“Music was literally in the air at the time, the Vienna of 1780. Everybody played music, classical music. There were in fact so many musicians that in apartment buildings people had to come up with a schedule - you practice at 5 p.m., I'll practice at 6 p.m. That way the music didn't collide with one another.” PeopleWayFactsPracticeAirBuildingMusicianCome UpApartmentSchedulesClassical MusicViennaCollide Author:Eric Weiner
“I just look up to anyone who made music back then because you really had to be a musician. There were no samples or drum machines. Those people back in the day paved the way for people like me.” PeopleWayLooksMadeMusicianMachinesLike MeLook UpSampleBack In The Day Author:Rahki
“I used to love jungle. I still think it's the ultimate genre, really, because the people making it weren't musicians.” PeopleThinkingStillsUsedMusicianUltimateGenreJungleUsed To Love Author:Aphex Twin
“I've heard of people stopping their cars, having car wrecks, all kinds of things. But most of the banjo players I know had that moment when they heard Earl Scruggs. So, for me, it transcends the technique. It's the musician in him and his personality, his musical personality, such great taste, such great technique, very, very creative.” PeopleKnowsKindMomentsCreativePlayerHeardCarPersonalityTasteMusicianMusicalTechniqueAll KindsThat MomentStoppingWrecksBanjosCar WreckBanjo Players Author:Earl Scruggs
“Now, by and large, people are recording material to put on YouTube. I have a theory that YouTube is, in the end, the #1 media for musicians. Which is strange, because there's a visual associated with it.” PeopleEndsMediaStrangeMaterialsTheoryMusicianVisualsYoutube Author:Travis Morrison
“I like being a musician that's also a fly on the wall. I like people coming in the room and doing what they do and then leaving. I like attention, but it actually gives me a little less to work with as a performer if people are editing themselves and not being them.” PeopleIfsGivingLittlesRoomsAttentionWallMusicianGive MeLeavingPerformersEditing Author:Travis Morrison
“I know some people really try to avoid music when they're writing and recording, but I am very inspired by so many different musicians, and I need to learn. I sit around and try to play along to certain songs that I really love. It helps you explore new territory. I don't think I listen to enough.” PeopleThinkingKnowsNeedsWritingTryingDifferentEnoughPlayHelpingCertainSongMusicianInspiredTerritoryNew TerritoryVery Inspired Author:Devendra Banhart
“I met my manager when I was 17, when I didn't have enough money to buy a set of guitar strings. There are not very many people who are looking out for you and being in business with you when you're at that stage. And it's not in my nature to think that success as a musician makes you any different from anybody else.” PeopleThinkingDifferentEnoughStageMetsMusicianGuitarManagersStringsGuitar Strings Author:Johnny Marr
“By the time I was a senior in high school, I was constantly with my headphones, just making music all the time. People were calling me a "musician", and I found that so weird.” PeopleSchoolFoundCallingMusicianHigh SchoolSeniorHeadphonesHigh School Senior Author:Nicolas Jaar
“It's been nice to have a band and people I'm close to that I can get that understanding from and help me realize what I want to do in my life as a musician.” PeopleWantI CanHelpingUnderstandingRealizingNiceBandMusicianHelp Me Author:Blake Judd
“I think certain people would be moved to be nostalgic about America's glory days, when the music set the tone for the cultural conversation and popular musicians had this absurd level of authority.” PeopleThinkingWould BeAmericaCertainLevelsConversationAuthorityMusicianGloryMovedAbsurdToneNostalgicPopular MusicGlory Days Author:David Longstreth
“Even as a fan, as someone who's into his performances, the Stooges and his own stuff, Iggy [Pop] is one of the people who kept underlining something that a lot of my older musician friends with punk roots say: you get into this space in your life where you feel like a weirdo, you're marginalised, you don't fit in... and then you can get up on stage in front of people who probably hate you.” PeopleFeelsHateStuffSpaceFansStageFrontsFitMusicianRootsPerformancesPopsGet UpPunkHate YouWeirdoStooges Author:Babatunde Adebimpe
“I have a nice little idea from some people I met there who are now in their seventies, and I want to tell their story about the revolution through the eyes of musicians, in fact. The '59 Revolution. And what has happened to them since. It's very much a Cuban story. They haven't fared too well.” PeopleWantWellsLittlesIdeasFactsStoriesEyeNiceHappenedHavensRevolutionMetsMusicianSeventiesCubanThrough The Eyes Author:John Gimlette
“I'm having to cope with the fact that some people might consider me a musician.” PeopleFactsMightMusician Author:Grant Evans
“Learning how to record has been super empowering for me, because I spent so many years going into the studio and watching other people do it. I guess a lot of musicians have gone through this because now recording is really available for everybody.” PeopleYearsHas BeensGoneRecordsMusicianStudiosAvailableEmpowering Author:Julia Kent
“I'll leave it to other people to evaluate the legacy of my book, but I'm very moved when musicians tell me that they've been inspired by my book.” PeopleBookMusicianMovedInspiredLegacyEvaluate Author:Michael Azerrad
“It was like an exponential weed. And people treated me as if I was an established musician. I wasn't.” PeopleIfsMusicianTreatedWeed Author:Jack Tatum
“So many people I was at school with have all ended up being musicians and putting records out.” PeopleSchoolRecordsMusician Author:Kieran Hebden
“People call me a bedroom electronic musician, which I suppose I am. But I hate most electronic music; I find it really boring.” PeopleHateMusicianI HateBoringCall MeBedroomElectronic Music Author:Max Tundra
“It's like soul music, isn't it all soul music? Otherwise what is it, non-soul music? I-have-no-soul music? Soulless music? People need to put a name on something to identify it, and I understand it.” PeopleInspirationalNeedsSoulNamesUnderstandingMusicMusicianMusic IsSinger SongwritersIdentifyingMusic SoulSoulless Author:Mark Lanegan
“More people than ever are spending money to support more artists and musicians and give them more leisure time to build cereal balls...and the art world is eating those balls up!” PeopleWorldGivingArtArtistSupportEatingMusicianBallsSpendingLeisureArt WorldCerealSpending MoneyLeisure Time Author:Brian Chippendale
“I like to read. I've become obsessed with fiction. And it's too bad: I'm a musician many people love and I myself am not part of the music scene.” PeopleFictionSceneMusicianObsessed Author:Glenn Branca
“I think that there's a lot of good will that exists between musicians and the people that support them and listen to them.” PeopleThinkingSupportMusicianGood Will Author:Jeff Tweedy
“I think people want to put you in a box and close it away so that it makes them feel better. A lot of musicians get that.” PeopleThinkingWantFeelsMusicianBoxesFeel Better Author:Daniel Powter
“When you say what is the difference between me and my stage name the idea is that as a musician you always think of yourself as inhabiting a certain cultural space in the kind of a cultural landscape, so when I say cultural space what I mean to imply there is that you exist within certain parameters of how people think of culture.” PeopleThinkingKindMeanIdeasCertainCultureNamesDifferencesSpaceStageMusicianLandscapeThink Of YouParameters Author:DJ Spooky
“A lot of the people that I photograph are master musicians themselves, whether they're singers or great jazz players and it's kind of fun to figure out who they came up with and who they emulated or who they idolized actually.” PeopleKindFunPlayerFiguresMastersMusicianJazzPhotographSingersIdolized Author:Carol Friedman
“What I like about being a musician is that I find the thing soothing, but I also give the soothing to other people.” PeopleGivingMusicianSoothing Author:Sinead O'Connor
“He [Johnny Cash] was so fragile. We invaded Iraq in March, and he died in September. And because his health was so fragile, he couldn't take the controversy of making a public statement against the war. He knew that people were rabid. They attacked me mercilessly after I did the press conference with Musicians United to Win Without War. He knew that he couldn't tolerate that.” PeopleWarWinningUnitedMusicianDiedPressesIraqStatementsMarchFragileCashTolerateSeptemberConferencesControversyPress Conferences Author:Rosanne Cash
“We [with David Cunningham] did do Top Of The Pops. It was an eye-opener. I mean, one of the things that was so interesting - I've talked about this a few times recently, and people can't believe it - they used to do this thing called tape switch with the Musicians Union.” PeopleBelieveMeanEyeUsedInterestingMusicianUnionsPopsTapeCunninghams Author:David Toop
“I certainly know guys in comedy, I know some actors, and I definitely know some musicians, who have survived to a certain age and make a good living doing what they do, but nobody knows who they are. They wake up every day and they have the ability to get paid practicing their art, but underneath it all, if you scratched the surface, you still get, "If I only had my own show . . .," or "If I only had my own band . . ." It's what people always do when they want to be their own star.” PeopleIfsKnowsWantArtStillsShowsAgeGuyCertainActorsStarsMy OwnAbilityComedyBandMusicianWake UpPaidSurfaceSurvivedNobody KnowsGood Living Author:Denis Leary
“That’s why I make music. When I listen to my favorite music made by other people, that’s what it does to me. So as a musician, I’m just trying to do the same thing with music I make. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But when someone comes to me and says the music I’ve made has affected them emotionally, that’s the most gratifying part of my job.” PeopleTryingDoeMadeSometimesJobsMusicianMy FavoriteAffectedFavorite Music Author:Moby
“Musicians have the power to influence people and along with movie makers, they can reach and influence more people than any group of people, more than scientists and certainly more than politicians.” PeopleGroupsInfluencePoliticianMusicianScientistMakersInfluencing People Author:Paul Watson
“I once had a young musician come to me and say that he wanted to be a professional musician. I asked him to write his list. When he came back to me, the three things in his life he most wanted were: to be paid for his music; to travel around the world; to meet new people. We came to the decision, after thinking really creatively, that if he got a job on a cruise ship, he would fulfill those goals.” PeopleIfsThinkingWorldWritingWantedJobsYoungThreeGoalDecisionMusicianPaidListsShipsAround The WorldThree ThingsCruiseMeeting New PeopleCruise ShipsMost Wanted Author:Phil Keoghan
“I saw so many amazing musicians struggling to build something good. They would play and play... and play some more, but it seemed like there was something missing. I wanted to go someplace higher myself, and go there with the people who come to hear me play. So I began to envision events with their own gravity, that would pull a community of people together for a meaningful experience.” PeoplePlayWantedTogetherCommunityStruggleSawsMissingEventsHigherMusicianMeaningfulGravity Author:Dave Madden
“Some people don't listen to my music because they say that I am an artist. And some don't want to go to my gallery shows, because they say I am a musician.” PeopleWantShowsArtistMusicianMusic IsGallery Author:Yoko Ono
“It's weird. People want you to know that they write. They want you to know they're a musician, rather than making music or making stories. It's the strangest thing.” PeopleKnowsWantWritingStoriesMusicianWeird People Author:Scott McClanahan
“All professionals, whether physicists, economists or musicians, live by and for peer judgment, even when they are being paid by people who cannot tell the difference.” PeopleDifferencesJudgmentMusicianPaidLive ByPeersEconomistPhysicist Book:The Jazz Scene Source: The Jazz Scene
“My dad is an engineer by trade but worked a lot with the people in the Indian film industry when I was growing up. He started out distributing films from India here in the '70s because there was no place to go for people to watch movies from the homeland. So he developed a network of actors, writers, directors, and musicians that became his friends and that he would tour around the country with, doing stage shows of the musical numbers from their films.” PeopleCountryShowsFilmActorsNumbersWatchesGrowing UpGrowingStageIndustryDadDirectorsMusicianIndiaTradeMusicalMy DadIndianEngineersHomelandFilm IndustryPlaces To GoWatch Movie Author:Meera Menon
“I noticed a lot of bands always having a few people in the band being interested in recording and audio production, so I got the idea to create products that would appeal to them. Rather than create tools that only engineers could understand, I designed tools that any musician could use and get instant great sounding results.” PeopleIdeasUseResultsProductsBandMusicianToolsProductionsAppealsInstantEngineersAudio Author:Joey Sturgis
“I’m not saying that maybe there isn’t a kid out there whose behavior hasn’t been influenced by me in some way. I’m sure there is. But I can only speak for myself, and if you’d asked if my behavior had ever been affected by people I’d admired from afar, like musicians or footballers, that’d be a yes, totally.” PeopleIfsWayI CanKidsSpeakBehaviorMusicianAffectedFootballerAfar Author:Pete Doherty
“There actually had been a tradition within English music of the '60s of people looking eastwards, maybe in quite a naïve way, but nonetheless, you had musicians like George Harrison or Bryan Jones recording the musicians of Joujouka in North Africa.” PeopleWayMusicianTraditionBryanNorth AfricaEnglish Music Author:Justin Adams
“I think all musicians and producers, they know the real goal is to come up with a record that is entertaining and not boring, that's the goal. I think if everyone agrees that that's the goal then it doesn't matter who's the band and it doesn't matter who's the producer. It just means that that you try to realise the ambition no matter what the situation is or who the people are.” PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsTryingMeanRealMatterGoalSituationRecordsBandAmbitionMusicianNo Matter WhatAgreeCome UpBoringProducersRealisingEntertaining Author:Black Francis
“The cliché of that sort of wasted, renegade, drugged-out musician of the '70s is kind of dead and gone now. And I suppose that a lot of people still keep relying on that, or some kind of image to perpetuate something that they think they're supposed to sound like. But that kind of takes you away from real inspiration and, you know, real artistic discovery of the individual.” PeopleThinkingKnowsKindStillsRealInspirationIndividualSoundGoneMusicianDiscoveryArtisticRenegades Author:Chrissie Hynde
“I often call Daptone the Motown and Stax of today. But in some ways it's different. At Motown, a lot of the musicians didn't get recognized, music got stolen, and people didn't get paid. Or the label would just throw them a pinch of money for their songs. That is one thing we're not doing. Anything anyone writes here, we get a percentage.” PeopleWayWritingDifferentTodaySongOne ThingMusicianPaidLabelsStolenPercentagesMotown Author:Sharon Jones
“So far I've been very, very fortunate because it appears that people like to hear the music I like to play. What more fortunate position can a musician be in?” PeoplePlayPositionMusicianFortunate Author:Jimmy Page
“I had the opportunity, as a child, to grow up in a community center where I was exposed to theater, music, art, and computer science; things that I would have never had the opportunity to even meet had it not been for those people taking time out of their schedules, helping us as children to travel all over the world while sitting in a gymnasium. That's what I did before I was a musician, before I was a recording artist, I was a teacher and a community leader.” PeopleWorldChildrenArtHelpingArtistOpportunityGrowsCommunityLeaderGrowing UpTeacherComputerMusicianSittingTheaterExposedTake TimeSchedulesComputer ScienceGymnasiumsCommunity Centers Author:Erykah Badu
“My start came with experimental musicians and live bands. I never played with DJ's because it wasn't really the correct fit. It fit in more with someone using a laptop to create their own electronic music. When you're doing music like that, it's hard to get more than 20 people to come to your show.” PeopleHardShowsFitBandMusicianDjsLaptopsElectronic Music Author:Girl Talk
“I just hope that I'll stay around musically for as long as I can. I love to think that I will still be satisfying myself and other people as a musician until the day I die.” PeopleThinkingLongStillsI CanDiesMusicianSatisfying Author:George Michael
“People who are qualified are symphonic orchestra players and jazz musicians; they're qualified to do what they do. Rock stars are lucky. It's a combination of right time, right place and having certain genes or a gimmick or whatever, but it's really not anything more than sugar. It tastes good and goes away fast.” PeopleCertainStarsPlayerRocksTasteLuckyMusicianJazzCombinationSugarGenesRight TimeOrchestraQualifiedRock StarJazz MusicRight PlaceJazz MusicianGimmicks Author:Gene Simmons
“Patti [ Scialfa] was an artist and a musician and she was a songwriter. And she was a lot like me in that she was transient also. She worked busking on the streets in New York. She waitressed. She had - she just lived a life - she lived a musician's life. She lived an artist's life. So we were both people who were very uncomfortable in a domestic setting, getting together and trying to build one and seeing if our particularly strange jigsaw puzzle pieces were going to fit together in a way that was going to create something different for the two of us. And it did.” PeopleIfsWayTryingTwoDifferentTogetherArtistPiecesSeeingStreetsNew YorkStrangeFitMusicianSettingLike MeSettingsUncomfortableSongwritersPuzzlesTransientJust LiveTwo Of UsJigsawJigsaw PuzzlesPuzzle PieceBusking Author:Bruce Springsteen