Musical Insight Quotes

I mostly listen to things that are so different because there's something so intriguing about trying to understand where someone is coming from.

When you start reading a piece together, you get a sense of someone's basic philosophy of music without saying a word. You realize the other person's approach, how they express themselves, the kind of restraint they show, all those things.

I don't think a guy that really has no understanding about people, or has no interest in understanding people would make a good film composer.

I find that the time that goes by is actually your best friend when you are making a record. The passing of time gives you perspective on what you recorded and what you wrote. If something sounds good to you 12 months after you recorded it then chances are pretty good that there's something valuable about the part or the song.

How we absorb music is unique. I know what I do. When I'm listening to music, I tend to find myself in a song. That's what really makes you connect is if you feel what that song is saying.

I still don't understand the music industry that much. Everything I learned was from hanging out with rock musicians in studios. I certainly have respect for those who make music their livelihood.

I'd been studying the microphone for a dozen years, and I suddenly saw what I'd been doing wrong. I'd been singing too loud. One night I was listening to a record by Lester Young, the horn player, and it came to me. Relax, just relax. It's all going to be all right.

While Paul Simon is revered, I don't think people get how deep he is. I love the guy. He comes from that early street-harmony, first-generation type of rock and rollers. He gets it.

Nirvana is next level. The songs are really cool to connect with on a more mature level, and I don't think I really understood that when I was 15.

One of my side strange abilities is to hear a good song, no matter how it's being performed. Even if you get a bad performance, I can still hear that there's a good song.

Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education.

I don't think I've ever actually written from inspiration, actually had a song just go, 'Bing!' I only recall that happening to me twice - once was with 'Terrapin' and the other was 'Wharf Rat.' I mean, that's twice in a lifetime of writing!

When real music comes to me - the music of the spheres, the music that surpasses understanding - that has nothing to do with me, cause I'm just the channel. The only joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a medium... those moments are what I live for.

I know when I sit with my band members and we're playing back a song that we've done, I know that they're experiencing it in a completely different way and hearing stuff that they're alerted to because the way the interpret the world is through their ears. Mine is through my eyes.

One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.

Shh. Listen to the sounds that surround you. Notice the pitches, the volume, the timbre, the many lines of counterpoint. As light taught Monet to paint, the earth may be teaching you music.

You've got to know much more than the mere technicalities of notes. You've got to know sounds and what goes between the notes.

It's always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don't know where it comes from, it's just there and I don't question it.

Someone who knows only music, understands nothing about it.

As I've gone along, I felt like I was discovering an aspect of my voice that I didn't know was there: an ability to interpret a song in a way that makes it more accessible.

I think recordings have been a terrific advance because now, when you have a piece of music, particularly something that appears to the listener very complicated, there's really a push to the world to try to figure out what it was that he was hearing.

I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is.

My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that's the right song to not fight the lyric.

I think it is your job as an artist to be able to hear a song.

I listen to music very intensely as well: When I listen to an artist I really love, I feel like I know them. I feel like I understand what they're thinking about, even though I've never met them or talked to them.