Note Selection Quotes

Many critics always saw and heard that my style comes from Roy Eldridge, which is true. But for many things, not only how to play the trumpet but the way to choose the notes, how to play them and how to phrase all of them, I took that from Sweets [Edison]. He really brought something new to the trumpet.

We have the freedom to either play a tempo or not to play a tempo; to play a note or not to play a note; or to play what some people would say is a sound.

I remember Pavarotti telling me, 'Oh, Neil, after seventy, the voice is going to go.' But I've been lucky. You almost have to learn how to sing all over again. You use your diaphragm more. You have to choose the notes and pace yourself.

It can't be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!

Lots of times it really doesn't matter what notes you play, but what notes come before and after a run.

You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.

The way 'Lux' was made is that there are 12 sections in here, though two of them are joined together. So there are really 11 sections, in a sense, and each one uses five notes out of a palette of seven notes, and my palette is all the white notes on the piano. That was the original palette.

You can use existing music in a film, but creating a soundtrack is very different. One note can be enough.

That's why I loved Dinah Washington. She sung jazz, but they called her the Queen of the Blues. She had the control and sophistication of jazz in her note selection and how to attack a song or certain lines, but then attacked it with a painful force of blues behind it. That's why I admired her so much, because of that versatility.

It's not about retro or modern, it's about this note or that note, which sounds better?

I think John Williams, him and his team, have been incredible orchestrators. By that, I mean how he chooses which instrument plays which note.

A scale is just the notes that are in a chord played one at a time instead of together. That's what has allowed me to go through the possible notes that work with a chord and make choices about which ones I like best. I go through by ear; you can do it by theory too, but the best way is to learn by ear.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don't fit in a very interesting way.

I'll tell you a little secret about the Blues: it's not enough to know which notes to play, you have to know why they need to be played.

Find one note on the instrument that pleases you, and then find another note that also pleases you.