Musical Direction Quotes

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

Following the example of Bruce Springsteen or Bob Seger, I wanted to have a band, a sound and a personality, yet maintain a singular position of being able to control and motivate the flow of things.

George was getting alot of independence for himself in those days. He was writing more, and wanted things to go his way - where, when we first started things basically went John and Paul's way. You know, 'cuz they were the writers.

I feel more confident about what we're doing as a band and what we're trying to do as a band and the way we're looking at it as a band.

I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that's in my head.

Conducting, I tried it once off the cuff, and quickly realized there were subtle aspects that I was missing. There is a lot more to it that I was able to grasp simply by watching conductors.

Conducting has more to do with singing and breathing than with piano-playing.

The writers and producers always have an idea, then they cast the role and the instrument starts to tell them how to play the music.

The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance.

If I feel like I'm going too far in one direction, I just can it. It's a weird thing. Some of my songs might be cheesy; I try and keep it light. It's hard to explain.

I was the music director at a dinner theater called the 'Pheasant Run Theater' in the suburbs of Chicago, and that was my side gig while I acted.

The most disappointing thing to me after 'Tusk' was the politics in the band. They said, 'We're not going to do that again.' I felt dead in the water from that. On 'Mirage,' I was treading water, saying, 'Okay, whatever,' and taking a passive role.

I have ambitions to do a Broadway record one of these days and get in the studio with like, a real orchestra. I'm a big musical theatre geek.

I was a schooled musician. When I made 'Blue Velvet', I told everyone what to do. I was an arranger. I learned music in school I told the band to play this. I told the guitar to do that.

There is no relationship between the gestures and what an orchestra will do.

I saw Al Foster with Miles Davis the other week. It was beautiful. But, the whole thing was, Al Foster played as well as everybody else, but all of them were quite brilliant under Miles Davis' direction.

'Anthem' was the record that almost didn't get made for a completely different reason than 'Underneath.'

Whether it's animated, whether it's live-action, whether it's Broadway, whether it's television, a musical is a musical is a musical. So, pretty much you approach the songs in pretty much the same way. The difference might be that in a film you have a close up. On stage you don't. So there are more songs on the stage because the songs are kind of the close up.

I needed to be sexier. I needed to be more hip. I needed to be more edgy and this and that. 'No, don't write that kind of song, write this type of song. No, don't work with that producer, work with this producer. No, don't wear those clothes, wear these clothes.' And I didn't want to be a puppet, you know?

There was no such thing as production at Starday. We'd go in with the band, we'd go over the song, I'd look over and tell the steel player to take a break or kick it off, and I'd get the fiddle to play a turnaround in the middle.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

Normally when I do an album, I have a concept behind it.

Through conducting, you express through your arms, through your face and even the body, what you want to tell, so the musicians of the orchestra understand.

Music is all about leadership and there ain't really a lot of leaders.

I have no idea where I want to go musically, but I'm fine that way. I don't need to be faithful to any concept, you know.