Leonard Bernstein Quotes

I learned, too, how it was possible with the help of the picture and action to transform an apparently insignificant violin passage into an incident, and to lift a simple horn call into a thing of stupendous significance by means of scenic emphasis.

Music does not carry you along. You have to carry it along strictly by your ability to really just focus on that little small kernel of emotion or story.

I can't play any instrument for the life of me, but I know what I want to hear.

I've got my own style on the guitar, sure, and I play rhythm in a certain way, and I use certain inflections. People have said that to me, and I understand it.

My version of 'Fast Car' is in the same key as the original. To me that is where all the emotion lies.

For me, the one thing I've got going for me in terms of my attributes as a musician is vision.

I never heard my music played the way I heard it in my head.

During 'Torches,' I was more concerned with communicating the spirit of the song than the actual lyrics.

I think it's really hard to describe music without alienating somebody.

I can't play an instrument to save my life. But when I'm creating, and when I'm making music, I feel like I'm the head of the orchestra, and I'm just waving my wand, and something is created.

I think the music defends myself. I don't think anyone should put a race on any genre. It's just a way of expressing yourself through instruments and sounds, right? People can just listen to the music.

I'm a very style-driven composer, and I like to give every project its own unique stamp.

The 'Voice Kids U.K.' songs were chosen for me, and I had to try and make them mine.

I find myself more genuinely drawn to the essence of Beethoven in Schnabel than I ever have been by anybody.

Everyone hears a song a different way and hears timing a different way.

Basically, I try to treat the electric guitar like an acoustic guitar. What you have to do is attack the instrument and know that your feelings aren't controlled by the controls of your guitar.

I try to take whatever I can from the songs I grew up listening to, these vibed-out pop numbers, and make them my own in some weird way.

Like dancers with choreography or actors with scripts, jazz singers could take material that was known, even loved, then risk interpreting and revising it. They could conceal even as they revealed themselves. Inflection, timing and tonality were their language, at least as much as words.

I want to take the great tradition of the orchestra within me, to take what the orchestra offers.

Following the example of Bruce Springsteen or Bob Seger, I wanted to have a band, a sound and a personality, yet maintain a singular position of being able to control and motivate the flow of things.

Performing was always something that I actually used to do before I settled in the studio as a composer.

Really, what I'm trying to do is make soul music, but I don't even think of it as a genre. It's more of a feeling.

A great melodic line is like a person's soul, and coming up with an original melody, it can be like you are illustrating the soul.

Musicians are also interpretive artists and we are just as creative as painters and writers. We interpret in a way that expresses ourselves.

What I do is creative. It doesn't seem like that when I'm playing a piece that was written in the past, but the score is just the outline and everything in it is relative. The key is to make this piece written by someone else belong to you and then connect to the audience.