Musical Instinct Quotes

I'm a guy who doesn't know the name of the chord, but I know that it sounds good.

I just hear a beat and start mumbling words. I just hear sounds and rhythms, and it just kind of comes intuitively. Formatting a song, figuring out a flow, how I respond to the beat.

As a songwriter, you're never off - for me, anyway. There's a certain mentality of people that decide, "Oh, we're going to try to write songs from this time of the day to this time of the day." Almost treat it like a real job. I can't do that. I've never been able to write songs like that. You never know when something creative is going to hit you, or emotion or whatever. You can take it, and turn it into something that makes somebody feel something. I love that about my job.

The music has to drive you. That's just it. You follow it. You follow the songs.

If I crave a frequency in the mid, I'll just drag in a sound and try to mold it into what feels right. It happens very quickly. And if I've been making a piece of music for five hours and it sucks, I'll just throw it away.

I first heard Laura Branigan sing live in my brother Nesuhi's apartment, where we had gone because he had a very good piano. I immediately realized that she had a great pop voice, in the classical sense. Laura had an instinctive feel for music and melody, and her delivery was sensational. Everybody at Atlantic knew that we had a winner in this young lady, and she came through with great hits that will be remembered for many years to come. I consider Laura to be one of my best signings, and I am proud to have had such a great singer in my career in the record business. We miss her dearly.

I thought everybody had falsetto. And since I wasn't a schooled singer who studied with anybody, I just thought anybody who had a voice could do anything they wanted with their voice.

Some people have said that I can 'hear' a hit song, meaning that I can tell the first time a song is played for me if it has potential. I have been able to hear some of the hits that way, but I can also 'feel' one.

I think after a long tour and after an album, your brain feels like it wants to relax, but at the same time, making music for me is something that comes kind of naturally. Just like a brain process.

And, so, when I picked up the guitar, suddenly, just playing a couple of notes really, really spoke to me. It was almost like I should have been doing it prior to that. You know, it was something that just felt really natural.

I asked for a guitar when I was 8 years old for Christmas. I have no idea why. I never had any guitar heroes. I still don't. But there must have been something in me because I've been playing for 30 years.

I just do what sounds good to me, and people seem to like it.

I don't really sing... I just hear notes so I know what it's supposed to sound like, if that makes sense. You ever hear someone try to teach a choir how to sing, but they can't sing? That's me.

I just knew I had to play the guitar.

I started writing songs before I could talk - at three or four. It was in me, and I had to get it out. It was all freestyle, which is how I write anyway. I don't write the words down; I scat and come up with the melody, then the lyrics.

I think some people just have an innate musical ability, and I'm lucky enough to be one of those people.

When it comes to making a song, whatever the beat tells me to do, I do.

I can't read music. That's not where I come from musically. I come strictly from feeling, and that feeling comes from rock & roll.

My first instrument was my voice. I was always singing and writing melodies when I was a little kid. I just sort of taught myself whatever was around. If there were instruments around, I'd play them. I always liked the idea of not being shown but coming up with my own energetic connection to the instrument.

Music comes out of me most naturally and would be the hardest to give up forever.

It's always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don't know where it comes from, it's just there and I don't question it.

Guitar playing is just something that came to me and is really second nature now.

I can't even read music. All I know is whether I think it sounds good and if I like what I'm doing.

My mother played a little bit of the old time clawhammer. She tuned the banjo up and picked one tune for me, and it just become natural to me. When she picked it, I just started and picked it, too.

I'll tell you what's crazy: Nobody in my family is musically inclined, no form, fashion, anything. I always had some type of connection to music though. This was long before I ever knew that I could sing, or I ever even tried to start singing. It was something different, man, it made me feel some type of way.