Alicia Keys Quotes

I like to start with an idea, but then again, I might be sitting at the keyboard, and just playing a bunch of chords that sound cool together, and something just inspires an idea from that.

Lately, I love creating ideas on my acoustic guitar. I sit in my living room for hours trying different chords.

I think I'm much more of a guitar-songwriter than a singer. I start with chords and then test out melodies rather than improvising over it.

Yes, basically, like you said, I'll work out a chord pattern and work out the lyrics over that.

Experimenting with different sounds is great, but when it comes down to it, you're still playing a guitar.

I learn stuff from making music every time I go in the studio. I'm continuing to try to find new ways to play in a song or be in a song and have a positive impact on a song.

That is what intrigues me; songwriting and song structure and expression.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

I spent many years trying to write a lot like Ben Folds or John Lennon or Rivers Cuomo. I think that's healthy when you're learning to write and seeing how chords fit together and how songs take shape.

I compose melodies in my head and then interpret them musically with my guitar and keep them recorded. The guitar helps me to build unique chord structures on simple melodies.

I always find that, when it comes to writing songs, if the melody and the chords are working, we're 90 per cent there.

I was never a fan of open tunings, because some people will do that and fumble around. But that's not my jam.

I can put some chords together and maybe write a song, but I'm learning every day. And that's the fun part.

For me, something will come in my head and I'll either end up calling my cell phone to record it, or I'll just pick my guitar up and see what comes out. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't. So there's really no set method behind it.

I think it's always important to constantly keep the band on their toes and try new things that you hope will work. That's how 'Apologize' was born, and maybe down the line another little song will be born by that mentality. I've always really liked that song.

After a couple of failed attempts, I came up with a weird tuning where I was dropping the G string down a step so that it became a seventh, and it got me to a place where I could play all these figures fairly easily. It was not an easy thing to work out.

Ever since I picked up a bass, I've written songs.

I always just sit down at the piano and make the main hook - what I want the track to be about melodically - and then I'll build everything else around that. But growing up, I did not play any instruments.

Music is really all about experimentation and lots of trial and error. It's just mind-numbingly boring until you hit on something that works well.

I had no idea what those cords were in the bridge of 'Prisoner In Disguise' when I wrote them. I had to go over to Don Gorman, the piano player, and ask what in the world I was playing.

I always lived with guitarists. When they would leave, I would just pick up their acoustic guitars and start doing finger picking and write.

I'm never too ambitious when I go into the studio. I always know that I'm just going into the studio to work on or try to develop an idea that I have for a song.

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 wrote my first song at 6. I spent every day with the guitar, and I just made up songs.

I could tell it was a popular move as a writer to walk down the bass lines while you were writing a song.