Instrumental Interplay Quotes

We've always had a very strong focus on the instrumentation, and our approach to our individual instruments.

Out of doing all that experimentation with sound I decided I wanted to do it with live musicians. To take repetition, take music fragments and make it live. Musicians would be able to play it and create this kind of abstract fabric of sound.

Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. All of the little infinite detail that went into the arrangements and giving ourselves lots of breathing room in terms of playing what we wanted to play and using up any ideas that we had - all of those were conceived to be performed.

What I like best about music is when time goes away.

One of the things I like to do is to try to jam with everybody.

I sit around for ages waiting for inspiration. Then when I get an idea, I want to go with it and get something as quickly as possible. It's like catching a fly in a bottle. I'll play with drums for a bit, then the piano for a bit, play the guitar.

My sister and I - she's a musician - we jam all the time. We always play around for giggles with stuff that seem unconventional or stuff that seems funny. A lot of the stuff sometimes is just a response from jam sessions in her room, so she'll be on the guitar or the keyboard, and we'll just start singing and doing stuff.

One thing I always really enjoyed about Quincy Jones' production technique was that there were so many layers to every song. Like, one week you'd hear a new trumpet-line, then the next week you'd hear - be hearing a new guitar-line.

Jazz is the art of thinking out loud.

In The Police, in a trio situation - which I've come back to now - it's just so wide open that it does actually provide this arena where you can play with a certain freedom.

I'm looking forward to some more solo acoustic dates. That's a lot of fun for me, because I get to be alone with the song. And I get to hear every little nuance; if my instrument does something that I wasn't expecting, I get to chase that. Chase that down a little bit.

The rhythm, the sounds, the tonality, the chord sequences, the individual effect of each instrument and each section of the band - I'm talking about a whole continent in my music.

Jazz can be a blank canvas full of possibilities.

I always find that there is a real communication between voice and violin.

A bass player has to think and play like a bass player. A drummer has to play and think like a drummer, and stay out of the way of the vocalist. The guitar player has to respect everybody else.

To me, when a great band is playing together, it's amazing for me.

I do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

I found a way to connect with lots of instruments rather than just fixating on one of them. I just loved making noise on anything.

I've been good at creating new textures and new fabrics, like vocal hocketing, or interlocking guitars, or suggesting new ideas for style... that's what the band has really excelled at.

Jazz vision is a wordless conversation between musical notes and visual expressions.

Phish is such a good band; they just make stuff up as a jam band.

Purple - I mean, the music and the influence and the subliminal touches range from orchestral conversation to jazz to blues and soul and God knows what. It's a vast range of expressions.

Music is like a conversation. One person says one thing that speaks with a harmonica, with a bass, with a drum. They're all conversating, and we're just trying to find a way to make conversation rather than blah, blah, blah. But it's not really so hard a thing to do if you know the way to approach it.

When you are accompanied by the instrument - on an instrument like the lute-the lute and voice - you have this sound, and you feel how the music can be so touching and yet so simple.