A Quote by Roscoe Mitchell

I'm approaching a period in my life though where I'd like to be totally absorbed into music, doing concerts, writing something. Basically, that IS what I am doing. — © Roscoe Mitchell
I'm approaching a period in my life though where I'd like to be totally absorbed into music, doing concerts, writing something. Basically, that IS what I am doing.
I'm just basically trying to make music that feels good. Right now in the music industry there's a real lack of intimacy. You don't really connect with the artist as much anymore, and you don't really understand where they are. I'm basically doing music that illustrates who I am and where I am in my life.
I have ADD or something. Even when I am doing something, it's me on the computer, I'm painting and I'm writing music. I have to rotate what I'm doing every 15 minutes.
It's like, whether or not you're humiliated or embarrassed or you do well is contingent on the choices that you make in your work. So that is a lot of pressure to be like, 'Oh no, am I doing the right thing? Am I doing something cool? Am I doing something bad?'
I am a very open, social, friendly person, and when it comes to people approaching me and asking for an autograph, I am totally cool with doing any of that. It's a lot of fun.
With my existence and with my music I'm saying, even though we're not supposed to, here I am doing it and doing it well. I want people to feel like when they listen to me, they can forget all the rules.
Being a full-time musician back before I had my son, it was sort of too much 'me' all the time. I felt like a bit of a narcissist, always doing just my art - even though I feel like artists are doing a service as well. I needed something a little more literal, instead of writing music and hoping people enjoyed it.
If everybody feels fear when approaching something totally new in life—yet so many are out there doing it despite the fear—then we must conclude that fear is not the problem.
Whenever I am doing anything else, which is most of the time, even if it is not something like robbing a bank, I feel felonious. Writing is what I'm supposed to be doing.
There are certain things I am clueless about as far as the new technologies. I see these people in front of these computers all day and I don't know what they are doing - they are doing something, obviously - with Facebook, Instagram and all that. I am aware of it, but basically not in touch.
Meditation is not doing something. But you cannot take a jump immediately into non-doing. So I suggest that you make your doing total. Move into it so deeply, and so totally that suddenly the doing drops, and you alone are left, just existing.
Real estate was one of the first things I was doing. I kinda like mistakenly fell into that. I bought a house early in my career, and in my head, it was like, if everything goes wrong, I own this one house, you know... As I started doing concerts and more concerts, I started buying more houses.
When I'm doing interviews, I'm doing interviews, and when I am writing, I'm writing. I sit there with a musician and I write. It's the same process since I started writing in my twenties. I like to come in and leave with a finished song.
The essays are very solipsistic and self-absorbed, I'm totally conscious of that. To me, book writing is fun, and I basically just write about things that are entertaining to myself.
The idea of doing a period movie, some people say, "Isn't it odd that you're doing a period movie? That's a change of pace for you." And, I'm like, "Not really." When you're doing a science fiction movie, it's almost exactly the same.
In a dream world, I would love to be a master pastry chef, because it combines something I love doing baking with something I'm not good at doing baking. BUT! Practically, if I weren't writing and doing comedy things, I'd like to teach kids to read. I would be good at that in real life.
Good rock 'n' roll is something that makes you feel alive. It's something that's human, and I think that most music today isn't. ... To me good rock 'n' roll also encompasses other things, like Hank Williams and Charlie Mingus and a lot of things that aren't strictly defined as rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.
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