Sarah Vaughan Quotes

In the past, I'd sort of know before Ozzy sang something, what he was going to sing. I'd know what sort of way a melody was going to go 'cause of the way he'd approach it.

I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.

It's part of what I do at my piano - the hymns. And then I write.

My other advice is to start writing songs and singing right away.

I started playing guitar before I can really remember, and I started writing really early, too.

But the thing that will always occupy me the most is music.

When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.

Music. It's all creativity right here, right now.

We influence singing but never really songwriting.

I just start playing music and eventually I sing something, a line of a verse or a B section or a line of a chorus, and the line that I end up singing is related to the music I'm playing, if that makes any sense. And I go from there.

I most enjoy sitting down with the acoustic guitar and just fiddling around and trying to come up with something like a hook or some sort of melodic line. That's something that I do habitually.

From the time I could play the piano, I remember trying to write tunes. They were in my head, and I would just sit down and start noodling. Next thing I knew, I had written a melody.

I'm not the best singer, but I like the way I sing my songs.

I like making songs up. Whether or not they're great songs or good songs, whatever. It's something I've always done, and I definitely feel like I've gotten better at it.

If I try to write a song, I will completely fail to write a song. But if I'm just holding my guitar and I just start humming, then I'll have a song in an hour.

I may play the same songs night to night, but I never play them the same way.

When I write a song and come up with an arrangement and a vocal part, it's always a challenge trying to find a singer who can interpret it sort of the way that I hear it, and it's a very difficult thing to do. I mean, singing is like playing an instrument - everybody does it a little bit different - singing maybe even more so.

I think to be a good songwriter, you have to be able to play an instrument.

I'm not a frustrated concert composer, and the concert pieces I've done have been a small part of my work. What I've sought there is instruction, variation from the demands of film and relief from its restrictions.

For me, the music dictates the melody. Give me a riff to sing over, you know?

When I write, I write the drum beat. Though sometimes I write on piano or guitar.

I learned a lot from hanging out with Emmylou Harris. One of the biggest pointers she gave me was that if you don't know the words, drop the consonants: that way, you'll hide the sound.

'Bright Star' has been designed and the songs have been formulated around the way that I sing. That is the biggest gift of anything.

I just don't see myself as a songwriter or a country singer or any of those things anymore. It's more trying to express ideas and emotional textures.

I don't have a journal; I write music.