A Quote by Sufjan Stevens
My music is just about story telling. I don't have much to say, and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just singing through conviction about what I love and what I care about, starting with the very small.
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Starting in music, where I get a chance to connect with the lyrics of a song, I learned so much about performing on stage and connecting to your audience and to what you're singing about. Singing is very emotional. Every song has its own purpose.
When I'm rapping, like, a turn up song, I'm thinking about what the people want to hear; this is what they're going to like. When I'm singing, I'm, like, telling my story. I'm not worried if people like it; I'm just trying to be truthful, you know what I'm saying? I'm just talking about something that happened to me.
In my career as a director, there's always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: 'What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?' At that time you have to say: 'OK, forget that and just go ahead.'
Thinking about making a love story without music was really frightening, Sciamma admitted. Because every love story we know, we think about 'Titanic' we think about the music, we think about 'Gone with the Wind' we think about the music, we think about 'E.T.' we think about the music, and every love story has its own tune, 'That's our song.'
I care very much what the fans think. I'm starting to loosen my grip on caring about what critics say, because I think that critics care about what fans think of them, too, so there's a little bit of a refraction there, through that glass.
When you're singing, it can be looked at as a monologue, in a way. If it's about telling a story and connecting with your audience, you can do that through song, through dialogue, or through a monologue. That's what's special about being an entertainer.
You want to have a feeling when you sing that you just love singing; you love the feeling of singing, and you love this feeling of this voice coming out of your body into this world. It's about really getting that most beautiful, pure, centered tone, thinking about the story of each song and the lyrics, and connecting your own life to that story.
I care about affordable housing. I care about bus routes. I care about small business. I care about schools. These are not Muslim issues. Even protection of civil rights - that's not just a Muslim issue. That is for everyone.
My preference will always be theatre because it's where my heart lies and it's what I started with and eventually I want to direct it. It's where my real interest is. But I just love trying out new stuff. Acting for me isn't just for me about being in front of a camera ... it's so much more than that. It's always about telling a story and there are so many ways of doing that, so I'll always want to try something else.
I believe that the greatest music is storytelling anyway, in a heightened medium. So I write a lot of music, and I play a lot with my guitar, I still sing a lot, but now I'm more personal about it than public, in a way. I think there will be a time where I'd like to bring the singing back into some of my performances. It all depends if the material's right, if the story's right, if it's my kind of taste in music, as well. It means so much to me. We all know how affective music can be, I just want to make sure when I do it, I'm doing it because I actually feel it and I care about it.
Singing in church is a very different approach to music. It's very much about transcending the idea of self. It's about finding something greater that connects all of us. Gospel music is about tapping into that.
However, it [singing] wasn't until halfway through high school that it dawned on me that singing wasn't just a hobby, it was something I had a growing need for in my life, and that was about when I adopted the neglected guitar I found under our piano and started singing about all the things I could never say.
You can't please everybody, and basically I just decided to please myself first on this record. This record is more like my diary and I am expressing myself through my music. And that's what it should be about. That's why I didn't change my name or anything. It's not about the name; it's about the music. The old saying goes that video killed the radio star and it's very true. And now I'm just letting everything revolve around the music. There is no image; I am just being myself.
I was never trying to be the voice for anybody else. I was just trying to sing about what I was going through, and was singing about those things specifically because I knew there was an audience not being served.
I loved our music discussion. I live for discussions like that. It's my favorite thing because it means that people care about music, and actually have an opinion. I feel like it's dying. Everyone is just really like, they take a step back, but to actually have conviction about what's good and bad: love it.
People think, for some reason, that I don't care about creativity and art, or helping people. So I would say that the biggest misconception is, when you think about me, when you think about my name, I don't want you to think about design or clothes or music. I want you to think about a person that's just trying to help people.
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