Sonny Rollins Quotes

I think that some of the best Crowes stuff we did had that spontaneous vibe. Thats something thats always interested me in music. Im not really the kind of person to get too bogged down in the details. I think that takes away from the emotion and the vibe of what youre doing.

I can't act without music very well.

I don't think I think when I play. I have a photographic memory for chords, and when I'm playing, the right chords appear in my mind like photographs long before I get to them.

There's a relationship between music and spirituality and inspiration and to a certain extent improvisation that draws me in, because I don't totally understand it. I know that those relationships have been telling me, since I started making records, where to go. What to write down.

For me, playing music is like meditating - I just play and don't really think about what I'm doing, I just let it happen.

I can't read sheet music, I have to just listen to it, and then just go for it.

I don't think anybody really super-consciously tries to develop a style to play.

It's strange how the mind works while you're acting, because you have all sorts of quick thoughts going on as well as the motivations with the character.

I don't know what aids creativity. All I know is that it feels natural to hold a guitar in my hands and sing.

It feels like when novelists say they find their characters are doing things they never thought they'd do, the material comes alive, and that's how I feel making music.

A lot of our earlier material was freestyle tunes.

The words that I'm most happy with are the ones that come from my subconscious rather than my conscious. They just feel right. I think that's the same with music, really. If you're doing an album, there's ten or eleven sets of lyrics, so you get to the point of inspiration ten or eleven times - it's difficult.

The difference between noise and music is in what the musician does with the sounds.

When you're in the moment and not over thinking the song is when things tend to really work. You're not so focused on the minutiae. You're focused on the overall feel, and that's the stuff that I get from the demos.

I get into a zone where I'm really in my own world when I make music.

When you compose, it's like writing. You're like a writer. You just think all the time.

All I'm trying to do is simply play guitar and elicit this creativity from the instrument.

I don't really like to think too far ahead when it comes to the music.

Whatever you believe about your body, your cells believe too. They don't question anything you think, feel, or believe. In fact, they hear every thought, feeling, and belief you have.

Composing is improvisation slowed down.

Never believe anything you think about yourself as a writer when you're not writing.

In the midst of creating, a person is raised to another level of consciousness that doesn't have that much to do with everyday thinking. It's as if you could imagine life before there were words.

I have all these computers and keyboards and synthesizers, and I rattle away. For instance, with The Lion King I wrote over four hours worth of tunes, and they were really pretty -but totally meaningless. So in the end I came up with material I liked. We worked on The Lion King for four years, but I wasn't toying until the last three-and-a-half weeks properly. On Crimson Tide, on the other hand, I just went in and within seconds I knew what I wanted.

I just start singing some words with a tune. I don't ever write a song thinking, Now I'll write a song about... .

When I sit down to make music, I try to enter a flow; I always open a blank session and just make something that I feel like making.