Top 71 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Instrumentalists

One of our very favorite shows of 2008 was our Slowtrain instore. We drove straight from San Francisco, pulled up to the back of the store, dragged our entire setup inside and played our new album, Rook, start-to-finish - and they let us get away with it.

Lenelle Moïse's poems render the abstract - policy, disaster, history, diaspora - specific. Her words make the political not just personal, but corporeal: the beautiful system of the human body as canvas and subject, perfect in all its attendant complications and complexity, and still ruled, undeniably, by a warm, beating heart.

I'm inspired by struggles. I've been through several really big ones in my life and I'm reminded of how God pulled me out of these certain situations and how my life was affected by that, so of course I don't like the hard times at all and I know it sounds really cliché to say 'hang in there' but it's a true thing, if you're actually believing in what our creator can do.

Our band doesn't like pressure or timelines. We like to be in a casual environment where everyone is happy with their surroundings. It's not like being in Brooklyn - if you're somewhere beautiful like upstate, you can walk outside to take a moment. It's a big part of our functioning.

I really do believe in the influence of your surroundings.

Is there a home, a home for me? Where the people stay until eternity? Is there a road that winds up, underneath the big green tree? Is there a home, a home for me?

Light that is One though the lamps be many.

When you make a record, you probably are not going to hit exactly what you were aiming for. You also have to let go at a certain point, and just trust it. I remember feeling we had fallen short, or that it had fallen short. At the same time it was great to see a good critical reaction to it, and to hear people were enjoying it, which made me think, "Well, maybe it's a good thing I didn't get exactly what I wanted." Now we're testing that theory.

Musical integrity means a lot to me, personally for myself, I don't really care if other people can't even sing or whatever. For myself I have high standards.

Mostly, the people in "the room" are paid lobbyists representing interests that could afford to pay them. No wonder policy isn't being made that helps smaller, independent musicians or those unaffiliated with a larger entity.

It's not like I'm narrating stories with music behind them. It's all kind of one thing. You hope you can provoke a specific emotional reaction, but in ways that aren't quite plain.

When I was writing some of songs for the record in Galapagos it was the feeling of being there I wanted to evoke more than anything. I remember hearing all the parts of the songs in my mind when I was walking around over the lava fields.

I always write from rhythm first, so if I need a song fast, I have to start there. Then I just threw some electric guitar at it.

I started to understand what the song could be about. The ache of nostalgia even for things we don't like, the commitment to keep moving despite that ache. It made me think of how I relate to my privilege - as a white person, as someone who grew up upper middle class.

I was pillaging a lot of music that had nothing to do with guitar playing, using a lot of strange tunings and voicings and chord structures that aren't really that natural to the guitar; I ended up developing a harmonic palette that's not particularly natural to the guitar because I was always trying to make my guitar sound like something else.

The only problem with Shearwater as a name for a band is that people sort of think that it's this amalgamated word like Pushmonkey or something. Doesn't have an actual...you know, like Clearwater or Stillwater, they don't realize that it actually is a thing. It seemed like such a beautiful word, I was so suprised that no body had named their band that.

I got a lot more interested in songs that could hold up completely on their own, with just a guitar and voice. For some people that's easy to do, but I find it's really difficult.

I learned how to have a little bit of distance when I explained songs and a little bit of distance when I wrote them. I think this is more interesting any way in art.

The only really weird part for me was making sense of the person on the TV at the same time as the person who I am friendly with and do something so friend-intimate with as text.

I've written quite a few things, but I've put it on hold for now to see how everything fits together. Then I'll approach it and write specifically to see how the pieces fit in the puzzle.

My approach to writing and recording now is pretty much the same as when I started. Except now I worry even less about what people will think of what I made. And I am not drunk.

I just like dealing with scientists for awhile and then going over and dealing with musicians for awhile. They both have qualities that kind of counterbalance each other.

I don't view myself as any kind of celebrity, but we as people are called to do those things and I am just lucky I have a microphone and can reach more people sometimes.

I don't feel [the] excitement you have when you first walk into a recording studio. It now feels like a tool.

I didn't realize at the time that if I wrote about something, I was going to have to talk about something. A lot. Ad nauseum.

I've certainly collaborated with others for their songs and it's fun. To me, it's exciting to write from a place that doesn't have to be so true to my life and is more just storytelling.

I like having some things very clear while other things are obscured... so that it kind of keeps coming into and out of focus.

I'm not trying to recapture anything. It's really about moving forward. I don't have much reverence for what I've done in the past.

I can't believe I'm in New Zealand, I can't wait to play. It's just so beautiful out here and so awesome.

I am the King of biting off more than I can chew.

I grew up not really listening to guitar players. Especially when I was studying music, I was just interested in piano players and arrangers and composers; I came to playing in a band from the perspective of someone who never expected to play guitar in a band.

I don't consider myself a very religious person in any.

I certainly think there are things that impressed me as a child about the church. The smells and the sounds and the pagaentry of it remained with me. The aesthetic I really love. I think a lot of my sense of melody comes from singing those hymns and doing the renaissance music and stuff.

Being like stranded without a label in the middle of tour was very strange. On the other hand it made us move instantly. I mean, I didn't wallow. I was like, "Alright, who can we email? Let's just start putting stuff out." I felt like we were playing really well and it was at least worth a shot.

I do like the old versions of our songs - there are good things in them, but I think that the good things that happen in the new ones kind of outweigh that. The murkiness of the first version of the record was not really what we'd intended. It has sort of a dream-like quality, but I feel like that has been preserved in other ways in the newer versions, as well as the bonus disc.

I get more excited about like, "How nice is the piano?" or "How does the room sound?" I don't really see the gear so much anymore.

I wanted to touch on the piece where often politicians use "god" to excuse their actions.

The nice thing about being a band that nobody knows about is that you can do whatever you want.

It's funny because my main awkwardness around writing the song had little to do with the method.

I feel like we've kind of gone through a transformation in the past year. I don't know what happened but we've somehow gelled in a way that we never have before. The live show has become much more powerful and interesting to me. I really feel like we're learning to negotiate the dynamics of it and keep it interesting. It feels like we're becoming much more comfortable and in tune with one another.

The nice thing about being a band that nobody knows about is that you can do whatever you want, you know? Without catching hell for it. That's sort of how we felt about the re-recording, too. I thought, "Well, you know a few people noticed this record the first time around but not so many will really protest if we do it again."

I think just as a person, if you say you follow Christ, you have to stand up for the injustices that are going on in the world.

I really want to try to protect as much as I can, to safeguard peoples' first experience with a record. Because I want you to get the whole thing as one integrated piece, because it's not like I'm narrating stories with music behind them.

I see what those people are doing with computers and it's just the new way of doing things and I don't look down on them for it, it's kind of funny that there are a lot of people - and I don't even care, this isn't me being like "well I do this" - but there are definitely people who are like: "Yeah I played all that."

Really, everything for me comes from "Manifestra." It was an incredible gift of a song; it really describes an important moment in my life.

New wave disco was coming to the fore then, and we were at a different point entirely. I like to listen to dance music, but I don't think I'm primarily a dance music writer.

As a consumer of culture, I like a wide range of emotions to be touched in art. It's funny but on the other side of it, I do feel that people that are trying to sell culture would like to see a narrower range of expression from their content-makers. Easier to sell I guess.

I still get stage fright every time. I also feel very, very sleepy about a minute before we go on. Like I feel like I'm going to fall asleep. I can't explain it. It's sort of like, "Where's the energy going to come from to play this show?" Then all of a sudden you step up and there it is, it's like it's waiting for you.

In actuality it's drum samples in the computer. I don't know, I've just never really dug into that whole technology thing, I feel like it hurts me as a musician a little.

In fact I wonder if I should bend my own rules a little and for the sake of writing a good song it doesn't have to been so autobiographical, but that's a stupid rule to live by as some of my favourite artists' songs, they have a song that you think is about their life [which] probably even isn't, but it's a great song.

I think I have come across as "unafraid" because I really cannot control what comes through me in my writing.

It's a very different feeling just sitting around the side, playing piano, and dancing around as opposed to standing in front and singing.

The thing is that honestly we haven't had an audience. And we have a chance to have an audience now. Which is great because I think we've sort of evolved as a band to the point where I think we might actually be interesting to go see.

When you make a record, you probably are not going to hit exactly what you were aiming for. You also have to let go at a certain point, and just trust it.

I just like a great song. I just wanted to be this true reflection of what is in my heart and it ended up becoming my life which was kind of surreal, but I do enjoy writing for other people.

I'm kind of a purist and I actually just want to be a good player, with that said though... I probably should get a little more involved in that as that's what people are doing and making great songs out of their computer so it's kind of like, at what point does purist become arrogance?

As I've gotten older, I have gotten a lot better at finding the pleasures of making music despite the business of it.

I like garage band for writing because you only have crayons and there are only five crayons in the box. Your choices are limited and I find that to be very good for me.

When I began writing songs, there was a pretty direct line between what was happening in my life and what I wrote about. So my first album was really all about my failed attempts to make a particular relationship work.

As a listener, I like a wide range of sounds.