Every artist has a moment where they think about quitting music for a moment because it's scary.
I've written a very long piece of music recently, the 'Veil of the Temple,' which lasts about seven hours. It's really a kind of vigil. It takes place during the night, waiting for the resurrection of Christ.
Everybody's not going to like jazz, let's just be honest about it. Everybody doesn't like everything. There's a disconnect in generations and some people just aren't going to feel that music.
When I was a kid, and God was talking to me about music, I was like, 'Okay, I'll sing mainstream music,' because I was afraid to sing Christian music to alienate my friends. Honestly, it was going on 'Idol,' having that kind of exposure, that I realized there's something different about me. I just crave God being a part of every moment.
Me becoming a person, instead of somebody who just hides and is afraid, has happened in tandem with me learning to write music and become a good songwriter.
Music is my work, writing songs is my work, touring is my work, going into the studio is my work.
If you're going into music, work on your music and do it as well as you can. And look at it as a business. I'm in it to make a living, too.
Having this other career in music made me work harder as an actress. It's made me more professional.
'Grease' was how I learned that I really liked music and musicals and movies that included music.
I've been a DJ since I was about 13, and I started out as a hip-hop DJ. So I was always playing records that would just get people going. I was just doing parties and high school dances and whatever, and then, progressively, I started making my own music, writing little songs here and there, but it was never anything crazy.
Content that's generated out of America, whether it be film or music, has, in my opinion, much greater impact in sustaining our credibility and our place as a cultural capital. This is our great export.
For me, playing music while I write is important. Several of the romantic scenes in 'Paris' were written with Debussy's 'String Quartet,' his 'L'Apres-midi d'une Faune,' or Canteloube's 'Songs of the Auvergne' playing in the background.
I have a very strange relationship in general with women around my music. There's some that understand it and some that think there should be a law against it.
I express myself better when I'm singing, so I always want to hold on to the music side.
I sought my father in the world of the black musician, because it contained wisdom, experience, sadness and loneliness. I was not ever interested in the music of boys. From my youngest years, I was interested in the music of men.
Just knowing that through my music I actually inspire people is amazing for me and I find it very heartwarming.
For someone like me, music is all I've ever thought about - playing big shows, and then, when you take something that is based around your music and put it in a completely different medium, it's a really interesting and cool emotion to watch.
Lots of people think I'm telling porky pies when I say how nervous I get about singing. I was good at working out how music was put together, and I was good at being at the back, but if you asked me to sing up front, then I looked like I was going to pass out.
I know for a fact that if I could do only music, I'd be out of my mind, insane. I'd be stressed-out; there's so much work. I mean, you work constantly; there are no breaks, really. If you're not promoting a record, you're making one. If you're not making one, you're touring. If you're not touring, you're doing photo shoots and prep work.
India is a musical country, so it would appear obvious to use our collective passion for music to promote a book.
My dad always told me that anyone's voice is just another instrument added to the music.
I grew up in Synagogue in the boys' choir. We didn't listen to music in the house; only at temple. Then I went to a mostly African American high school on the South Side of Chicago and joined a gospel choir.
My family making music was like a folk background, really: banging on tabletops, playing banjo and all kinds of things.
Music is the most private place in my life, but it's become the most public part of who I am.
I think if you're creating music, and you love the song, holding it back is just doing it an injustice.
It's much easier to have a diversified career as an electronic musician than it is as a drummer. Nothing against drummers. If you're a drummer, you just wait around for people to ask you to play drums. But if you have your own studio and can make music, you have the ability to approach music a lot differently.
Listen, I'm not a politician. I'm not a news reporter. I make music, and I act.
And my music is always such a release of what I feel inside, an impulse.
My parents were decent, aspirant first-generation middle class. They read 'Reader's Digest', listened to classical music; my grandparents had a bust of Stalin on the mantelpiece. The kids of that generation were terrified of being below par, class-wise.
When you look back on music history, it falls into these neat periods, but of course, the period you yourself are living through seems totally scattered and chaotic.
I knew from the time I was 6 or 7 that music was something I had to do.
There should be change - the West should understand our music and culture, and vice versa. With such collaboration, artists can come closer to each other and come to know each other.
As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.
I like writing different types of music. I don't like being stuck into one thing.
Music fathoms the sky.
The drive to create music that is pure is my highest priority. Sometimes I'll get extremely technical, and other times I'll just kind of go with the gods of music.
