'Music for Relief' has played a vital role in helping get aid to people who most need it. We are deeply honored to participate in what will likely be our biggest event to date.
When I was 14, I came very close to becoming a gay teen suicide 'statistic,' but I then turned to music, my piano, my loved ones, and discovered that it does in fact get better.
Musicians are there in front of you, and the spectators sense their tension, which is not the case when you're listening to a record. Your attention is more relaxed. The emotional aspect is more important in live music.
Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others.
I'm older than I was, and I'm still washed-up, and I haven't changed my music one iota. It's just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.
Certainly being in California has encouraged a sustained commitment to rethinking the nature, purposes, and relevance of the contemporary arts, specifically music, for a society which by and large seems to manage quite well without them.
You know, there're no rules between Russell and I. We don't want to have to have to talk too much, because it's really precious, really special to play music.
People don't want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video.
I was always keen to get involved in the school drama productions and was a member of the school choir. I was lucky to have attended schools that took music and drama very seriously and the teachers were just brilliant.
Under Confucianism, the use of precisely measured court music, prescribed steps, actions, and phrases all added up to an extremely complex system of rituals, each used for a particular purpose at a particular time.
Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you - and kill you the long, slow, hard way.
I started to like blues, I guess, when I was about 6 or 7 years old. There was something about it, because nobody else played that kind of music.
I think music naturally wants to be played with more than one person. There's a surprise element, and you don't know what it will be, and it's up to that other person's energy to help create this third thing.
Miles Davis turned his back to the audience when he came out on stage, and he offended people. But, he wasn't there to entertain; he was all about the music. I kind of do that.
The piano is the X factor. People have a tough time following the structures when there's no piano there, spelling it out. It makes it more easily understood, particularly to people who don't know as much about music.
The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.
There's a certain kind of motion and pacing that our music has, and this just doesn't have that. We just kind of rushed to the conclusion of most of the songs. I just would've preferred to done them over.
I think they can co-exist. You don't have to put one down for another. I've been bitten by the acting bug, and where it takes me, it won't take away from the music.
I'm from the Bob Wills and the Little Richard school of music. Bob Wills did what the hell he thought, Little Richard did what he thought, and those were my big influences.
Sondheim writes the music and lyrics, and because he's so smart and goes so deep with his feelings, there's a lot to explore, get involved with and learn about.
At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.
