Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement.
It requires an effort of logical acrobatics to believe that carnage of innocents is an instrument for freedom and elections are a symbol of deception and repression!
You can build a statistical model and that's all well and good, but if you're dealing with a new type of financial instrument, for example, or a new type of situation - then the choices you're making are pretty arbitrary in a lot of respects.
The human voice is the first and most natural musical instrument, also the most emotional.
Photography can be a powerful instrument for change, and photojournalists can tell stories that make a difference.
When I went to school, you had to take art, you had to play an instrument. You had to play an instrument. But it's all degraded since then. I do not know what kind of nation we are that is cutting art, music, and gym out of the public-school curriculum.
In the beginning of my twenties, I started transcendental meditation. For years, I did nothing else. Every holiday, I went to courses. Meditation is a real simple instrument. You don't need a long beard or a sari. It's meant to bring you to yourself. It's as easy as that.
Conducting is more difficult than playing a single instrument. You have to know the culture, to know the score, and to project what you want to hear. Some conductors are well prepared but cannot transmit their ideas to an orchestra, and others are good communicators but have nothing to transmit because they are not absorbed enough in the score.
In the years leading up to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, thinking about defense was driven by ideas that regarded successful military operations as ends in themselves rather than just one instrument of power that must be coordinated with others to achieve - and sustain - political goals.
Whether or not you discover your talents and passions is partly a matter of opportunity. If you've never been sailing, or picked up an instrument, or tried to teach or to write fiction, how would you know if you had a talent for these things?
After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument.
Drums were my first instrument, my first love. I need rhythm, something that moves.
I learned my profession onstage. I didn't have a musical background. I had no conservatory training. I don't play an instrument.
Anything you can do to express yourself is a form of art. That's why I love my craft so much. I always wanted to play other artists. If I can't play an instrument, then I want to play a character that can. There is an artist behind everything, and I think that's beautiful.
We ourselves hold the instrument that makes us fat. I just shake my head when I see someone eating cake and saying, 'Oh, I wish I wasn't heavy.' But they keep eating the cake!
When I'm writing for certain instruments, you want to write within what you know about that instrument but also challenge the player. Something like 'Aheym' is very virtuosic - but because I have a history of performing music, I don't like unplayable music.
Most people don't even know what a trombone is. It's not that popular as a front instrument... I picked it up and fell in love with it as a kid. It's a difficult instrument, but I like doing things that seem impossible.
I've played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I'm mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute... Just not well.
I went to a restaurant and sat at the bar and ate by myself. I have my iPad, which is my favorite instrument of all time. I talked to a few people next to me. I'm just trying to be out. It's a little bit scary.
I think there are always people who, when they get the bug to play an instrument, they want to get as good as they can with it rather than just be simply adequate at it. You run into them every once in a while - some kid who wants to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan, for whatever reason, and plays exactly like him.
It's pretty traumatic knowing that your instrument that's your career isn't working, and you've got to have an operation.
I keep saying if I ever get a good amount of quiet time that I want to learn to play cello. It's a very warm instrument. The tone of the cello and the movement - I don't know what is; I love it so much.
I've always said that I use my voice as an instrument. It was something I created myself, and I said, 'Have voice, will travel.'
The Democrats have prevailed because, at heart, we have embodied a great idea, which is that an elected government can be the instrument of the common purpose of a free people; that government can embrace great causes and do great things.
I noticed a lot of guitar players neglected the rhythm part of rhythm guitar and decided I would try to focus in that. As my skill and knowledge of the instrument grew, I found lead started to come naturally. Sometimes I play guitar like a frustrated drummer. Ha ha!
I do so play an instrument! I play air! I play the air with my fingers, and I'm in touch with the deepest emotions within. It took me a while to learn that whatever I feel like doing is the right thing. If I want to play an invisible instrument, I will.
The Marshall guitar amplifier doesn't just get louder when you turn it up. It distorts the sound to produce a whole range of new harmonics, effectively turning a plucked string instrument into a bowed one.
Establishing a style is important, it really is, but a lot of singers get so involved with their instrument, and more so than they do in what they're singing. I think you really have to think about what you're singing. You have to make the public believe what you're singing. And in order to do that, you have to believe it.
In the end, a gun is an instrument to make someone surrender to your will or die, and music is exactly the opposite - it's seductive and invitational.
Certainly being proficient in an instrument does have its problems. Because the better you get, the more you just start sounding like an ordinary guitarist. There are certainly guitarists that transcend that and do really find their sound and all that sort of stuff.
The interesting thing about improvisation is you're making something up in front of the audience. Now music helps you out a little bit because you have an instrument that'll separate you from the audience.
I just would use any instrument known to man in any combination as long as it describes an emotion.
I wanted to take up music, so my father bought me a blunt instrument. He told me to knock myself out.
When you listen to a symphony orchestra, and the basses don't - there's no bass part, there's not that much depth. That's why I'm attracted to the instrument, the bass. It brings depth. It's like playing in a rainforest.
I'm the only person in my entire extended family that plays an instrument or sings, really. Which is kind of weird. I don't know where I got it from.
One of the things that was a blessing for me is my parents were music lovers. Neither of my parents played an instrument, but they were avid record buyers. And I grew up at every age listening to all kinds of music.