Studying music in a conservatory would be stifling for me, although I respect people who can do it. And by no means am I an expert at notating music or music theory - that's not really my world.
I mainly listen to the music that's playing during movies. It can be the theme to 'Pirates of the Caribbean,' 'The Equalizer,' stuff like that. I like the blend of orchestra with modern instrumentation. It's something that I've wanted to do.
A lot of musicians aren't proud; they'll do other work, just to be able to play music. I guess that's the way it's always going to be - musicians will have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.
Music was your real passion, this thing you held dear even above family. It was this relationship that never betrayed you. Once it became your job - this thing that was highly visible, this thing that became about commerce - that's when you were holding onto music like it was a palm tree in a hurricane.
It wasn't until after private lessons and learning bass lines that I even noticed bass in the music I was listening to at that age. My ears were blown wide open.
As a director, the biggest job is to discern the imperfections in emotional tone and then view it in the global picture of what you're trying to do, if that makes sense. It's a rhythm, like music is a rhythm or composition and art is a rhythm. Dialogue is a rhythm as well.
My parents always knew that I loved music. They just didn't think I'd try to make it a career. They thought I'd be a painter or an art teacher or something like that.
As a child growing up in a grey-skied Yorkshire village, I would occasionally happen upon a Bollywood movie on the television. After a few minutes watching a bunch of sari-clad dancers cavorting on a Swiss mountain to tuneless music, I would switch over to some proper drama about housing estates and single mothers.
I feel like Black Milk has found his way of putting his life into his music. I feel like, lyrically, he is a beast; a lot of people sleep on Black Milk. Black Milk is a monster. He from church. He from the street. He get down how I get down. He's a soulful cat, and I love how he get down.
I only read the very best music books. Donald Fagan's memoir 'Eminent Hipsters' is great. Bob Dylan's memoir 'Chronicles' and Patty Smith's 'Just Kids' are both incredible.
Usually, whenever my mom would come over I would try and put on music that I thought she would like just to make her feel more at ease.
If you get satisfaction out of playing music and entertaining people and it makes you feel right, then go for it.
My father's music is all I remember from my childhood.
I had written a tune called 'Shake, Rattle and Roll,' but the white stations refused to play it - they thought it was low-class black music. We thought what we needed was a new name. But a white disc jockey named Alan Freed laid on it, and he thought up the name 'rock n' roll.'
I didn't really hear any other music other than what my dad was working on until I was 12. My recollection of hearing other music was that I liked some things that I heard but I always thought, 'Where's the rest of it?' It didn't have the same amount of detail or instrumentation or imagination in the arrangements.
I'm used to making songs; that's how I learned to make music. My structures will always be more like pop songs than dance tracks.
The people that call me to play on records call me because they think that I will suit their music. And the people whose music I suit are by and large people that I'm a fan of.
With Led Zeppelin, it has always been that mystique of how the music is done - how it works, why it works.
A lot of painters listen to music, I think, while they paint. But I hate to do that. It's a horror. I can't really listen to the music. I'm not really concentrating on it, and I'm not really concentrating on the painting.
One of the things that's clear to me from interviews that I've read is that the more popular successful jazz musicians had audiences above and beyond the music community.
When I die, I want to be the only person in the world not to have seen 'The Sound Of Music.'
My music is tonally based. There is plenty of dissonance, but it's used as a contrast. There is polytonality at times and a lot of rhythmic interplay.
I can only speak for myself - there were times when I just wasn't inspired by creating music.
I never advise anyone to sacrifice something else because of music, but then I don't see why they would have to anyway.
I don't listen to my old music of Vanity's unless I have to hear it playing in a mall or something place like that.
Absolutely, I never stop working on new music.
The cool thing about my show and me is that I'm a writer, and I'm a writer first if I don't have music.
People do look at it as an insult that I say I don't listen to country music, which cracks me up.
When I was recording music, I'd record all the parts myself, and I wouldn't let other people in; that's essentially what Blood Orange is the result of; me trying to find the most comfortable I can be with everything.
I love playing instruments that I don't know how to play or am not familiar with. I like the idea of danger and innocence that comes from it. As an artist, I feel I should be able to do something with anything I get my hands on. The music becomes minimalist because of my limited knowledge.
I started piano when I was four. My mom taught me. And then I went to Manhattan School of Music during high school, like every Saturday. And then I went to Berklee for college, in Boston.
I have always felt that art, especially music, is but a demonstration of God.
I'm a huge fan of a lot of different genres of music, and I really felt like somehow I had been pigeonholed a little bit - maybe of my own doing - and in a way where I felt like I was sort of falsely defined. What my music was being called wasn't really the music I was always listening to.
I spend all my time right now trying to combat music retail and copyright.
For me, one of the downfalls of electronic music is that it can feel a little soulless or robotic.
Each year, every city in the world that can should have a multiday festival. More people meeting each other, digging new types of music, new foods, new ideas. You want to stop having so many wars? This could be a step in the right direction.
