They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you are not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies... the medium doesn't matter, so long as it inspires you.
I'm not somebody who carries around a notepad and writes songs all day long. I don't imagine everything I think of is worth being in a song. So I tend to collect notes, and I set time aside to go to work and write songs.
It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.
When I was in Van Halen I was hitting notes that were out of my range. I never went for those registers before until Eddie pulled it out of me.
I never kept a diary, but I wrote detailed notes of my travels.
The ballet embodies the notes of music. And sometimes you almost feel like you can see the notes dance up there on the stage.
I don't sing operatically, and I sing very intimately, but I still do the scales, and I think in terms of intonation and making sure that I'm hitting the notes right on the head... and having it appear quite effortless.
I love players like Thurston Moore. I mean, you can put notes down on a sheet of paper, and if you practice and get your chops up, you can play like an Eddie Van Halen or a Steve Vai. But nobody can do what Thurston Moore does; he's his own guy. He talks through his instrument in a language that's all his own.
My dad is in the music business in Nashville. I was the third child born in my family, and there are three notes in a chord, so that's how they came up with my name.
I am certain that the Lord, who notes the fall of a sparrow, looks with compassion upon those who have been called upon to part, even temporarily, from their precious children.
I was a good college kid, all-American and baseball-playing, living in the dorms with a million barbarians. I did not expect to be claimed by Fitzgerald hook, line, and sinker. 'This Side of Paradise' - that sweet, sophomoric pastiche of notes, scenes, poetry, and plays - I felt like he'd written the book just for me.
I still do not know where the notes will come from when I accept a commission for a new work.
Occasionally, when I run into a great bass backstage at a festival I'll play a few notes on the low E string, just to feel the instrument vibrate against my belly.
I didn't think of myself as a singer. I'm an actor who recites words, and sometimes that happens to be on musical notes.
When I begin writing, I have no idea what my novels are ultimately going to be about. I don't have a plot. I never consider a theme. I don't make notes or outlines.
I was singing about six notes higher than I had to, in a range that kept me up in a bubblegum sound.
There's the classic charitable contribution, which we receive thousands, and we're extremely grateful and they often come with notes from people, which are very heartwarming, about how much difference our products have made in their life on the Internet.
But at the same time, never having final cut before, I really learned an interesting thing for any studio executive who is reading this: that if a director has final cut, it's actually easier and more interesting to listen to notes.
I never take any notes or draw charts or make elaborate diagrams, but I hold an image of the shape of a book in my head and work from that mental hologram.
I had a lot of notes and fragments and observations that never amounted to anything. After the Wall had gone down, so many people were writing about Berlin, I didn't have the same urgency or feel enough authority.
Interplay and interaction are the integral parts of music - they're as important as the notes.
I mean, there are only so many notes. What makes something original is how you put it together.
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.
Be serious. You've got to do the job you were hired to do well, but there's always more you can do. When I was an assistant, I would say to myself, 'You may not be an executive, but act like one.' I would volunteer for any creative assignment - read scripts, do 'coverage,' write notes.
I binge write, basically. I do a lot of prep, research, setup. I'll have a pretty detailed outline. Sort of like a beat outline. And then I'll add little notes and dialogue ideas, and I'll just create a 20-page document.
To me, getting notes, honing the part, and refining the role is the real fun of the play.
The beauty of it is when you can just show up and hit the notes.
No two notes are ever the same volume. With the guitar, you really have to model in your mind this wider thing; you're trying to create the illusion of a bigger dynamic range.
Consider what a romantic expedition you are on; take notes.
Cell phones, alas, have pretty much ruined train travel, which I used to love. I could read or even sketch notes for what I was working on.
One should indeed read Pope with his notes available, in the Twickenham edition possibly, to see what a vast amount he did understand about Homer.
I use my phone to record notes or hum melodies. That's how I remember them.
When I sing, it's the most solitary state: just me, and the microphone, and the holy spirit. It's not about notes or scales, it's all about emotion.
I chose my classes based on which professors did not take attendance, and then I traded Padres tickets for notes from class. I wasn't the student of the month.
One day, at my office, I wrote down some names and dates and notes, and I wrote a title, 'The Age of Despair,' and then some other 'Ages' - Innocence, God, Reason, Hope - and I wrote this as well: 'Woman, born in 1930, lives till the age of 80 or so, suffers depression, marries a car dealer, has children who grow up to confuse her.'
I started a novel in the back of a notebook, and it was great because it looked like I was taking notes. And I just, I kept it up, it was sort of fantasy, it was part soap opera. It was utterly dreadful, but that's how I got hooked.
