I play, like, 12 instruments. Guitar, piano, harmonica, African drums... I'm working on mastering the accordion.
Louis Armstrong changed all the brass players around, but after Bird, all of the instruments had to change - drums, piano, bass, trombones, trumpets, saxophones, everything.
I started with the piano-accordion and rebelled against it, but I could not afford piano lessons.
I've grown up in the Treme, and I played in a bunch of brass bands. My brother, James Andrews, had a brass band.
He wanted to play accordion on something of mine and I said you can play accordion, but I want you to play piano and organ on some stuff. He came over a couple times a week for two weeks and gave me therapy as to whether I should do The Thorns or not.
In the studio you have pretty much carte blanche with whatever you're doing. You can turn natural instruments into electronic instruments.
What I enjoy most about being on stage is that the natural instruments give you a greater freedom with texture. When you use natural instruments they have their own resonance.
I was never encouraged to do it and I played the accordion, which I hated. I wish I had taken piano because I definitely would have written more songs of my own, but I didn't.
When we hear a Mozart piano concerto today, we're most likely to hear the piano part played on a modern concert grand. In the hands of a professional pianist, such a piano can bury the strings and the winds and hold its own against the brass. But Mozart wasn't composing for a nine-foot-long, thousand-pound piano; he was composing for a five-and-a-half-foot-long, hundred-and-fifty-pound piano built from balsa wood and dental floss.
I have always been drawn to percussion and drums, to bass and piano, in music much more then I am drawn to the guitar and the other lead instruments.
My work on hyper instruments started with simple instruments, like the piano.
I started playing piano when I was 6, ukulele at 7.
Papa sat with me tonight. He brought the accordion down and sat close to where Max used to sit. I often look at his fingers and face when he plays. the accordion breathes. There are lines on his cheeks. They look drawn on, and for some reason, when I see them, I want to cry. It is not for any sadness or pride. I just like the way they move and change. Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.
Your natural instinct when people are throwing punches at you is to back up. That just makes it more dangerous for you. You'll get hurt that way. You've got to teach yourself to go forward, move your feet and move your head. I'm not going to lie, that was tough for me to learn.
We had a bunch of instruments around the house. Like, I played different instruments, trumpet, bass, drums, piano, all that, but whatever I could get my hands on.
I want it to be more natural. Right now it feels really forced. Seems like I've never done a curtsy before, which may be true. But I'm looking forward to nailing it.