Charlie Parker
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom.Collection: Wisdom
They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.Collection: Art
You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.
If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.
Don't play the saxophone. Let it play you.
If you come on a band tense, you're going to play tense. If you come a little bit foolish, act just a little bit foolish, and let yourself go, better ideas will come.
One time, when I was in my teens, jamming in a Kansas City club, I was doing all right until I tried doing double tempo on 'Body and Soul.' Everybody fell out laughing. I went home and cried and didn't want to play again for three months.
Definitely, study is absolutely necessary in all forms - it's just like any talent that's born within somebody. It's just like a good pair of shoes when you put a shine on it, you know? Like, schooling brings out the polish of any talent. It happens anywhere in the world.
Every time I hear a recording I've made, I hear all kinds of things I could improve or things I should have done. There's always so much more to be done in music. It's so vast.
Music is basically melody, harmony, and rhythm. But people can do much more with music than that. It can be very descriptive in all kinds of ways, all walks of life.
I put quite a bit of study into the horn, that's true. In fact, the neighbors threatened to ask my mother to move once, you know.
I became bitter, hard, cold. I was always on a panic - couldn't buy clothes or a good place to live.
I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it. I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used. I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing.
I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That's when I was born.
Ever since I've ever heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise - as clean as possible, anyway, and more or less tuned to people. Something they could understand, something that was beautiful, you know?
Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.Collection: Music
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.Collection: Music
Once I could play what I heard inside me, that's when I was born.Collection: Music
Don't be afraid, just play the music.Collection: Music
Any musician who says he is playing better either on tea, the needle, or when he is juiced, is a plain, straight liar. When I get too much to drink, I can't even finger well, let alone play decent ideas. You can miss the most important years of your life, the years of possible creation.Collection: Liars
I can play all I know in eight bars.Collection: Music
Man, there's no boundary line to art!Collection: Music
It's just music. It's trying to play clean and looking for the pretty notes. The beat in a bop band is with the music, against it, behind it. It pushes it. It helps it. Help is the big thing. It has no continuity of beat, no steady chug-chug. Jazz has, and that's why bop is more flexible.Collection: Play
I don't care who likes it or buys it. Because if you use that criterion, Mozart would never have written Don Giovanni, Charlie Parker would have never played anything but swing music.Collection: Swings
I look at melody as rhythm.Collection: Looks
When I first heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise. Something that people could understand, something that was beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
It's just music. It's playing clean and looking for the pretty notes.Collection: Clean
I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes (harmonies) that were being used all the time. I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.Collection: Play
I kept thinking there's bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it.Collection: Music
You've got to learn your instrument.Collection: Jazz
Bop is no love-child of jazz.Collection: Children
I'm very glad to have met you. I like your playing very much.Collection: Music
Some guys said 'Here's bop!' Wham! They said, 'Here's something we can make money on!' Wham! 'Here's a comedian!' Wham! Here's a guy who talks funny talk!'Collection: Guy