Brazilian music has many of the ingredients that I strive for in my own music: Strong melodies and a disciplined but intense rhythmic concept, and interesting harmonies.
It is very gratifying to see the music from 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy find a new life on the concert stage as it is performed by different orchestras and choruses throughout the world.
Music should be pushed forward.
I was always really into the music rather than the scene.
At 17, I was working at Sprint in the Bronx so I could make money to fund my own music.
My real motivation came from my quest for music videos to have the equally soul-touching emotional resonance that straight music does. Honestly, I'm not sure they ever can.
I publish my own music. I'm creating my own songbook. It works that way for me; I'm very independent.
To do it always right, that is what music is to me.
Country music isn't about being better than the guy next to you - it's just making sure that you keep working hard enough to deserve the position that you get in.
When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.
It is always an honor to work with those that share your passion for music and just enjoy making great music.
I don't mind what the market is, but why is it vapid? If they're such a bunch of idiots, why don't you show them good music instead? They're not going to know the difference.
When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.
God has blessed me with the in-born talent for which I pour my heart out in the form of music.
I enjoy being happy every day, and hopefully you can hear my happiness in my music. Life is beautiful.
What does music mean to me? I don't think I would really be much without it, without it coming through me. It's my means of communication, my means of growth, my means of transportation from one point in my life to another.
I someday hope to find the time and coin to invest more of my creative energy towards the visual media side of releasing music.
Sound quality was supposed to be one of the big selling points for CDs but, as we know, it wasn't very good at all. It was just another con, a get-rich-quick scheme, a monumental hoax perpetrated on the music consuming public.
Music is real; it's something you can touch and feel.
The music I like or the football teams I like or the food I eat has nothing to do with me being black.
You know, as you compose music, you're just off in your own world. You have no idea where reality is, so to have an idea of what people think is pretty hard.
I don't want to be the cliche American Idol dude. I want to be different, you know - that's the whole goal, me and music. It's about being yourself and being unique.
Generally, I'm not writing about genomes or anything like that. But people underestimate the creativity you use in science and the rigor you need in music. They basically have the same path.
The music I love to sing would have to be gospel - it just uplifts me, it takes me to a really good place.
In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.
I actually grew up wanting to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies, and music was a detour, almost.
There's a certain line between jokes and music and poetry that's a bit blurred in my mind.
You have to react to what's around you in the moment, whatever the music is. Just think of it as some place you have to enter and you need to find the key.
Once I started working with generative music in the 1970s, I was flirting with ideas of making a kind of endless music - not like a record that you'd put on, which would play for a while and finish.
It was a free-for-all with music when I was growing up. My mother was a huge music fanatic so I was listening to everything from country to heavy metal to Indigo Girls to Elton John. I guess when I was really young I didn't like Willie Nelson, and she obviously loved him. Now I do too, I'm so thankful to her for playing his music nonstop.
I think it's important for people to stay human and remember that genuine human connection is more fulfilling than anything that technology has to offer. We all have it within us, and music is something that can bring that out of us.
I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro.
At a festival, a lot of people came to see other artists, so you have to put on a signature set and performance: 'This is what I do, this is why I'm here.' At solo gigs, I'm a DJ - I'll play two-and-a-half hours, and not just my own music, also my favorite songs by other artists.
Jewish comedy doesn't come out of nothing. Jewish music doesn't come out of nothing... I don't want to be part of a story where Jews are just victims or bullies - and I'm not saying that's what the Israelis are.
I didn't really start writing music or lyrics or turning them into songs until I went to San Francisco.
As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be some jazz.
