QuoteProject
If you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!
Count Basie
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Focus on what resonates with you and repeat it to find success.

This quote by Count Basie emphasizes the importance of consistency in artistic expression. It suggests that if you discover something that feels right or inspires you, embrace it wholeheartedly and continue to explore it repeatedly, as repetition can lead to mastery and deeper understanding in art.

Themes

ArtMusicConsistencyExpressionSuccess

In practice

Example use cases

A musician might quote this while speaking to young artists about the importance of finding their signature sound.

More from Count Basie

I, of course, wanted to play real jazz. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch.
Count BasieRead
All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel ... and that's what I've been doing all my life.
Count BasieRead
I'll always remember when I first heard Lester [Young]. I'd never heard anyone like him before. He was a stylist with a different sound. A sound I'd never heard before or since. To be honest with you, I didn't much like it at first.
Count BasieRead
I'm saying: to be continued, until we meet again. Meanwhile, keep on listening and tapping your feet.
Count BasieRead
I never thought innovation as such was very important. Not when you have to think about it... If you're going to come up with a new direction or a really new way to do something, you'll do it by just playing your stuff and letting it ride. The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.
Count BasieRead
Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues.
Count BasieRead

Similar quotes

Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations so words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues.
PlotinusRead
The short story is an imploding universe. It has all the boil of energy inside it. A novel has shrapnel going all over the place. You can have a mistake in a novel. A short story has to be perfect.
Colum MccannRead
Even if the world ends, the Music will still survive...
Ustad Bismillah KhanRead
It is a peculiar part of the good photographer's adventure to know where luck is most likely to lie in the stream, to hook it, and to bring it in without unfair play and without too much subduing it.
James AgeeRead
Giving voice to marginalised characters is extremely important to me. I want to explore the pain of disenfranchisement, the social strata and boundaries we create and how to make them more permeable.
Sue Monk KiddRead
Sometimes I get the start of a story from a memory, an anecdote, but that gets lost and is usually unrecognizable in the final story.
Alice MunroRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.