A Quote by Jeremy Denk

I've learned a lot from being a chameleon, sort of adopting the musical personalities of who I was playing with. — © Jeremy Denk
I've learned a lot from being a chameleon, sort of adopting the musical personalities of who I was playing with.
When I was coming up in high school, if you wanted to be in the musical it was during the winter, so I had to choose between playing basketball or being in the musical. And I ended up playing basketball.
I was raised in the theater and I started acting when I was nine. To me, the idea of being an actor was about playing different characters and being a chameleon. That's why I was in the theater.
I'm sort of old-fashioned in the sense that I like to write something that I feel I could just perform alone, obviously, because I do that a lot in concert. So I try to make a song where there is as much that is as distinct as I can get it, just if I'm playing it or if I'm singing it. That makes me really do a lot of stuff in the guitar work when I sit and try to figure out how to indicate what sort of dynamic I'm aiming for. Where, rhythmically, I want to go. That's sort of what ties a lot of different records together, is that it's usually always based around me singing and playing a guitar.
Anytime I'm playing music or getting ready to record, Duane Allman will enter my thoughts, and so will Berry Oakley. It's part of my musical makeup and mental process when it comes to music. We learned to play together and taught each other a lot.
Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way--through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn't know about at all.
I learned things by being in Lester Flatts' band, and I learned things by playing with Johnny Cash, and I learned from Pop Staples. I'm a sponge.
You can't think and play. If you think about what you're playing the playing becomes stilted. You have to just focus on the music I feel, concenctrate on the music, focus on what you're playing and let the playing come out. Once you start thinking about doing this or doing that, it's not good. What you are doing is like a language. You have a whole collection of musical ideas and thoughts that you've accumulated through your musical history plus all the musical history of the whole world and it's all in your subconscious and you draw upon it when you play
?What color is a chameleon placed on a mirror? ... The chameleon responding to its own shifting image is an apt analog of the human world of fashion. Taken as a whole, what are fads but the response of a hive mind to its own reflection? In a 21st-century society wired into instantaneous networks, marketing is the mirror; the collective consumer is the chameleon.
I didn't understand anything about playing baseball. I started playing, and it was enjoyable. Most of my life, I played with older people on my team, in my league. I learned a lot about life. Every day in my life, I learned something new from somebody.
Playing with Kip I definitely learned a lot playing with these incredible guys and hearing them.
I learned a lot in the Bundesliga, just playing with these very physical players, playing quickly.
I learned a lot from playing those late-night, 1-to-4 A.M. gigs with my band, and playing when no one was listening.
The Lounge Lizards were relating with a tradition and it was like I was playing within a musical context. The guitar playing stood out as being different in some way. That was a real education for me.
I learned a lot from being in hell. I learned discipline. I learned that I choose what to put in my body.
I learned a lot from Clint [Eastwood], who's an extremely economic director. I learned a lot from Michael Winterbottom, who really gave a lot of trust in the actors and allowed them to live in the space instead of trying to manipulate and make it too set and too staged. Working with [Robert] De Niro taught me a lot of being an actors' director and what that is. I've learned a lot from pretty much everybody. Hopefully I've picked up something from everybody I've worked with.
There are so many different walks of life, so many different personalities in the world. And no longer do you have to be a chameleon and try and adapt to that environment - you can truly be yourself.
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