"'I've got to learn how to do this. That's my instrument, and he can do it. Why can't I?"

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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 this look backwards in society and musically is to find some 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 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 ..."