"A lot of this look backwards in society and musically is to find some of the real roots, because they can't find them here. There are roots in the past, but not so much now. Maybe this explains their need to do that, and if that's the case, it's OK."

Rating:

  rate this quote
Topic: none  help us select a topic for this quote

More quotes from: Herbie Hancock

• "A couple of years ago, I came up with the idea for a film that ..."
• "A lot of the people that are making the music didn't have the kind of ..."
• "A lot of times, other people turn me on to new people that are doing ..."
• "A method that doesn't use what you know. It's just pure, raw emotion. "
• "Actually, African Americans I think are completely now all mixed. "
• "Americans are taught that white people did everything, but that is changing. American history and ..."
• "And I don't always talk about music, and I don't always play music, and I ..."
• "And I just practiced on it and practiced on it. I found a lot of ..."
• "And I loved it, I loved it! I wanted to be part of the newer ..."
• "And if I don't express that, then what's my life worth? "
• "And jazz is also for the body because it is rhythmic, but it's also for ..."
• "And that was fascinating, because you could do something different every time. "
• "And you allow yourself to play off that plane. You're in this dark room of ..."
• "Another thing that I noticed is a lot of people in the hip hop scene ..."
• "As far as actually writing scripts or stories... now scenarios, most people have ideas for ..."
• "At first I sounded like any stiff classical musician, trying to play that stuff. "
• "Because I have certain things I feel very passionate about, and I don't want to ..."
• "Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am. "
• "Buddhism has helped me toward gaining control over my own destiny, and given me the ..."
• "Buddhism opened me up to seeing things from the standpoint of being a human being ..."
• "But I cant name a specific synthesizer that is my favorite. "
• "But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much ..."
• "But if I'm banging my head against a wall because I can't come up with ..."
• "But in jazz, the song may be written by somebody else, but how you treat ..."
• "But it's all part of the humanistic approach. Humanism amid the machines, you know? "
• "But once Miles would start to play on top of these things we were doing, ..."
• "But these days I never turn on radios, I always turn them off." "
• "But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already. "
• "By contrast, wisdom captivates people's hearts and has the power to open a new age. "
• "Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for ..."
• "Creativity shouldn't be following radio; it should be the other way around. "
• "Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where ..."
• "Even the things that are on the Plugged Nickel set. I don't know how we ..."
• "Everything has focused on what the technology is capable of doing and making tools and ..."
• "First of all I should explain that synthesizers themselves, I don't consider them instruments, they ..."
• "Getting the Oscar had the biggest impression on me. "
• "He just blew me away and what it taught me was that Miles didn't hear ..."
• "I actually own Final Cut Pro, which is software for editing video, and Premiere from ..."
• "I always hope that as a performer I'm able to come out with something that ..."
• "I am still a jazz musician and not a pop star in terms of money ..."
• "I decided years ago that I wasn't interested in being a virtuoso of the piano. "
• "I didn't know much about this new electronic scene. I knew it was going on, ..."
• "I don't go back to anything, I just add. Just like when you eat a ..."
• "I don't look at music from the standpoint of being a musician; I look at ..."
• "I don't really concentrate on just listening to jazz players. And I don't concentrate on ..."
• "I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African ..."
• "I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, ..."
• "I get bored easily, but later I learned that it is OK to do something ..."
• "I had just come out of college, and I figured that I would probably be ..."
• "I have available to me all of the tools of my musical experience. "
• "I hope to do more movie scores, I hope to do more work in the ..."
• "I hope to still be making records, but still traveling and touring, I don't know ..."
• "I just wish more attention could be placed on the human being. "
• "I knew of jazz, but I didn't like it. I always thought only older people ..."
• "I look for what's of value and extract that. I don't look to criticize. "
• "I mean, nobody has a statement on their record. "
• "I remember my very first recording. It was on a wire recorder, as the tape ..."
• "I started playing piano when I was 7. And I started with classical lessons. Then ..."
• "I think I heard the name Muddy Waters first, then John Lee Hooker. "
• "I think I was supposed to play jazz. "
• "I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we ..."
• "I took a different view of what it was I had been doing before and ..."
• "I try stuff. I synthesize what's of value with some of the other things I ..."

• "I try to practice with my life. "
• "I want to have a purpose. "
• "I was blown away when Donald asked me to stay in the band. He said ..."
• "I was excited about the possibility of going to New York. "
• "I was making a hierarchy out of music, and it's ridiculous. "
• "I was very much aware of blues, because it was on the radio all the ..."
• "I wasn't concerned about jazz - that's just one of the tools. "
• "I wasn't really aware that the blues was making the transition from acoustic to electric ..."
• "I would be all over the piano, but Miles would play a few notes that ..."
• "I'd rather be a doer than a listener. "
• "I'm a human being all the time, even when I sleep. But I'm not a ..."
• "I'm aiming that towards people, towards humanity, not even just musicians. Because this is about ..."
• "I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking ..."
• "I'm always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music. "
• "I'm an American man, and I'm concerned about the present and the future as has ..."
• "I'm aware that a lot of what is happening in jazz has not had a ..."
• "I'm happy if anything that I did takes the limelight. "
• "I'm looking at other sources for inspiration; feelings and developments that are happening in human ..."
• "I'm not telling students not to practice or advising people to limit themselves. "
• "I've been a religious, spiritual person for a long time. "
• "'I've got to learn how to do this. That's my instrument, and he can do ..."
• "I've had a lot of music in my own head. "
• "If people are pleased that there is a popular acceptance of anything that came from ..."
• "In the past, there's always been one leader that has led the pack to development ..."
• "It gets boring when you look out at the audience and you see that 90 ..."
• "It is people's hearts that move the age. "
• "It might have been somewhat derivative otherwise, and I'm not the kind of person who's ..."
• "It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I ..."
• "It was interesting putting this record together, because I was putting it together with musicians ..."
• "It's a statement of our position, which is that we are not making this record ..."
• "It's not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz. "
• "It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that ..."
• "It's primitive now, but when you get to the point where you could see someone's ..."
• "It's very different from classical music. In classical music, you are playing something that is ..."
• "Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other ..."
• "Jazz is a music that is open enough to borrow from any other form of ..."
• "Jazz is a music that translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not ..."
• "Jazz is about being in the moment. "
• "Jazz is purely about just the music, whereas any of the areas of rock n' ..."
• "Like no matter what happens, this would be the ultimate, they can make something positive ..."
• "Miles' sessions were not typical of anybody else's sessions. They were totally unique. "
• "Most people think that classical music is a higher form than jazz only because it ..."
• "Music happens to be an art form that transcends language. "
• "Music is sound. "
• "Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference. "
• "My approach to music doesn't come from me being a certain type of musician, or ..."
• "Nobody told me I was a child prodigy. "
• "Not just in jazz, I think in politics too. Men have gotten to the point ..."
• "Now we see that we have to pay attention to the environment. We have to ..."
• "Oh yeah, the funny thing is that all my pictures in the past were all ..."
• "On a human level, the garbage man is just as important as the teacher or ..."
• "One of the greatest attributes of jazz, I think, is that it is that open. "
• "One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what ..."
• "One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of ..."
• "People are afraid to spend money now because they don't know how long they're going ..."
• "People put you on a pedestal when you become famous, in their eyes, or if ..."
• "Pieces don't have to have the same tempo from beginning to end. "
• "See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break ..."
• "Since time is a continuum, the moment is always different, so the music is always ..."
• "So I didn't actually change my name the way some people did. "
• "So I'm out of the box - and understanding that has opened up my interests ..."
• "So in other words, we were constantly challenged to grow, and that's what a master ..."

• "So my parents, particularly my mother, she noticed that I seemed to be interested, so ..."
• "So the ideas is not to shut out jazz - but it is very inclusive, ..."
• "So, he taught me how to play a simple riff and I somehow found a ..."
• "Sometimes it was good and sometimes it wasn't, but I had to stand up for ..."
• "Sometimes you can practice something but what you wind up playing when you're out doing ..."
• "Still, when I finally left Miles in '68 and got my own band, it was ..."
• "Technology has developed to a whole other level and there's the scientist part of me ..."
• "Technology has made so much information available but what the technological community has not done ..."
• "That interest was there before, but coming from the standpoint of being a human being, ..."
• "That's one of the reasons for the title of the record, Future 2 Future, because ..."
• "That's when I began to understand what a chord is. So I learned theory to ..."
• "The arts can help establish stronger relationships between countries and cultures, in a way that ..."
• "The first thing I ever heard about synthesizers, they were being used in rock. "
• "The mixture of all kinds of things, all kinds of beings - it's just like ..."
• "The music becomes something that is its own entity. "
• "The other reason is the concept of attitude. I didn't want to appear angry, but ..."
• "The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness. "
• "The thing is, much of the way I look at music now, and its role ..."
• "The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom. "
• "The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique. "
• "The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right ..."
• "Then I would watch him improvise, and I would be fascinated by what he was ..."
• "There are a lot of records coming out, in every field of music, not just ..."
• "There are some other things I'm looking for in the future. I'm getting ready to ..."
• "There's only one person named Herbie Hancock. "
• "Things like creating in the moment, being in the moment, trusting your instincts, not being ..."
• "Things that happen to you are events. It's what you do with them that determine ..."
• "Tradition can be negative though, if the importance of having roots outweighs the importance of ..."
• "We are all on the same trip in the band. We all realize that people ..."
• "We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment. "
• "We can all be ourselves, be true to ourselves, and all be together. "
• "We decided it would be interesting to approach the music as a group solo. "
• "We wanted to share creativity and didn't want to be bound by traditional jazz conventions. "
• "We were listening to a lot of different people, but we were listening to a ..."
• "We've been looking at machines for so long, I really wish the technology community would ..."
• "Well, I'm hoping that the narrow categories of music are forced to develop activities that ..."
• "What establishes value is something that is going to move humanity forward. If humanity is ..."
• "What I always wonder is, why is it that whenever I make a record they ..."
• "'What's music supposed to be about anyway? Is it a means for a musician to ..."
• "When I did Future 2 Future, it occurred to me, that I hadn't really done ..."
• "When I discovered Buddhism, I realized that Buddhism agrees with that. Buddhism adds something, too, ..."
• "When I do concerts, because I've been in the business for a long time and ..."
• "When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I ..."
• "When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your ..."
• "When I was young I used to listen to everything. "
• "When I'm sensitive to the circumstances surrounding me, then I can be inspired by them ..."
• "When synthesizers came along, it was the first time I thought that the two things ..."
• "When you struggle to reach for something you don't know, that's where the most interesting ..."
• "When you try to define a purity as being something that's closed and limited, you're ..."
• "While knowledge may provide useful point of reference, it cannot become a force to guide ..."
• "Wisdom corresponds to the future; it is philosophy. "
• "Wisdom is the key to understanding the age, creating the time. "
• "Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose. "
• "You asked me before about being an innovator and I mentioned that I've always been ..."
• "You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom. "
• "You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something ..."
• "You could never tell what was going on with Miles. You'd always leave the session ..."
• "You don't know what that's going to sound like; you just do it because the ..."
• "You don't need the fame to be vital. "
• "You never knew, when you came out of there, what you did, or whether it ..."
• "You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table ..."