A Quote by Artie Shaw

An artist should write for himself & not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away.

Artie Shaw

Quote Topics

Artist Audience Away Great Himself Keep Likes Should Write

Quote Author

Artie Shaw
American - Musician
May 23, 1910 - December 30, 2004

I'm not conditioned to be an entertainer. An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself. The problem with that is artists are misunderstood by all. I'm not interested in the clarinet but in music. we speak our emotions into music. An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away. My situation is the same. Let them concentrate on my music and not on me. I like the music. I love it and live it, in fact. But for me, the business part of music just plain stinks.

Artie Shaw

I don't write for a particular audience. I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.

August Wilson

I'm the audience first, and if you're gonna be a great performer, you need to be a great audience. So, I do music for me first, and whoever likes it likes it, and whoever doesn't -- well, it's just not for them.

Shelby Lynne

If you address yourself to an audience, you accept at the outset the basic premises that unite the audience. You put on the audience, repeating cliches familiar to it. But artists don't address themselves to audiences; they create audiences. The artist talks to himself out loud. If what he has to say is significant, others hear & are affected.

Edmund Snow Carpenter

As an actor, you should always keep your trump card hidden from your audience. I want the audience to keep expecting more and more from me. I want to do 'different' work - good and memorable roles - so that audience appreciate me more. That's why I love to surprise my audience with something they never expect me to do.

Rithvik Dhanjani

A professional entertainer who allows himself to become known as a singer of folk songs is bound to have trouble with his conscience provided, of course, that he possesses one. As a performing artist, he will pride himself on timing and other techniques designed to keep the audience in his control ... his respect for genuine folklore reminds him that these changes, and these techniques, may give the audience a false picture of folk music.

Sam Hinton

I don't write with any audience in mind. I just write. I take a chance on the audience. That's what I did originally, and I think it's worked--in the sense that I find there is an audience.

Harold Pinter

It is not the job of artists to give the audience what the audience want. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artist. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need

Alan Moore

What I do is write books for an audience that thinks in a movie language. That's the way I think, and I also believe that not enough authors keep up with the audience.

Matthew Reilly

There's actually a disdain for the conversation about audience in the art world. Artist to artist, if you say, "What do you think about audience?" they would probably say, "I don't think about audience, I only think about my work," yet the audience is such an important part.

Eric Fischl

I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.

August Wilson

When you have a chance to be an artist with an audience in your lifetime, you have to say thanks to your audience. That's a great thing. That's the best thing that can happen to an artist.

Rokia Traore

If you want to be an entertainer and just keep your audience happy, that's one thing. But to be an artist, I think, means ultimately primarily pleasing yourself, and in that respect, you constantly have this sense of confronting the expectations of your audience.

Steven Wilson

You're not going to stay in business, the business of making movies very long because you need the resources in order to keep going. So you have to try and find a niche audience or some kind of audience that has the same likes, dislikes and aesthetic sensibilities that you have.

George Lucas

The golden rule would be to write a great, authentic song that is well produced and it will find its home. The audience can feel whether or not the artist is being genuine in their music. It's up to the artist to have the courage to reveal their truth through their songs.