Bela Fleck Quotes

The banjo is my chosen instrument - it's what I write my music on.

The guitar is such an incredible instrument; it plays classical, flamenco, jazz, country, bluegrass, rock, acid, blues. You'll never see a clarinet playing Black Sabbath. But you will see a guitar in a clarinet band playing rhythm. It is the most popular instrument in the world; it is the one everybody loves.

I don't really know why I chose bass except that it was different than guitar.

I didn't actually start playing the banjo until I was in high school.

The guitar to me, from the classical/gut-string guitar right through to Hendrix, et cetera, has all the range [of sound]. Within those six strings it is incredible what one can get sound-wise. It's just down to imagination, really.

The cello is such a versatile instrument. It can rock like the hardest rock guitar, and it can sing like the human voice. We couldn't do what we do without the classical training. It's a hard instrument to play. There are no frets, and it takes finesse and technique to play.

Fundamentally I feel that there is as much difference between the stage and the films as between a piano and a violin. Normally you can't become a virtuoso in both.

All along, I did what I was comfortable doing, which was to play the music I enjoyed and try to stretch the parameters a bit. Country and bluegrass and folk were my foundation.

All rock musicians are deaf... Or insensitive to mellow sounds.

My dad also plays a little banjo and guitar, my mom plays the mandolin.

I got my first real bass guitar in my hands when I was 14 - a 1957 Fender Precision, which is still hanging on the wall in my front room. I loved the heaviness of it and the feel of the wood. I still do.

If our main goal is to connect emotionally, we should want to have as many tools as we possibly can to achieve that goal. The more abilities that we have, the more choices we can make musically.

I know music is subjective.

I've never understood people who play up the artifice of music.

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

I'm a lover of all sorts of music, which makes me a chameleon when it comes to performing anything, whether it's opera or whatever. As long as it's good and it feels good, I'm going to cling to it.

I was put on so many different musical stages growing up that I didn't think about what kind of music we played. I just thought music was music.

I'm quite good on the harmonica and can get a tune out of most musical instruments, so long as the tune is 'Oh Susannah.'

I try to write five or six songs each year and not just in one genre.

I never looked or really believed that music should be categorized into particular genres.

I play different styles, and am very good at changing how I play.

I want to show everybody the diverse me and show people that I can do a tune on an R&B song, I can do a tune on a house song, I can do something on an Afrobeat. I really want to show that.

I started playing mandolin when I was three or four years old because I was too small to be playing guitar. As I got older and more responsible with holding instruments, I was allowed to play my mom's guitar that she had.

All my music sounds the same to me.

I don't just sing R&B: I'm able to sing pop and play with other sounds, but it's all real soulful.