The course hitherto pursued in musical aesthetics has nearly always been hampered by the false assumption that the object was not so much to inquire into what is beautiful in music as to describe the feelings which music awakens.
Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll.
I went to performing arts high school, and I took dance and acting every day. Then, I went to Marymount Manhattan College and I have a B.A. in acting, with a concentration in theater performance and a minor in musical theater. I studied there for three years.
One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn't if you knew better.
I saw my first Broadway show when I was 10 years old. I saw 'Big: The Musical' and I remember going out to dinner with my mom afterward and reading the souvenir program like crazy!
If you're dealing with a musical in which you're trying to tell a story, it's got to sound like speech. At the same time it's got to be a song.
If I weren't musical, then I would have just published a book, you know? But I'm lucky enough to play piano, and so I use piano to convert my poems.
I think my first musical memory is actually listening to Billie Holiday. I think I must have been, like, 3 or 4 years old.
There are certain sounds that I've found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.
Essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
I had no musical training at all.
I've always been inspired by artists who have shown musical and intellectual curiosity and the courage to take risks.
Ironically, that was quite a bit of the appeal of Rumours. It's equally interesting on a musical level and as a soap opera.
I remember really bonding with the first generation kids, the Chinese Canadian kids, and in high school bonding with the Latin kids and the East Indian kids. It was very interesting because it made me open to lots of musical sounds.
I grew up in a very musical family, my father was a musician and a big band leader and made records.
Stand-up is my heart and now I get a chance to do that and the music altogether. That's going to be great. I'm trying to be the Sammy Davis Jr. of 2005. I'm planning on going out with Cedric the Entertainer because he's got that musical bone, too.
First play I ever did was 'Footloose.' I played the part of Willard when I was 16. I think I wore my drama teacher's jeans and her belt - that's how small I was. I know a lot of Willard's back story from the musical that's not explored in the film. Like he's got this whole relationship with his mama, and he sings this song 'Mama Says.'
Look, I'm 40, I'm single, and I work in musical theater - you do the math!
I've never considered musical equipment very sacred.
I was under the false impression that I could sing in high school, so I did a lot of musical stuff. I can't sing or dance, so that was entertaining for everyone.
I've been really fortunate that I've been at a lot of critical crossroads in my musical journey. When I look back, there are some pretty interesting things to look at.
I think that the major message in 'Shrek: The Musical' is be who you want to be. I think that it is about being your true self in this world.
After a foreign invasion, there has to be a sort of feeling of musical inadequacy in the country.
I was chomping at the bit to get my career started - so after I took all the theater courses at Brooklyn College I enrolled in a two year program at AMDA in the city (The American Musical Dramatic Academy) I was there for 6 months and loved it.
If there is a good musical reason, I think it might draw more attention and sell, though it is not guaranteed. To make a record without a musical reason, you have to either be a pop star who sells automatically or just be lucky.
If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they'll respond to it.
I think the problem with a lot of the fusion music is that it's extremely predictable, it's a rock rhythm and the solos all play the same stuff and they play it over and over again and there's a certain musical virtuosity involved in it.
Composers love to write for symphony orchestras because the symphony is the Rolls Royce of musical instruments.
Naivete is the real reason I applied to Juilliard. I wanted to study drama and not musical theater because I have a hard time dancing. I only applied there.
The film was fair to his musical achievement and gave him every opportunity to explain himself.
I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.
New Orleans is like a big musical gumbo. The sound I have is from being in the city my whole life.
I have this weird musical thing I do: I play violin, and I even went on tour with Tim Robbins. We did a bunch of Canadian cities, and then went down to the States, and then we ended up in Japan.
The experience awakened 'my tremendous musical ambition, which has never subsided to this day.
My biggest musical influences are probably my parents.
All I tell artists is, 'Do what you love. Never let anybody talk you into changing what your musical idea is just to try to get a hit, because you're chasing your tail that way. It's not going to happen, and if you're successful, you have to do it the rest of your life. Stay true to it and do it for the sake of the art.'
