Top 154 Quotes & Sayings by Herbie Hancock
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Herbie Hancock.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I'm a husband and a father.
It's easy to get sidetracked with technology, and that is the danger, but ultimately you have to see what works with the music and what doesn't. In a lot of cases, less is more. In most cases, less is more.
We need to move into a culture of peace. What I hope to promote is the idea that we all need each other and that the greatest happiness in life is not how much we have but how much we give. That's a wealth that's priceless. You can't buy compassion.
It's part of my nature. I get excited when trying out new stuff, whether it be an idea or equipment. It stimulates my juices.
Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.
It's part of life to have obstacles. It's about overcoming obstacles; that's the key to happiness.
We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment.
The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.
I just express myself in any way I feel is appropriate at the moment.
When I was six, my best friend's parents bought him a piano. My mother noticed that every time I would go to his house, the first thing I would say to him was 'Levester' - His name was Levester - I said, 'Levester, can I go play your piano?' So, on my 7th birthday, my parents bought me a piano.
The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.
It's not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.
I've been a religious, spiritual person for a long time.
I got a chance to work with Miles Davis, and that changed everything for me, 'cause Miles really encouraged all his musicians to reach beyond what they know, go into unknown territory and explore. It's made a difference to me and the decisions that I've made over the years about how to approach a project in this music.
You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom.
We need to put into practice the idea of embracing other cultures. We need to be shaping the kind of world we want to live in instead of waiting for someone else or some other entities to do it for us.
While knowledge may provide useful point of reference, it cannot become a force to guide the future.
I've been curious ever since I was a little kid.
It's not easy to play in a framework that requires simplicity and to tastefully find ways to interject the kind of freedom that we have in playing jazz.
The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique.
I am not fundamentally a musician, I am fundamentally a human being.
I try stuff. I synthesize what's of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.
World peace is no longer some pie-in-the-sky thing, because no single person or country is going to solve it on their own.
Jazz is about being in the moment.
Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference.
You make different colors by combining those colors that already exist.
My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement.
The strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what's really inside, it's just not going to be there.
Forget about trying to compete with someone else. Create your own pathway. Create your own new vision.
The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.
I think risk-taking is a great adventure. And life should be full of adventures.
One of the most important functions of jazz has been to encourage a hope for freedom, for people living in situations of intolerance or struggle.
As a human being, I'm concerned about the world that I live in. So, I'm concerned about peace. I'm concerned about - about man's inhumanity to man. I'm concerned about the environment.
I hope that I can make good music out of whatever genre I go into. Just to prove to myself that I can.
I don't go around, the way many musicians do, with earbuds in my ear listening to my iPod all day and just sticking my head in the music all the time.
I like to present something that the people haven't seen or haven't heard before. Otherwise they might as well just stay home and play the record.
Most people define themselves by what they do - 'I'm a musician.' Then one day it occurred to me that I'm only a musician when I'm playing music - or writing music, or talking about music. I don't do that 24 hours a day. I'm also a father, a son, a husband, a citizen - I mean, when I go to vote, I'm not thinking of myself as 'a musician.'
I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we learn.
I'm not special, no more special than anybody else.
Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human.
It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.
Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.
When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn't I couldn't do my best.
I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.
Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.
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.
It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.
I'm always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.
I try to practice with my life.
Sometimes you have to create a vision, a path for a vision. It may not be apparent, and you may have to forge it yourself. And that will be the way to move your life forward.
Creativity shouldn't be following radio; it should be the other way around.
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.
You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life.
I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.
Miles' sessions were not typical of anybody else's sessions. They were totally unique.
Globalization means we have to re-examine some of our ideas, and look at ideas from other countries, from other cultures, and open ourselves to them. And that's not comfortable for the average person.
The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom.
My father was really good with math. It's a funny thing, I don't remember my father or my mother being so mechanical-minded. My father always wanted to be a doctor, but he came from a really poor family in Georgia, and there was no way he was going to be a doctor.
Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.
The music becomes something that is its own entity.
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