Robert Wyatt Quotes

I'm a flutist so I know what they can deliver in terms of texture and sound and blurriness and softness. It's a very soft instrument.

Who's to say what's a good voice and not a good voice?

It's impossible to play a run with as much feeling as a single note. I've never been so much into runs as making single notes cry.

A superb tenor voice, like a silver trumpet muffled in silk.

Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound.

If you listen to the way I speak, I have a lot of rhythm, use a lot of accents. When I'm playing my instrument, that concept comes through very clearly.

I realized that equipment really had little to do with why I sound like the way I sound.

The human voice: mysterious, spontaneous, primal. For me, the human voice is the vessel on which all emotions travel - except perhaps jealousy. And the breath, the breath is the captain of that vessel.

I think the fundamental part of my technique is my vibrato.

I've always felt that the quality of the voice is where the real content of a song lies. Words only suggest an experience, but the voice is that experience.

The tenor voice should be like sunshine.

Well rounded forms gives smooth sounds; sharper or angular forms give harder and harsher sounds.

Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.

One of the basic things about a string is that it can vibrate in many different shapes or forms, which gives music its beauty.

I'm in a lower register because I'm not trying to shout out over a wall of amps. Singing lower sounded very pleasing to my ear, and it made it easier for me to emote.

I definitely have a Fisher voice.

The number of strokes to the inch controls the pitch of the note: the more, the higher the pitch; the fewer, the lower the pitch, the size of the stroke controls the loudness... the tone quality is the most difficult element to control, it is made by the shape of the strokes.

Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves.

The older I get, the more I just like plugging directly into my amp. I'm tired of trying to impress myself with weird sounds. It's about the notes more.

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.

Of course the most difficult thing on the violin is always intonation. The second one is rhythm. If you play in tune, in time with a good sound that's already high level. Those three are the main things.

It's not about retro or modern, it's about this note or that note, which sounds better?

A tune has to resonate with whatever is happening around it.

How nice the human voice is when it isn't singing.

Music deals with time and timing. It's so magical, but when you get into it, every little sound and every little space between the sounds, it's critical, so critical. And if it's not there, it not only feels wrong, but it ruins things.