Melodic Phrasing Quotes

If I play anything that sounds like a solo, it's gonna sound like a lyric.

Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpoints to hack post-horses.

But if you listen to great piano players, both classical and jazz, there's a huge range of dynamics and colors and emotional expression that's possible with the instrument.

When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they’re talking to us. When I was figuring out how to perform solo, I wanted to move back and forth between bass riffs, melody, and harmony, so I often used sounds instead of — or alongside — the words of a song. I found that if I sang a line using the consonants, vowels, shadings, and inflection we recognize as human language sounds, people responded as if I were talking to them.

Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa più, meno sa— Who knows most, knows least.

No matter how long you play the guitar, there's always something else to learn.

There was a subtlety about Peggy Lee. It was powerful. There was a valuable use of space. Everything was not cluttered. Her voice was out front and was the key instrument.

I've never been into the typical R&B voice, with runs and bluesy sounding words. That doesn't suit me.

Somewhere along the line the rhythms and tonalities of music elided in my brain with the sounds that words make and the rhythm that sentences have.

I can hear the youthfulness of my playing on, say, 'Hold The Line.'

In improvising, you've got your scale; you've got the notes that are going to sound good with other notes, the intervals that are going to sound good. But you've also got all the chromatic possibilities, the possibilities of sounding dissident, of being unexpected.

My music has always been strong in melodic content.

I like Stan [Getz], because he has so much patience, the way he plays those melodies - other people can't get nothing out of a song, but he can, which takes a lot of imagination.

When I perform Strauss, it is as if the music fits me like a glove. My voice seems to lie in a happy area in this music, which is lyrical and passionate at the same time.

Wherever you find a sentence musically worded, of true rhythm and melody in the words, there is something deep and good in the meaning too.

As a melody instrument player, it's all about getting from one note to the next, and those intervals and how you navigate your way through these vertical structures of chords. You realize that everything's moving forward, and it's all linear.

Tum Tak' is a beautiful thought and is a rhythmic expression. It's been composed beautifully. It may sound easy but is difficult to attempt or sing it live.

Most of the dramatism in Wagner comes from a very close link between the music and the language of the text. So much of the expressivity of Wagner's music dramas comes from the singers' capacity to play with the sound of the language. This kind of thing you can do very well in concert performance.

I'm glad I get singled out for my slide guitar-playing, which isn't that difficult to do. I didn't take guitar lessons, but I just love the way it sounds, almost like the human voice.

My dad started teaching me how to play guitar when I was 13 years old. When he'd go to work, he'd map out guitar cords on a piece of notebook paper. I'd sit down and look at it every day and practice while he was gone.

Playing the sax and then enjoying jazz music, man - it's like I learned how to find words inside of the beat.

There's a quality to the sound of a trumpet that you can really twist for any kind of sound and mood that you want to create.

Among the guitarists, Wes Montgomery is fantastic. He's always good to let you know what the art form is all about. It's the same still life that everybody is painting, but in comes Wes Montgomery, and it's right there!

That's the thing about the blues: It's one thing to hit a note on a guitar. To make it matter is something else altogether.

It is the closest instrument to the human voice, and the things you can do on the cello... there are endless possibilities.