Nita Strauss Quotes

It's a constant challenge to get your arrangement and musical expression across to a new audience, especially when you're playing live every night like we are.

No, we've been performing our old songs a little differently each performance.

Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. All of the little infinite detail that went into the arrangements and giving ourselves lots of breathing room in terms of playing what we wanted to play and using up any ideas that we had - all of those were conceived to be performed.

The music is fun. The big difference performing it live is that we might get a little more heated, not as subdued, we'll stretch things out more. It's how you stay fresh after such a long time in the business.

My records are one thing. My live performances are something totally different because they're very improvised performances.

Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of a performance liberty, you're making a compositional choice. I don't know a serious performer who hasn't made compositional decisions, who hasn't engaged in the art of composition.

We always thought it strange that nobody was up on that stage playing soul stuff. Maybe people were playing it in their garages, like us, but they always reverted to pure rock when they got on stage.

I think I'm better at live shows than I used to be because I'm way more comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses between songs. Now, rather than trying to talk or do a costume change, I'll use those moments for myself. I listen to what other people are playing, or just rest, or dance, even though I don't know how to.

I feel my live shows are my music; everything blossoms from the live shows.

I love all Yes music and love to play it live, but I'm most interested in making new music with Yes.

We're not trying to change the world; just music.

We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.

Until you learn to play what you want to hear, you're barking up the wrong tree.

That person who's going to a concert for a nostalgic reason, we're not really going to placate. We still play three or four hits every night. Now, we don't play them like the record. We try to find new ways to do it.

There's a wonderful tradition of jazz people getting on stage and jamming and finding some feeling for music with audiences who may be fresh. For others, it might be just like a comfortable shirt they've been wearing.

Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you're still playing a guitar.

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

And after I compose my programs, but it is very easy because I look to the music in a very natural way without fuss, and so I look always music, in my home, like books and books and books, choose books and you read the pages, so I do this with music, and I make programs.

The jazz chord substitutions in a country song... that was another thing that bent people's ears. I guess that my favorites are the unique ones. It's not how fast you play. It's that unique blending of different stuff I'm most proud of.

What I really enjoy about writing for orchestras is realizing that - and it's kind of self-evident - but the fact that they are 48 individuals. It's not, you know, a preset on a keyboard. It's all these people who have opinions and who are making decisions about how to play.

We just finished making a record. Everybody wants to play shows, so we're going to after that.

You don't really know a song until you play it live.

I'm a live performer and I love playing live.

That's the beauty of music. You can take a theme from a Bach sacred chorale and improvise. It doesn't make any difference where the theme comes from; the treatment of it can be jazz.

The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it's very different for me as a performer. I'm not playing music - I'm just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar... whatever it is.