A Quote by Gavin DeGraw

I think listening to real classic soul material made me learn how to feel music that's sung — © Gavin DeGraw
I think listening to real classic soul material made me learn how to feel music that's sung
I think listening to real classic soul material made me learn how to feel music that's sung.
Even my colleagues don't read classic criticism. And my feeling is that if you don't do that then you're not really practicing your craft. That's how you learn how to do it. You don't learn how to write about jazz just from listening to jazz. You learn how to write by reading the great writers and how they worked, the great music critics.
You learn from music, from watching great athletes at work - how disciplined they are, how they move. You learn these things by watching a shortstop at work, how he concentrates on one thing at a time. You learn from classic music, from the blues and jazz, from bluegrass. From all this, you learn how to sustain a great line without bringing in unnecessary words.
Listening to a lot of guitar rock and roll music and feeling quite eccentric because everyone expected me to learn and develop like R&B. This kind of made me feel a little bit better, because I realized it was all the same, you know. There's no difference. It's just music.
I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative. So whatever. I listen to all if it. Classic rock and classic pop, all of that.
I remember listening to the radio as a kid and finding that the songs always made me feel more peaceful. Funny, but the more hurtin' the music was, the better it made me feel. I think of that now when I write my songs. I may not be feelin' the blues myself, but I'm writing them for other people who have a hard life.
A song can be more than words and music ... when sung with soul a song carries you to another world, to a place where no matter how much pain you feel, you are never alone.
As an artist, I always just want to grow as a songwriter. I listen to a lot of music. I listen to music all the time, whether it's hip-hop or soul or rock or whatever. I'm always listening to music and trying to learn from other songwriters and how they tap into certain emotions and communicate more clearly.
Many people learn how to talk, but they don't learn how to listen. Listening to one another is an important thing in life. And music tells us how to do that.
Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.
When I found out how music made me feel and how my singing made other people feel, that's when I decided this is what I wanted to do.
I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about black music, about soul music.
The only music I was listening to for ages was old soul. So I wasn't listening to a lot of new music - especially indie music.
I suppose because I have a good ear, I could pick out harmonies and learn by ear... I still think that you have to have an ear for music to really be able to feel and understand what you're playing. You can learn by watching and listening to other people.
I suppose because I have a good ear, I could pick out harmonies and learn by ear. I still think that you have to have an ear for music to really be able to feel and understand what you're playing. You can learn by watching and listening to other people.
The deeper reality is that I’m not sure if what I do is real. I usually believe that I’m certain about how I feel, but that seems naive. How do we know how we feel?…There is almost certainly a constructed schism between (a) how I feel, and (b) how I think I feel. There’s probably a third level, too—how I want to think I feel.
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