I dedicated all the time I had to it. The 10 hour workout was just what I put in the magazine at the time, but for me it was every waking moment.
Steve VaiRead
When you get down to it, the way that the music affects you individually is the most important thing, and when you let things like the location of a band get in the way or have an effect on your overview, you're cheating yourself out of a really good time.
Interpretation
The impact of music on the individual experience is paramount, and external factors should not detract from that enjoyment.
This quote emphasizes that the personal connection and emotional response that music evokes in an individual are what truly matter. It suggests that distractions, such as the setting or status of the musicians, can hinder one’s ability to fully appreciate and enjoy music, and by allowing these distractions to affect your view, you might be depriving yourself of a valuable experience.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the subjective nature of art during a music appreciation class.
I dedicated all the time I had to it. The 10 hour workout was just what I put in the magazine at the time, but for me it was every waking moment.
I think every artist subconsciously wants to evolve themselves. Sometimes they get stuck in ruts because of pop culture, peer pressure, stuff like that. But what excites me most is exploring my own musical insights and expanding upon them.
If you want to play something that you hear, you need to listen with your mind's eye. You've heard of the mind's eye, right? Your mind has an ear too. It's a kind of listening, but it's not using your ears to listen. It's listening with your inner ear, and that's what you want to translate onto the guitar.
The tone is in your fingers, not in your amp or effects.
I could never overstate the importance of a musician's need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good 'inner ear' - the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening - is the most important element in becoming a good musician.
If you want to play something that you can't, you need to see and hear yourself doing it in your minds eye. It will start to happen
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant.
Attempts to put my poems to music have had disastrous results in all cases. And the poem, if it's written with the ear, already has been set to its own verbal music as it was composed.
The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are.
In a live performance, it's a collaboration with the audience; you ride the ebb and flow of the crowd's energy. On television, you don't have that.
When I first heard the minstrel banjo - I played a gourd first - I almost lost my mind. I was like, Oh, my god. And then I went to Africa, to the Gambia, and studied the akonting, which is an ancestor of the banjo, and just that connection to me was just immense.
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