Top 154 Quotes & Sayings by Herbie Hancock - Page 2

I hope to use dialogue and culture as a means of bringing people of various cultures together, and using that as a way to resolve conflict.

In the past, there's always been one leader that has led the pack to development of the music.

My hope is that the music will serve as a metaphor for the actions taken by the inhabitants of this wonderful planet as a call for world harmony on all levels.

One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.

Since time is a continuum, the moment is always different, so the music is always different.

The Internet opens up a whole new range of possibilities in a wide range of areas.

I've had a life that has taken many interesting paths. I've learned a lot from mentors who were instrumental in shaping me, and I want to share what I've learned.

Music truly is the universal language.

I've been practising Buddhism for forty years, and that's what has led me to this path of discovering my own humanity and recognizing the humanity in others.

Nobody told me I was a child prodigy.

To my wife, I'm not Herbie Hancock the musician. I'm her husband. When I'm talking to a neighbor, I'm a neighbor. When I vote, I'm a citizen.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

I started off with classical music, and I got into jazz when I was about 14 years old. And I've been playing jazz ever since.

But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already.

I think I was supposed to play jazz.

I've always been interested in science. I used to take watches apart and clocks apart, and there's little screws, and a little this and that, and I found out if I dropped one of them, that thing ain't gonna work.

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.

One of the greatest experiences I ever had was listening to a conversation with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter. Just to hear them talking, my mouth was open. They understand each other perfectly, and they make these leaps and jumps because they don't have to explain anything.

Back in the day for me was a great time in my life - I was in my 20s. Most people refer to their experiences in their twenties as being a highlight in their life. It's a period of time where you often develop your own way, your own sound, your own identity, and that happened with me, when I was with a great teacher - Miles Davis.

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.

Each human being exists because there's something they have to offer for the evolution of the universe that only they can fulfill.

I don't see how we can have both the freedoms we had before and the safety net that we all need considering the way the world is today. And that's just because human beings can't trust each other. We've given in over and over to some of the darkest elements that exist in life itself.

Being vulnerable is allowing yourself to trust. That's hard for a lot of people to do. They feel a lot more secure if they kind of put walls around themselves. Then they don't have to trust anybody but themselves.

One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.

I like the idea of an eclectic approach, incorporating jazz with other forms and other genres of music.

When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your life never ends.

Hip-hop is all over the planet.

When you talk about 'doing the work', that's the work I'm interested in. What can I contribute as a human being?

Music is not the only reason that I practice Buddhism anymore because it has affected my whole life.

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.

All you have to do is play one note. But it needs to be the right note.

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.

Getting the Oscar had the biggest impression on me.

I don't view myself as a musician anymore - I view myself as a human being that functions as a musician when I'm functioning as a musician, but that's not 24 hours a day. That's really opened me up to even more perspectives because now I look at music, not from the standpoint of being a musician, but from the standpoint of being a human being.

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

It is people's hearts that move the age.

I'm one of the people who was a pioneer in encouraging musicians, early in the game, to get interested in technology, and now all the musicians are getting into it.

Take whatever happens and try to make it work.

I like to be on the edge, on the cutting edge, or be into the unknown, into the territory where I have to depend on being in the moment and depending on my instincts.

I've never really been interested in doing a solo piano tour.

When the suggestion was made that I might consider doing music of Joni Mitchell, I thought it was a fantastic idea. Joni, I admire not only for her music but for her person, because she's a person that really stands out for what she believes in.

The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit.

Inspiration is constantly in the air. It's up to us to develop the sensitivity to pick up on it.

Of course, it's not the technique that makes the music; it's the sensitivity of the musician and his ability to be able to fuse his life with the rhythm of the times. This is the essence of music.

I look for what's of value and extract that. I don't look to criticize.

When a human being is oppressed, the natural tendency is to feel anger. Jazz is a response to oppression that is not bullets and blood. Jazz is the expression of harmony ... and at the same time of hope and freedom.

The true artform is being a human being.

Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the joy and the adventure lie.

Jazz is a music that is open enough to borrow from any other form of music, and has the strength to influence any other form of music.

I'm very conscious of the idea of trying to each time present something that I haven't presented before. It's a challenge to me to find something new, to find something innovative, but it's also very exciting.

A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students' creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.

Jazz is really about the human experience. It’s about the ability of human beings to take the worst of circumstances and struggles and turn it into something creative and constructive. That’s something that’s built into the fiber of every human being. And I think that’s why people can respond to it. They feel the freedom in it. And the attributes of jazz are also admirable. It’s about dialogue. It’s about sharing. And teamwork. It’s in the moment, and it's nonjudgmental.

A jazz musician is not a jazz musician when he or she is eating dinner or when he or she is with his parents or spouse or neighbors. He's above all a human being . . . the true artform is being a human being.

People always want to protect what's really going on inside. They want to kind of make visible something that looks more pleasant than what may be happening inside of themselves.

In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.

Life is not about finding our limitations, it's about finding our infinity.

When you struggle to reach for something you don't know, that's where most of the interesting stuff is.

You don't need the fame to be vital.

Music isn't about music, it's about life.