I did a long concert tour in England and Denmark and Sweden, and I also sang for the Soviet people, one of the finest musical audiences in the world.
When I was to come to Washington the first time as Music Director of the Boston Symphony, Mrs. Johnson phoned us to find out if they could give us a party and who we would like to meet.
Once I was checking to hotel and a couple saw my ring with Blues on it. They said, 'You play blues. That music is so sad.' I gave them tickets to the show, and they came up afterwards and said, 'You didn't play one sad song.'
I think wherever you go, when people hear good music, they will react to it.
We do play to our audience. It's very important. You can't create music in a vacuum.
If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune.
It's really, really great; it's special when people embrace your music.
The level on which Japan seems to have picked up on my music seems to be on a more abstract level.
It's an amazing experience to perform in Nagpur! Music aficionados here appreciate good music and shower their love magnanimously on artistes.
American audiences are great. They get what I am doing, but as my band will tell you, nowhere tops the Irish audience. They are just brilliant. They are very open, but the Americans and Spanish come a close second.
Music is very abstract. When we talk about music, we're not discussing the music itself but rather how we react to it.
I love learning how people hear my music because everyone has different references.
You really only understand whether a song's good or not when you properly play it out in public for the first time.
Listening is more important than anything else because that's what music is. Somebody is playing something and you're receiving it. It is sending and receiving.
Each album you make, each body of music, you just never know how the world's going to relate to it.
I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back here telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.
