A Quote by Brian Blade

Not to deny that it is a thinking people's music, but when I listen to music if I ever catch myself thinking, I'm in trouble--I know something is wrong. — © Brian Blade
Not to deny that it is a thinking people's music, but when I listen to music if I ever catch myself thinking, I'm in trouble--I know something is wrong.
It had never occurred to me before that music and thinking are so much alike. In fact you could say music is another way of thinking, or maybe thinking is another kind of music.
I know this will blow your mind, but most people would probably never ever get it, but I listen to classical music when nobody else is around. It calms me down and I can get into this, like, deep thinking mode, you know, because there's really no lyrics to it, so you're not following something that - that you're listening to a story.
I think people assume that whatever kind of music you make is the music you listen to. Don't get me wrong, I listen to tons of pop music and all the music that really inspires Best Coast is very straightforward '50s and '60s pop music, but I've been listening to R&B and rap since I was a kid. I grew up in L.A. It's part of the culture. I listen to anything.
I know that my music is heard a lot in commercial circles. In academia, I think my music is taken in differently but I'm not sure why that is. Some kind of sixth sense tells me that people in that world are thinking differently about it. I don't know if it has to do with the structure of my music, which is probably more apparent to those in the academic world than it is in the commercial world, where people tend not to think of that aspect of music so much. They just listen for pure enjoyment.
When I was a kid, we weren't really supposed to listen to secular music. But one day, I found a 'Led Zeppelin IV' cassette tape in the garage, and it was just amazing-sounding music, not like anything I'd heard before. I remember thinking: 'Well, if God created music, why is his music in church not as good as this?'
I think if there's ever been a time we need music more, it's now. For our kids, it teaches you to take time, to listen, to work together, to listen to other people, and to use your brain. That's why classical music doesn't work when you throw it at people in a subway platform while they're rushing to work. Classical music is something that needs to be contemplated, you have to be completely present with an active mind that's working. It's not background music.
When I'm playing music I'm usually not thinking of surfing, just because I'm usually thinking about the chords and the lyrics, and sometimes that messes me up 'cause you'll start thinking, "Wait, how am I doing this?" But when I'm surfing, I'm usually thinking about music - whether it's an idea for a new song, or just singing a song in my head.
You know that one don't play music just for the hours to pass. But you play music because you are in love with music and luckily if it happens that people like what I'm proposing, then I'm happy. Although music is business, yet you don't start thinking about money from the initial stages when you are in music. First propose to the people what they want and if they like it, then the money comes later.
The most important thing for me was to never, ever, ever deny it. But I didn't really have the courage to talk about it. I was thinking, The people who need to know I'm gay know.
Stop thinking about the audience and what they may be thinking of your music. Just play the music.
I'm always intrigued by people that listen to my music, I just naturally want to get to know people who listen to my music because people who end up having such an attachment with my stuff, I wonder why they have such a connection to something that's so personal to me in the first place.
I'm the worst critic about music myself. I hardly ever, every like something the first time I listen to it. So I've got to put myself in other people's shoes.
The people that only listen to one song from a record and flip around that much, if that's the only way they listen to music, they're probably the kind of people that like music as something to drive to, you know?
I know from the elders that it's not so easy to sustain a life in music, a presence in the music world, for decades on end. And that's what we're here for: we're thinking about the long game. If that is dependent on other people's desire for me, then it becomes extremely vulnerable to change. Rather than subject myself to that vulnerability, I'd rather embrace change and allow myself to transform, and maybe that means that what I do next week, the people who liked me last week won't like anymore, but maybe that will also lead people to like something else.
When we were doing music, that's how we did-we just did it for the music. We weren't thinking about money, we weren't thinking about fame. Music was our passion.
Growing up, my grandmother did not want worldly music in the house. Then when I went out to California, I started listening to Spanish music, mostly Mexican music. But were I in Egypt, I would listen to the music of the people, or if I was in Italy, I'd listen to Italian music.
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