“There was a f**king review in f**king Melody Maker [of the first BOSSANOVA single, 'Velouria'] - 'Sounds like someone's been taking singing lessons'. Like, motherf**king A! I am the singer. Who do sing SONGS. It's like I never sang before; like I was - I don't know - reading PROSE on my previous records and now I sing. EXCUUUUUUSE me for singing” KnowsFirstsSongReadingSoundRecordsKingsLessonsSingingSingersProseMelodyMakersReviews Author:Black Francis
“Singing in Spanish is much more honest, much closer to my roots. For me, Spanish is essential. I still think in Spanish, dream in Spanish. It's the melodies and arrangements that transmit meaning.” ThinkingStillsDreamHonestEssentialsSingingRootsMelodyArrangementsTransmit Author:Juanes
“When I first started making music, it was learning other peoples songs and putting them onto four-track. Like Beatles songs and stuff. When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas.” WritingFirstsIdeasUsedSongStuffSidesFourSingingTrackProductionsMelodyVehicleLyrical Author:M. Ward
“I know I have a very unusual style of playing, where other more recognized and technically proficient players might look at me and wonder what the heck I'm doing. The purpose of my learning to play the way I do was more to accompany my singing. I figured out a style where I'm mentally playing the drums over a simple melody.” KnowsWayLooksPlayMightPurposeSimpleWonderPlayerStyleSingingMelodyUnusualLook At MeAccompany Author:Dave Matthews
“Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing. And you start talking yourself out of the bold melody and start wanting to arrange it in another key or something. Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.” WritingSometimesSoundNaturalTalkingKeysSingingDifficultyHarmonyNotesOddMelodyPerfectly Natural Author:Elvis Costello
“What I love about '80s rock music is the amazing, fantastic melodies. In pop music, it's all about the techno beat to dance to in the club and the repetitiveness, whereas in rock music there is literally, like, balls-to-the-wall singing and playing. I love it.” RocksWallMusic IsBeatsSingingBallsClubsPopsFantasticMelody80sPop MusicRock MusicTechnoBalls To The Wall Author:Julianne Hough
“I've always felt that singing is half technical, half taxing. You've got words, a melody, and an instrument, and you have to do justice to the words. You're just a medium for people to feel the song.” PeopleFeelsSongFeltJusticeHalfSingingInstrumentsMediumsMelody Author:D.A. Wallach
“I enjoy singing the songs a certain way, but I don't even know how the writing even began. To me, it's work that is kind of invisible; it's a weird kind of work to have because you're not working, but it's not not work. Formulating your thoughts and making a melody that's catchy enough for people to listen to what you're saying is really hard!” PeopleKnowsWayWritingKindHardEnoughCertainSongEnjoyKnow HowSingingInvisibleMelodyCatchy Author:Angel Olsen
“My background is Protestant so I benefited from the great Bible teaching that was provided there... I did love the more culturally classical things, like Irish music, which I think is some of the most congregational-style music when you think of... 'St. Patrick's Breastplate' (and) 'Danny Boy.' These are traditional Irish melodies. I think being brought up there (Ireland) gave me a sense of melody that is very attuned to congregational singing.” ThinkingBoysTeachingStyleSingingBackgroundsTraditionalMelodyIrelandProtestantsSt PatrickIrish Music Author:Keith Getty
“When you're just singing a beautiful melody with a story that's true to the heart, you don't need a lot of embellishment.” NeedsHeartStoriesBeautifulSingingMelodyEmbellishment Author:Emmylou Harris
“I love hearing strong, confident beats in music because I love to dance. At the same time, melody is really important to me because I love singing.” ImportantStrongMusic IsBeatsSingingHearingMelody Author:Manika
“The first song I wrote and had published was titled "Just As Long As That Someone Is You". It was written in 1959, and recorded in 1965 by Jimmy Ellege. I started writing songs because I wanted something of my own to sing. I, at that time, was not aware that the songs I heard on the radio were not written by the folks singing them. I had always loved poetry, and found it easy to integrate a melody with poetry.” WritingFirstsLongWantedSongFoundEasyMy OwnWrittenHeardSingingFolksRadioMelodyJimmyIntegratingWriting Songs Author:Mickey Newbury
“When I started writing, I used the singing side of the production as a vehicle for melody and lyrical ideas. Eventually, that process of using my voice to bring ideas across became more complicated, and I felt I could use it more as an expressive tool.” WritingIdeasUseUsedFeltProcessSidesVoiceSingingToolsProductionsComplicatedMelodyVehicleLyricalExpressive Author:M. Ward
“I used to listen to music from the frosting down. As a word nerd, lyrics are really important to me, and then the melody. Playing in the Rock*A*Teens was the first time I ever heard music from the bottom up. I was hearing songs I'd heard a million times on oldies radio, and I'd be like, "Wow, listen to what the bass is doing!" When I was first singing in bands, I'd just get out there with my machete, wildly whacking away at the foliage. But you learn how to listen. When I feel I'm doing it right, it's 90% listening and 10% output. It's not "look what I can do!"” FeelsFirstsLooksI CanImportantUsedSongCan DoMillionsHeardRocksListeningBandSingingFirst TimeBottomRadioHearingMelodyWowTeensNerdListening To MusicBassOutputFoliageMachetesOldies Author:Kelly Hogan
“In the morning I'd write these essays, anything that I'd feel like writing, and in the afternoon, I'd spend time with my guitar. I had decided after listening to my last four or five albums that my biggest weakness musically was melody. the reason I had been singing in a monotone over the chord patterns in my songs was that I never practiced doing melodies.” FeelsWritingReasonLastsSongMorningFiveFourListeningSingingWeaknessDecidedGuitarPatternsAlbumsMelodyAfternoonSay AnythingEnd TimesEssaysChordsSpend TimeDoing Me Author:Iggy Pop
“I certainly think there are things that impressed me as a child about the church. The smells and the sounds and the pagaentry of it remained with me. The aesthetic I really love. I think a lot of my sense of melody comes from singing those hymns and doing the renaissance music and stuff.” ThinkingChildrenStuffSoundChurchSingingSmellMelodyAestheticImpressedRenaissanceHymns Author:Jonathan Meiburg
“In fact, I love singing. I just have a small problem with pitch, tune, melody, and lyrics. But that's never stopped me.” FactsProblemSingingTunesMelodySmall Problems Author:Kevin Daniels
“Maybe I'm not giving people in the audience enough credit for actually thinking about what they're singing, but it's awesome when a rock'n'roll groove and melody can transport something from Barometer Rising or whatever [ed: it's from 1958's The Watch That Ends the Night] into [Toronto's] Molson Ampitheatre and have people just owning it.” PeopleThinkingGivingEndsEnoughNightWatchesAudienceRocksSingingCreditRisingMelodyRock N RollTransportTorontoGrooveBarometerOwning It Author:Sarah Harmer
“Singing a melody is like a lot of easier and when you sing harmony you have to really kind of know music and listen to the music and be able to hear the notes or whatever.” KindSingingHarmonyMelody Author:Kenan Thompson
“Vocals are not central to what I do, and I've never liked singing live. I've always been more inspired by rhythm, texture, harmony than vocal melodies and lyrics. Plus, for me, I can better express my musical ideas through instrumental music than vocal music, the emotional interpretation of which can easily supersede the actual musical content or aim.” EmotionalSingingHarmonyAimInspiredMusicalRhythmMelody Author:Laurel Halo
“I think it all comes back to the individual. My instrument's just a pile of metal and wood! If you listen to the way I speak I have a lot of rhythm, use a lot of accents. When I'm playing my instrument that concept comes through very clearly. In fact some people who've seen me play have noticed that I'm singing - but it's more that I'm actually speaking. So it's not really about the instrument. But for me, in my thinking, the music is all about the melody. When I compose, 99 percent of the time I start with the melody.” PeopleThinkingIndividualSpeakMusic IsSingingRhythmMelodyMetals Author:Stefon Harris
“I write lyrics really fast. When it's time to write, I usually put them off until the very end and then when it's time to write I can just sit down: I sing the melody, whatever the melody is, because that's the first thing that's already been there for a long time; I start singing it and I start creating consonants and vowels; then they turn into words; then all of the sudden one sentence will happen; then that sentence will dictate how the rest of the sentences happen.” WritingLongSingingMelodyOne Sentence Author:Luke Temple
“There's a unique component of music that is different from, the written pamphlet or a speech. There's something, when you get the right combination of rhythm, melody and the right lyrical couplet, that feels like truth in the reptilian brain. There's something hardwired in our D.N.A.. And when you get a large group of people singing together in solidarity, it's something that, in my experience, and I've played countless demonstrations and protests through the years, it's something that can really help a struggle.” PeopleDifferentHelpingTogetherBrainStruggleUniqueSingingRhythmProtestMelodySolidarityLyrical Author:Tom Morello
“Roger Waters isn't a "great" singer but he's always able to communicate this intense desperation. At times he's not even singing, but shouting. There's no melody and his shouting isn't even in key with the song.” SongWaterSingingCommunicateIntenseMelodyDesperation Author:John Congleton
“Elton John can be a master of the sleight of hand. The arrangements make it seem like there are substantial melodies underneath the tracks - but almost nothing demands repeated listenings. Similarly, he always sounds like he's singing up a storm, but his voice glosses over the material, reducing most things to an uninteresting sameness.” HandsSeemsSoundVoiceMaterialsMastersListeningDemandSingingTrackStormMelodyArrangementsReducingSamenessGlossSleight Of Hand Author:Jon Landau
“They were singing in French, but the melody was freedom and any American could understand that.” SingingSightMelody Author:Audie Murphy
“Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashipn the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.” SoundVoiceSingingHarmonyFilledDepthHearingEndlessHeightThemeMelodyVoidOrgansEchoesDwellingPipeWovenTrumpetsGreat MusicChoirHarpsSilmarillionChoir Singing Author:J. R. R. Tolkien
“I had a dream that Louis Armstrong was playing the 'Swept Away' melody. I have no idea where it came from. But Louis Armstrong was playing it and singing the song to me. I woke up-it's a borrowed melody no doubt-and wrote it down. If I hear a song and I choose not to put it down, that's me neglecting to accept that song. I think there's a very spiritual and godly-type ting that happens, and it happens to way more people than we know. It's just that very few of us choose to engage it.” PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsWayWritingIdeasDreamHappensSpiritualSongAcceptingDoubtTypeSingingNo IdeaNo DoubtNeglectMelodySongwritingGodlyBorrowedI Had A DreamArmstrongSwept Away Author:Scott Avett
“What comes first? The melody, always. It's all about singing the melodies live in my head. They go in circles. I guess I'm quite conservative and romantic about the power of melodies. I try not to record them on my Dictaphone when I first hear them. If I forget all about it and it pops up later on, then I know it's good enough. I let my subconscious do the editing for me.” IfsKnowsTryingFirstsEnoughForgetRecordsSingingConservativePopsCirclesMelodySongwritingGood EnoughEditingSubconscious Author:Bjork