A trumpet sounds pretty much like a trumpet, and that's true of a lot instruments; pianos sound like pianos, but there's something about the guitar - the range of possibilities is much broader.
It's not about how loud you turn the amp up. That's not what makes it sound big. What makes it sound big is fooling around with different delays and reverb settings.
I think I'm a vocal genius, not a musical genius. I like background vocals. I consider myself a voice, not a singer. A voice is a sound, and singing is what you do with that sound.
Well, you know it was so different from when you rehearsed. You're out there with your guitar and trying to get a sound, but it doesn't sound anything like what you expect!
And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.
We are a categorically obsessed culture, where we have to compartmentalize everything in reference to another thing, like, 'What does it sound like? Does it sound like this?'
The Beatles production is often so 'perfect' that it sounds computerized. 'Sgt. Pepper' really does sound like it took four months to make.
Every time I went into the studio some engineer tried to impress me with how they're going to capture my sound with all kinds of tricks. But they limited the sound and never allowed me to play how I felt.
Cherry: Name's Cherry Darling... Wray: Sounds like a stripper name Cherry: No, it sounds like a go-go dancer name. There's a difference.
Agent Smith: You hear that Mr. Anderson?... That is the sound of inevitability... It is the sound of your death... Goodbye, Mr. Anderson... Neo: My name... is Neo.
Liesl: How else are we supposed to get Father's attention? Brigitta: Yes. Maria: Well, we'll have to think about that one.
Marta: I'm Marta, and I'm going to be seven on Tuesday, and I'd like a pink parasol. Maria: Well, pink's my favorite color, too.
The Baroness: You're far away. Where are you? Captain von Trapp: In a world that's disappearing, I'm afraid.
Maria: There were times when we would look at each other - oh Mother, I could hardly breathe.
I think I could walk into any music shop anywhere and with a guitar off the rack, a couple of basic pedals and an amp I could sound just like me. There's no devices, customized or otherwise, that give me my sound.
Music deals with time and timing. It's so magical, but when you get into it, every little sound and every little space between the sounds, it's critical, so critical. And if it's not there, it not only feels wrong, but it ruins things.
I have to say that getting to tackle Maria in 'The Sound of Music' at Carnegie Hall was surreal. When I heard my voice, it was all I could do to keep myself from doing a British accent and sound like Julie Andrews!
The ephemeral part of this work is that in music production, the sounds evolve so much faster than it used to, which means that you really have to put in a lot of work and effort in constantly designing the next sound that will move the culture forwa...
In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing. It makes sense. But I had always admired filmmakers who made movies that didn't sound like them at all.
For example, after developing a sound similar to an elephant trumpeting, I wrote the song Elephant Talk which gave my elephant sound an appropriate place to live.
In English, the sounds and melodies I created were an inspiration to me, and words came to me as I explored the sounds, and from there I was able expand on the meaning.
