I've worked with some great orchestras and amazing classical musicians, but I don't like the conceptualization of classical music as an elitist form of art.
I've always been a fan of just writing songs and making music.
I listen to lots of music, especially Bach, opera (all periods), German lieder, chamber music, and rock, old and new. I can't listen to music while I write. It's too absorbing.
All of my kids are into music. My older daughter plays guitar, piano, sings. My young son, he sings.
I'm always up for music shows such as Jools Holland, but news more than anything, particularly Newsnight. And cookery: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Rick Stein - it's down to him that I cook fish so much - and the great food alchemist Heston Blumenthal.
And I've also come to the conclusion that, as far as guitar solos and things like that are concerned, it's more important to complement the music rather than take away from it.
I like Madonna's music but not her movies. She should stick to what she is good at.
Music emotionally and psychologically transports you immediately.
I like to comprehend more or less everything around me - apart from the creation of my music. It's an obsessive character trait that's getting worse. I don't switch the light on and off 15 times before I leave the room yet, but something's going wrong.
I want my music to leave an indelible mark.
I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.
So much of the music I love is polarizing. People might either hate it or love it, but they remember it because it was different. That means it was pushing buttons and not just following trends.
The coolest thing, too, is that people that have never even seen 'One Tree Hill' tell me, 'I love your music.' And I'm like, 'Oh, do you watch the show?' And they say 'No.' And to me that's even cooler because that means I'm actually starting to get country fans.
I always tell the fans, 'Screw it! Like what you like. Listen to what you want.' Insisting that one type of music is better than the next is snobbery, and I have no time for that. Check out all the music that's out there. There's great stuff you're probably missing.
What worries me are these so-called radio stations with program directors who don't play all the different flavors of hip-hop. They should play the old with the new, 24/7, 365 days a year. A lot of these program directors are just jiving around and not playing all the good music for the people.
'Vinyl' is a good look at the music industry. The script was honest.
Sound should bring you in. We have people in all these specialized departments to make it one whole. They are supposed to work together to bring us into their world, not push us away. For example, rock music has to be loud, but it doesn't have to be too loud.
I think people can just make things now. It's kind of what happened with the music industry. Before, a band couldn't afford to go into a nice studio, or if they were going to go into a nice studio, they had to record twenty-five songs in two days. That's not a healthy workflow for anyone.
Color is a big part of what I do. It's like music. There are only so many notes in the scale, but there are endless permutations; there's no limit to the number. Color on the walls or furniture can reflect back and distort the reality of the true colors of lipsticks and eye shadow.
I carry music in my head, so I don't need more. It drives me nuts that, in hotels or on boats, people seem to think you need music 24 hours a day.
Probably my favorite piece of music, as an album taken as a whole, is Bruce Springsteen's 'Greetings from Asbury Park.' I just think it's incredibly pure. It's a sound that sort of broke new ground, and I think it paved the way for a hundred people that sound very similar.
I feel like in a lot of ways I can relate to the fans, just being a fan of music myself.
My music is a personal thing, and I feel like if I talk too much about the songs, or if there's too much of my personal life out there, it ruins it.
For fun, I love to play the drums... poorly. I have a band, a bunch of theater nerds - we got together, and we're like, 'Let's play rock music for three hours and never take breaks.' We call ourselves The U.S. Open.
My whole career began because I was always putting my music on the Internet. By the time I had my first tour, I had an audience everywhere I went, because people were listening online.
In high school I had a boyfriend who was super into rap, so I was into Too $hort and Wu-Tang for a little while. And my best friend's older brother would sometimes drive us home in this pimped-out truck, and he'd play all his dirty rap music. We thought we were really cool.
Music was always the distraction, so it was the obvious choice to pursue. My dad always said to find a job I love to do, that way it wouldn't feel like a job. So I did that.
Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I think the ordinary guy has just as much right to say 'This is a good song' as somebody who is in the music business.
I want my music to do the explaining.
I don't really like meetings, I like recording and performing music. I need to set myself up for when the time does come that I need better distribution or just a bigger team behind me.
When I was 3 or 4, I seemed to be bursting with music. They played Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra in the house, so I learned my vocabulary from song lyrics - I was literally singing before I was talking.
I'm not technical. When I listen to music, I gravitate more toward the sonic aspect of it. The technical stuff of it, I get bored with it. These long solos? OK, already. You know your scales, big deal. I know it, too, but I don't want to do that.
I take certain steps to make sure I'm relevant artistically. I always have new music and a reason to be on the road. I'm not just playing 'Get By' over and over. I have 12 albums.
I love music, singing, and playing piano (though I'm not very good). And I adore musical theater.
I was always into music, but I wanted to do film when I was kid. I remember seeing big movies and wanting to do them. Then I was lucky enough to act in some of them, and I fell in love with it.
I wanted to be someone who wanted to produce music, and here I am, and I'm happy about it.
