I was listening to a lot of bebop. And to Miles Davis. Everyone thinks I was just in the folk world in 1966, but in 1963 and 1964, I was absorbing enormous amounts of music, from baroque to jazz to blues to Indian music.
How we absorb music is unique. I know what I do. When I'm listening to music, I tend to find myself in a song. That's what really makes you connect is if you feel what that song is saying.
Ninety percent of the time, when I put on my headphones, I forget to turn on my music. Literally 10 minutes will go by before I realize that there's no music.
I'll take two months off just to listen to records and not do any music so I can absorb all that and then when I go do my music. It's all in me. I'll listen to a different genre every two days or something, study it, 24 hours straight.
Jazz is not background music. You must concentrate in order to get the most out of it. You must absorb it.
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.
I never really saw my dad around when the Iron Maiden and the AC/DC were playing. But he knew what I was doing. I was just absorbing music. So he just kind of left me to my own devices.
I know so few people who actually give music their undivided attention, so I've been trying to just park myself on the couch between the speakers and listen.
As a musician, you are all the music that you absorb into your mind; that just subconsciously connects.
I was such a sponge with music.
When I first started listening to music intently as a teenager, I was always sitting there with a biro or a pencil, drawing. That's how I absorbed it all.
