Lester Bowie Quotes

I get very frustrated by this term 'genre exercise.' I mean, what exactly is that? Genre is not really relevant when you are writing a song; hopefully you are doing it to explore something, to create something, and I don't agree that any of my albums are genre exercises.

In the past, I tried to be more of a typical session guitarist. I wasn't so concerned with impressing anybody.

I'm only worried about what I'm doing or how I present music. I just try to do things I want to listen to, and I think that's what everybody else is try doing, too.

I love that I can play around with all types of music.

I couldn't find a way to write music with numbers and rules and schedules. So I tried to forget the academic idea of music and started to see if it was possible to do creative work, taking in all the influences I wanted to keep.

I just wanted to make melodies. I started trying to do my own thing and let the melodies make the genre themselves.

Musically, I try not to box things in. I try to just play around this spectrum of influences: soul, jazz, and hip-hop.

A repressed person overcoming their repression always makes good music.

I discovered that I didn't want to be strict like a German composer.

Like everybody else, I love a good pop song. You know, there's nothing like it. I also just really like music that goes off on extended forays of extrapolation into different areas. So it's kind of nice to be able to move between those two poles.

I'm disregarding all the rules I've seen as people approach writing music. I'm trying to break them.

Make music when I want to in whatever style I would like to. That is something that I know that I'm not the only Nightwish member who has that. That's a luxury we can take, and we will.

I wanted to lift the aspects of the lyrics and imagery that I found sincerely powerful and touching, plus the amazing musical extremities, and make my own thing. That's what making music has always been for me. Synthesizing a nonexistent kind of music that I wish existed because I wanted to listen to it.

We are really in a rut with the three-minute song. You know where it's going to go. If you're trying to get your message across sometimes it's wise to say, Why don't we stop here and have a moment of silence, then go in a completely different direction?

I've always loved playing solo. I guess in a way I just feel blessed to be able to make music. My favorite thing is usually whatever I'm doing right there and then.

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.

Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me a chance to do my best.

When I have a breakthrough in music and I hear the melody in my hands: that's when I get compelled - something in my gut just has to rise up and sing and put something to that.

One of the reasons I really love low budget filmmaking is you don't have to think about that as much. You can have more fun and be more playful and be freer creatively.

My guitar is like my best friend. My guitar can get me through anything. If I can sit down and write an amazing song with my guitar about what's going on in life, then that's the greatest therapy for me.

The best songs are the songs you write that you don't know anything about. They're an escape.

We're all about trying to play better every night, not just singing hit songs ... we ad lib, and every night there's jamming .. it's almost like the Grateful Dead meets Buck Owens some nights, because we'll go off on little adventures and sometimes we do crash the bus!.

I always respected that B.B. sees music in a very open, free way.

I feel like I'm long overdue for a "one for me" movie, so I've got two low-budget indy personal things I'm working on.

I had been working purely abstractly for so long, it was important for me to see whether I was working abstractly because I couldn't work any other way, or whether I was doing it out of choice.