Explore Quotes by Charlie Haden

There's enough dismemberment going on in the world without writing music about it.

The bass, no matter what kind of music you're playing, it just enhances the sound and makes everything sound more beautiful and full. When the bass stops, the bottom kind of drops out of everything.

When we first started playing we did a lot of rehearsing. We used to write out everything. In fact, that's the way everybody rehearses: we play the tunes and improvise.

If you strive to become a good human being with the qualities of generosity, humility and having reverence for life...just maybe you'll become a great musician.

Chris (Anderson) is risking his life with every chord, that's how much it means to him. He has such a reverence for beauty, he plays like an angel.

It used to be that creative music was most of the music that you heard back in the '30s and '40s, and now it's like 3 percent. So, its kind of a struggle getttin' it out there.

I think it’s very important to live in the present. One of the great things that improvising teaches you is the magic of the moment that you’re in … because when you improvise you’re in right now. You’re not in yesterday or tomorrow—you’re right in the moment. Being in that moment really gives you a perspective of life that you never get at any other time as far as learning about your ego… You have to see your unimportance before you can see your importance and your significance to the world.

I just try to play music from my heart and bring as much beauty as I can to as many people as I can. Just give them other alternatives, especially people who arent exposed to creative music.

I learned at a very young age that music teaches you about life. When you're in the midst of improvisation, there is no yesterday and no tomorrow — there is just the moment that you are in. In that beautiful moment, you experience your true insignificance to the rest of the universe. It is then, and only then, that you can experience your true significance.

The whole underlying theme for the new music... is to communicate honest, human values, and in doing that to try to improve the quality of life.

You have to see your unimportance before you can see your importance and your significance to the world.

As long as there are musicians who have a passion for spontaneity, for creating something thats never been before, the art form of jazz will flourish.

I think life is really hard sometimes. It's not easy to wake up every day and go through what you go through. But the beautiful moments that you share with people that you love, or even experience alone, are worth all of the pain and sorrow. Those moments should be cherished, and I think that's what music is all about-to remind people of the beautiful moments that are in everybody's life

Creative Arts raise a person to another level of consciousness as if you could imagine life before words.

In the midst of creating, a person is raised to another level of consciousness that doesn't have that much to do with everyday thinking. It's as if you could imagine life before there were words.