Music isn't about music, it's about life.
Herbie HancockRead
I've been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how practicing Buddhism helps one understand their own humanity and the humanity of others.
Herbie Hancock expresses that his four decades of practicing Buddhism have profoundly impacted his journey of self-discovery and compassion. This journey has allowed him to recognize both his own humanity and the humanity of others, suggesting that spiritual practices can foster deeper awareness and empathy in interpersonal relationships.
In practice
During a speech about personal growth, one could use this quote to illustrate the impact of spirituality on understanding oneself.
Music isn't about music, it's about life.
I don't mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn't really start out that way. I started in classical music, but my formative years were in jazz, and it makes a great foundation.
In World War II, jazz absolutely was the music of freedom, and then in the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain, same thing. It was all underground, but they needed the food of freedom that jazz offered.
I think people have learned that Herbie Hancock can be defined as someone that you won't be able to figure out what he's going to do next. The sky is the limit as far as I'm concerned.
One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.
I started off with classical music, and I got into jazz when I was about 14 years old. And I've been playing jazz ever since.
I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I felt that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actor, kidding ourselves on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between those two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going.
No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him.
There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.
Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins - or which is which), the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer.
I'm sure that everybody feels a kind of permanent anguish about what's going on in the world.
Lord free me of myself, so I can please you!
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