Roads, better harnesses for horses, time-keeping devices, financial instruments like a currency that was recognized everywhere in the kingdom, enforceable contracts - all of this made commerce more appealing than plunder.
Since my father is a musician as well, he taught me growing up that if you can play jazz, you can learn all instruments and write on them. He wanted me to be a songwriter that can do anything in any genre. I'm all about doing every genre.
I had been building electronic musical instruments since I was a kid.
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.
I was classically trained. But more than just the fact that I play violin, there's a lot of classical elements in the way I write, in the way I hear chords. A lot of times, I think of my songs as a symphony made out of electronics rather than instruments. And I love to do orchestral arrangements of my songs after they're done.
I'm for the Wall Street Occupiers. But will they accept me when they find out I sell packaged mortgage default instruments to children?
I've been buying instruments and musical gear for a long time.
'Sinister' is the first score I've done in which there's no orchestra in it whatsoever. There are traditional instruments I sampled, then manipulated, so you don't even recognize the source anymore.
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.
Consciousness permits us to develop the instruments of culture - morality and justice, religion, art, economics and politics, science and technology. Those instruments allow us some measure of freedom in the confrontation with nature.
The songs, if I write alone in a room, end up being a little more quiet, a little more subdued. If I play with other musicians or percussive instruments, it might end up being a little more upbeat.
You shouldn't really have to use EQ in the studio if the instruments sound good. It should all be done with microphones and microphone placement.
The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.
I'd do a demo recording by myself, layering instruments on top of one another, and while that's fun, it doesn't have the same impact as getting some great players together in a great studio with a great engineer and producer, then waiting for the magic.
My dad is an art director for BBC TV shows, and my mum does screen printing workshops. Both of my parents played instruments, too, and my mum used to have crazy house parties when me and my brother were young - dub and garage would be banging through my house.
In my profession, I'm around a lot of people whose bodies are their instruments in one way or another.
I can play multiple instruments. I love a cappella. I love barbershop. I love magic.
I don't play any instruments, but I do read a lot.
The beautiful thing about working with new instruments is that you sort of approach it with a fresh perspective.
I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.
Identity is made up of lots of different things now. Different colors and patterns stand out at different times. Different instruments in the symphony of being are more distinct than others at different times.
Mostly I listen to old-time music, some bluegrass, some Americana stuff, too many to name. But of the younger acts, there are The Freight Hoppers, who were big in the '90s, and The Foghorn Stringband from Oregon, and there's a lot of young string bands coming up now, basically punkers who play acoustic instruments forming new bands.
We have such an energetic live show. We have so much fun onstage. We swap instruments. We might possibly be the sweatiest band in the business.
I play a lot of instruments. I write all my own music. I spend hours and hours a day in the studio. I'm a producer. I'm a writer.
I am officially a doctor, and believe it or not, I can save lives and tune certain instruments and can beat peasants with a stick.
All you needed was a couple of instruments and a few chords and you could be on an indie label.
The most exciting science requires the most complex instruments.
I'm not an expert in instruments, beat programming, or electronics. For some people it's all about doing it themselves. But for me, it's all about find the people that can help make my vision come true.
When I get intimate with my paintings, it's a real good spiritual thing to get off my chest. Same as playing the instruments is a great release.
Some people like the same thing forever, but I don't know. We kind of, like, listen to loads of different stuff, and our attention spans aren't good enough. So there was a bit of frustration when you're, like, having to play the same thing all the time because we play all, like, loads of different instruments.
Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor, and it comes alive in a way that you didn't expect.
I think the world is ready for some rock 'n' roll. Some real time guys that play their own instruments, write their own songs, and sing the music and have a good time doing it.
I've always thought about myself as somewhat of a folk musician. I just write words. I don't think I'm even a musician. I don't play a lot of instruments, not really a soloist or anything.
The reason I can play loads of instruments is because I kept giving up and trying another one.
Piano is one of those instruments you don't have to be good at to sound good - you just have to know where to put three little fingers, which is really pretty easy to figure out.
