Rhiannon Giddens Quotes

I love the pioneers like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, but when I write music, it comes out in my own way.

Your personal history is a part of what happens with your hands and your head as you play music.

I like hearing fiddles, steel guitar, acoustics up loud - really rock & roll stuff but with a country sound behind it. That's just who I am. I'm not trying to prove a point; I am just doing what I like. But I don't have any problems with any other artist coming in and doing their own thing.

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

Aaron Copland was a man that had a very specific point of view about what music should be which was that, he felt that new music should have the composer should show a personality in his music.

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it.

I've accepted the fact that Limp Bizkit is my band, one that I'm a part of, a band that I've built from the beginning. It does me no good to be in somebody else's band playing their music, like Marilyn Manson or Korn. Being in Limp Bizkit allows me to be myself.

Arranging is the way I put my stamp on my music as much as my guitar playing.

A name doesn't make the music. It's just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.

I have a very difficult time describing my music.

My voice is a combination of how I grew up and what I was listening to growing up. I like a lot of different kinds of music and am always being inspired in different ways by different artists for different reasons.

The message of music was also the first thing what I learned from my first teacher. She was an organist too and she was very devoted to what she played, so she had a respect for every piece and she felt that she is not allowed to add something of her own.

Music is a reservoir... of sounds.

I didn't want to go out and change anything. I just wanted to make the music that was part of my background, which was rock and blues and hip-hop.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

I've always tried to defend the idea that the blues doesn't have to be sung by a person who comes from Mississippi, as I did.

It's either you finna create your own wave, you finna sound like me or you finna sound like G Herbo, you finna sound like Chance The Rapper, you finna sound like Juice Wrld. You ain't gonna get too far 'cause you sound like somebody. So, create your own lane and do your own style.

As a musician myself, I wouldn't be confident if I received some other composers' song, because I choose to express myself through the music that I make.

I still dabble in different types of music, but I'm sticking to my Country roots.

I've always wanted to make records that rock like hell. But also, I've never wanted to compromise that Country place deep inside.

I'd rather be known as a songwriter than a guitarist, although I love to play the guitar.

Of course we all know when music's too much in the head, and we define our greatest players by the way they are able to communicate directly from their emotional selves.

In Mali, you hear music everywhere. What is fantastic in Mali is the music tradition is handed down from father to son orally. It is not written. You learn from your father and add something, because you are living now and telling a story to others. This results in many different interpretations of the same song.

I feel like I found a sound that is unique to country music, in my own lane.

I can't really describe my sound.