Alan Bates Quotes

The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.

I know I'm known for singing some of those high notes, but that's really not what giving someone goosebumps is all about. It's about really trying to find what makes you unique.

The best thing an actor can bring to a role is himself - that's no secret.

Music should not be a contest, it should be an individual thing that each band is putting out from within themselves.

I'm more a percussion instrument than a dancer.

Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of a performance liberty, you're making a compositional choice. I don't know a serious performer who hasn't made compositional decisions, who hasn't engaged in the art of composition.

You shouldn't think about technique when you play. You have to be you. It cannot be about, 'I can play this, and I can show you that.'

All actors do what they do differently, and it doesn't matter.

I don't try to make the guitar sound like the harpsichord or lute. That makes you end up being like a bad copy.

I guess if you can't sing, you better have a style!

There's only one drummer. We all travel to his beat. Well, I couldn't sing his song. Because for me, it wasn't a truthful statement. Well, Linda sang it, and it was a monster for her.

Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.

You can't acquire a voice. Either you have it, or you don't.

I never wanted to be like other blues singers. I might like hearing them play, but I've never wanted to be anyone other than myself. There are a few people that I've wished I could play like, but when I tried, it didn't work.

Rhythm is something you either have or don't have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

There are no original ideas. There are only original people.

Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.

So it's not so much that I set out to do something different, it's just that the songs themselves require their own individual voice and attention.

Labels don't mean anything to me. I'm trying to play as passionately as I'm able to. If they want to call that cool, that's fine. Just spell the name right, is the formula.

If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.

The main thing in making your own music is that it's an expression of someone's personality and being. That's what people want to hear, and you can't really teach that - that's just something that comes out. Teaching just hones that.

When you're playing the part of a saxophone or a trumpet player, both of which I have done, it would be nice to be able to play like John Coltrane, but you can't. Your job is to do something else. And I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think I'd be acting Niels Bohr any better if I went and studied physics for five years.

I want everyone to express themselves in a unique way.

I'm not going to be able to play it like somebody else.

Art is all a matter of personality.