wants to play. It's sort of like the foundation to a building.

There are so many parts of music that it's actually a pleasure for me to work with an orchestra, or a jazz band, or a choir, and use every element that the musical tool box can offer. The world of music I love so much, and I can change the costume depending on the part, and I'm actually in the film.

Sound is a very unruly thing, and you have to really respect that it's going to differ every time you play.

The finest singing, given a good voice to begin with, comes from the constant play of a fine mind upon the inner meaning of the music.

Gonna wind it up on my guitar. Gonna make that silver sing.

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'll tell you a little secret about the Blues: it's not enough to know which notes to play, you have to know why they need to be played.

The guitar to me, from the classical/gut-string guitar right through to Hendrix, et cetera, has all the range [of sound]. Within those six strings it is incredible what one can get sound-wise. It's just down to imagination, really.

When one plays a Steinway, there is a warmth and nobility in the sound that is unequalled by any other instrument.

I'd rather hold one note for an hour and modulate it so that it means something than play 3,000 notes in 15 seconds.

We have the freedom to either play a tempo or not to play a tempo; to play a note or not to play a note; or to play what some people would say is a sound.