Julian Bream Quotes

No matter how great we get with digital formats of instrumentation, nothing really quite duplicates the real thing.

I like songs that sound like classics. There are songs that might be cooler or have better production, but I like songs that sound like they're timeless.

When I write a song, I always start on acoustic guitar, because that's a good test of a song, when it's really open and bare. You can often mislead yourself if you start with computers and samples and programming because you can disguise a bad song.

I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.

If you have a great-sounding guitar that's a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that's the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.

I know what my sound is. I'm just trying to get it out there how I can explain it. I'm not trying to write or put out some music that doesn't represent me.

The REM and Nirvana successes don't mean much to me except as a potential distraction for bands who want to cash in on the trend. Don't try to sound like someone else. REM and Nirvana don't sound like anyone else.

That it's a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar.

All the music that I've made in the past I've believed in. I think some of it has been more commercially successful than others, but it wasn't premeditated.

There's a humble beauty about listening to period instruments that I like.

I make music from my heart, and from that place, it feels good, you know? I have no boundaries, and no one can put me in a box. If it sounds good, it's good.

Yes, indeed, in fact I would tell you that we go out of our way to be true to the original feeling and sort of sonic and musical pallet that we painted with back then.

I try to become a singer. The guitar has always been abused with distortion units and funny sorts of effects, but when you don't do that and just let the genuine sound come through, there's a whole magic there.

He is like a good prewar house solidly built. They don't build them that way anymore. He's also been repainted several times.

I try to make music with emotion and integrity. And authenticity. You can feel when something's authentic, and you can feel when it's not: you know when someone's trying to make the club record, or trying to make the girl record, or trying to make the thug record. It's none of that. It's just my emotions.

With a band like Shenandoah, you don't want to take things and deconstruct them to a point where you don't recognize them.

I think when we do our job right, our artists don't sound like anybody else. I have a real hard time with voices that sound like other big voices.

To take the ugly language out of 'Ragtime' is to sanitize it, and that does it a great disservice.

If you make music with business in your head, it'll show. I make it from the heart. There's a difference.

Reggae goes in and out. It sounds so good, it feels so good and feels so tropical, but the problem is not everybody is Caribbean. Not everyone is going to sound authentic doing it, and sometimes it comes off cheesy when other people do it.

There's just something really, really timeless about live instruments. There's just something special about them that you can't really duplicate or grasp without including live instruments.

If I owned a Rembrandt and it had some dull colors, I don't think I'd go put reds and yellows in there just to brighten it up. I feel the same way about old golf courses. When you have a masterpiece, I sure wouldn't tinker with it.

Sometimes we do things a certain way just because that is the way we do things.

The idea of doing a period movie, some people say, "Isn't it odd that you're doing a period movie? That's a change of pace for you." And, I'm like, "Not really." When you're doing a science fiction movie, it's almost exactly the same.

It's always a treat to have something that lets me explore a different period. I do try to be a stickler, as much as I can, but luckily the writers are, as well.