Quotes & Sayings About Recording Music

I'm making music the way I would have done before modern equipment and music recording. — Timbaland

This is ... an attempt to find some of the important fault lines in the narrative of "recorded history"
the points where people with access to the technology decided that *this* was how recordings should sound, and *this* is what it means to make a record. Ultimately, this is the story of what it means to make a recording of music
a *representation* of music
and declare it to be music itself. — Greg Milner

The age of recording is necessarily an age of nostalgia
when was the past so hauntingly accessible?
but its bitterest insight is the incapacity of even the most perfectly captured sound to restore the moment of its first inscribing. That world is no longer there. — Geoffrey O'Brien

I just want to keep playing music and keep recording. I feel like my best days are ahead. — Ricky Skaggs

There were a lot of unique challenges in producing the film, such as the logistical issues inherent in producing a long-term verite film in Pakistan, dealing with Urdu and Punjabi dialogue with an English-speaking editor and all the difficulties in recording, editing and clearing so many music tracks. — Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

We play a show, and there's a hundred people, and people will say "You must miss playing to a thousand people." But I don't. I might miss playing. That's what I would miss, but I don't miss it, because I am playing. I feel completely fortunate to have this outlet for something I don't really feel like I have a choice in, to make music. I've got to make it. And the fact that people care enough to want to come see me make it, or buy a recording, or want to call me up to talk about it? Fuck, man, I think that is gravy. — Ian MacKaye

Trying to understand her teenage daughter's behavior was like trying to listen to a recording of a symphony whose volume vacillated unpredictably from barely audible to deafening. She couldn't hear the music, and all she wanted to do was leave the room. — Sonja Yoerg

Yes, alas, I've been on some recording sessions where the music wasn't good. Not so many, really, considering how many I've done. It's a very awkward situation because to do a recording well you focus on the positive of what will make the piece better. — Tony Levin

"I've always thought there was this underlying thing in Paul's "Get Back." When we were in the studio recording it, every time he sang the line "Get back to where you once belonged," he'd look at Yoko." — John Lennon

There's the soundtrack to The French Connection II'I think It's my favorite soundtrack. It hasn't been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music. — Jonny Greenwood

I was working at a non-profit for five years. But I could always create music after work. All throughout those years, I was writing songs and recording music and performing around town. — Jussie Smollett

Originally a record producer more or less hired a bunch of professionals to participate in a recording session, the performers and the technicians, and a music director was put in charge. That directly related to a film producer's job. — Tony Visconti

Being a recording artist and having thousands of people listening to your music and singing your songs, and paying for it? It feels great! — PJ Harvey

I am devoting some time to music. I'm finding a balance in my life right now so that when I'm not acting I'm really working on the music side of things ... producing and writing and recording and also getting to do some live shows. It's a really exciting thing. — Steven Bauer

I love recording music. — J.J. Abrams

I enjoy touring. I enjoy recording the music, I enjoy dreaming it and I enjoy performing it. I also definitely enjoy selling it, because I like to eat. — Anthony Hamilton

I wouldn't have known when I was a teenager that when I was coming up to being a sixty-year-old woman that I'd be making music, I'd be recording music, talking about music, and incorporating my views on the world into the music-making. So it's a very rarefied place to be, and I'm very grateful for that. — Annie Lennox

I like being in a recording studio. I like watching a song go from the simplicity of the original music. — Grace Slick

The band projects just took natural priority. I didn't really have a solo career, just wanted to share the music in another way and to learn more about writing, recording, etcetera. — Ken Hensley

Live performances make music important. Recording is cool and fun, and it's nice to document the thing you made, but the goal in my mind is to perform. — Dan Deacon

I don't have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it. — John McLaughlin

I would be involved with music whether I had a career or not. I'm always going to be writing songs and recording them. — Tom Scholz

And what is the problem? It is the old problem of the anxious searcher - the mythic in the interior castle, the poet-pilgrim in a dark wood not sure how to proceed. Which way is the right way? — Paul Elie

I think I'm the only singer who doesn't have a temper. The only time I got angry was at a music studio when I was made to wait for three hours without being informed about the delay in the recording. — Sunidhi Chauhan

Recording in Jamaica is like nothing else. The studios are always closed in America. But in Jamaica, the studio doors are wide open, and there's music blasting out in the street. You can see the reaction of people immediately. — Michael Franti

I chose the songs for the music more than for the lyrical content and it wasn't until the end of the recording and when we were trying to decide running order that I realized how sad a lot of the songs could sound. — Vashti Bunyan

Each player should make every effort to bring a variety of the best-sounding gear he can, because it will not only make the recording sound better, but will also make the music a lot more interesting. — Bobby Owsinski

I've made music for grownups most of my life as a singer/songwriter - often with my band, Nine Stories - recorded many albums, and 10 years ago I started recording kid's music, too. — Lisa Loeb

The biggest challenge is self-financing 100% of everything. Recording costs, studio time, engineer fees, travel costs are all a part of the creation process. Then after the creation, there are producer fees, mixing, mastering, photo shoots, artwork, packaging, artist feature fees, legal fees, clearances, and so on that must be covered before any music can officially be released to the public. — Mya

I don't feel guilty about the music I love. If you feel guilty about something you dig, then you should stop feeling guilty about it. One of my favorite albums to this day is the 10th anniversary ensemble cast of 'Les Miserables,' the ultimate cast recording, and it is still something I love listening to top to bottom. — Corey Taylor

The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever. — Bruce Springsteen

To me, there's a difference between going to a concert and getting a recording. It's almost like a different release. The physical album itself is the more meaningful one for me, but I don't want to tell people how to listen to music. — Tristan Perich

You've got to capture as much of the room sound as possible. That's the very essence of it. — Jimmy Page

Modern recording has made it so that people can spend forever taking shortcuts and making everything uniform, but that strips music of what makes it exciting. — Zooey Deschanel

The old music industry is dead. We're standing in the ruins of a business built on private jets, Cristal, $18 CDs and million-dollar recording budgets. We're in the midst of the greatest music industry disruption of the past 100 years. A fundamental shift has occurred - a shift that Millennials are driving. For the first time, record sales aren't enough to make an artist's career, and they certainly aren't enough to ensure success. The old music industry clung desperately to sales to survive, but that model is long gone.2 - Honeyman — Larry Wacholtz

I think from age 13, 14, 15, I thought, yes, this rich studio produced music is the future, but it can't be the future to go run away into the recording studio. How can we take that kind of complexity and richness and make it possible for people to touch it and play it live. That's what hyperinstruments are. — Tod Machover

An album is a whole universe, and the recording studio is a three-dimensional kind of art space that I can fill with sound. Just as the album art and videos are ways of adding more dimensions to the words and music. I like to be involved in all of it because it's all of a piece. — Bat For Lashes

I have limited interests. I really like all sorts of gear. Guitar gear. Recording gear. Stuff like that. I like music, you know. — J Mascis

Technology has helped me with the writing and recording processes, and it's a great way to reach out to fans of my music, ... Dell's combining all these different technologies and making it really easy to enjoy them. — Sheryl Crow

Well, when you're recording an album, artists have what they feel like is good music, and the label, they're trying to sell the album. So those two ideas clash sometimes, but in the end it always works out. When you put the two together, that's a good thing. — Kris Allen

Staying true to yourself and trusting your instincts is very important. I've learned this both through creating music, where I've always stayed focused on recording music that is true to who I am and to my fans, and through my recent health struggles, where I knew something more was going on than what I was hearing from different doctors; I had to trust myself and continue to pursue a diagnosis. — Avril Lavigne

When I'm recording something (especially because I produce my own music) I might consider how hard it would be to replicate a song on stage. — Erin McKeown

Music is also a part of who I am so I'm thinking about recording an album. — Emmy Rossum

I had been creating music on tape that was to be listened to as a recording, rather than through performance. — Paul Lansky

It is not that I don't like contemporary country music because I do. I love it. I have recorded a lot and have had great success recording records that have not been very traditional country records. — Vince Gill

Music was my life ... It was everything to me, even though I was in school majoring in English. I was still very focused on music and always finding ways to perform, so that was what set me up to want to become a recording artist. — John Legend

I always used to sing in the shower, but I never really got into the music until a friend of mine helped me a lot with recording. — Prince Royce

Even before I became a recording artist, I did other things in music. I was a teacher, I did studio work, and I was an arranger and a producer. — Jon Secada

I had writers block for months afterwards because I was just so taken aback by all of the sounds I was hearing. It's almost like hearing the most beautiful music you've ever heard, so you're like, "What's the point of me making anything?" It was this living sonic organism so the idea of recording something just seemed like taking this living thing and mummifying it. — Taraka Larson

I'm trying to satirize what it's like to be a recording artist in 2011. I realize that standing on a soap box and ranting and raving about my opinions on the digital age and its effect on music is only going to get you so far. — DJ Shadow

Of course Tucker Crowe was in pain when he made [the record], but he couldn't just march into a recording studio and start howling. He'd have sounded mad and pathetic. He had to calm the rage, tame it and shape it so that it could be contained in the tight-fitting songs. Then he had to dress it up so that it sounded more like itself. — Nick Hornby

Many fail to realize this great recording industry was built by so-called jazz artists. And at the other end of the spectrum, a base in European classical music as well. — Ahmad Jamal

I like the process of giving control away [at the recording]. When you give it up to people, it's another intelligent organism that digests your information completely differently from how a machine digests information. It's like you're on a sailboat, and every time you can find out how to better adjust [the sail] to make it more precise. And it's interesting to see that the musicians have their own ideas. To use their intuitive power with their knowledge that they incorporate into the music. This is the moment you give away control, you give it to someone else's intuition. — Pantha Du Prince

Art is basically communication, and I think everyone who's a music lover has had that experience where a record or a recording has kept you company when no one else is around. And I think that is what I'm hoping that people get out of my music. — Conor Oberst

One song isn't going to ever change things, but I suppose it's the accumulation of music generally [that is]. If you can imagine a world that has no music in it, it would be a very different world, so music does change the world by virtue of all the music in it. Cumulative music of every kind, from banging a drum to playing a flute or recording symphonies, or singing 'War, what is it good for?' All those things change the whole way we live. — Mick Jagger

I'm a musician - I'm always making music. Kobe Bryant is always playing ball. Well, Snoop Dogg is always recording. — Snoop Dogg

Today you go into make a modern recording with all this technology. The bass plays first, then the drums come in later, then they track the trumpet and the singer comes in and they ship the tape somewhere. Well, none of the musicians have played together. You can't play jazz music that way. In order for you to play jazz, you've got to listen to them. The music forces you at all times to address what other people are thinking and for you to interact with them with empathy and to deal with the process of working things out. And that's how our music really could teach what the meaning of American democracy is. — Wynton Marsalis

Recording music is not really the healthiest thing for the body. — Alex Ebert

When punk and new wave styles exploded in the late '70s, some established artists were nimble enough to respond to the changes around them. Some grumbled, "What am I supposed to do, forget how to play?", and continued to ride their dinosaurs into extinction, but others willingly adapted to the streamlining and back-to-basics urges of the times, without giving up all they had learned. Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel, for example, or former Yes keyboardist Trevor Horn, continued to produce vital, influential music through the '80s and '90s. Ian Anderson has continued to lead Jethro Tull out of the '60s and '70s and quietly through the decades, making high quality music and finding a large enough audience to continue recording and touring worldwide. — Neil Peart

In music, recording, writing, photography, design, film-making and any other creative endeavour, it may be true that anyone can do it, but it is not quite as true as punk sometimes seemed to suggest that anyone can do it in a way that is appreciated by others. The key point is that, without determination and application, talent and ideas are just unrealised potential. That lesson-there for anyone who wishes to learn it-is perhaps punk's , and the Clash's, greatest legacy. — Marcus Gray

I have a song I wrote called "Autobiography." I came from a very intense living situation, with having a parent on drugs and not having a lot of money. So I always want to talk about the real things. But I think 90 percent of my music, I want it to be 'feel-good music'. I'm already recording tracks for my album, but when it comes time to actually say, 'this is the album,' I may be in a completely different space than I'm in right now. — Nicki Minaj

If anything, I don't have any intention of recording music that's just me playing acoustic guitar singing a song anytime soon. — King Khan

Recording a song for a film doesn't take much time; it's hardly an hour's job, but concerts are constant, and so is travelling, so I've to take time out to work on my albums because I'm passionate about creating my own music. When you love something dearly, you set your priorities accordingly. — Kailash Kher

I'm a binge writer. I work in the music business fulltime, in artist management and developing songwriters and recording artists, and so juggling my job I carve out as much time as I can on the weekends. — Ruta Sepetys

During the time that my recording career seemed to be in a slump a music called disco came on the scene and literally took over radio stations as well as having radio stations created to play it which sort of negated my music as well as that of some of my peers. — Dionne Warwick

For a long time, I was shy about recording gospel music, because I didn't necessarily want to show the inside of my soul, Milsap revealed. But now, the spiritual side of me is really shining through. — Ronnie Milsap

I enjoyed singing, I loved song writing, I loved recording. All those things that involves with creating music was great. — Ben E. King

Memory isn't the defective tape recording you've been led to believe. It's the tape player itself, playing back the tracks of music we select - and sometimes those we don't. — James Kimmel Jr.

I do like to be creative and I'm very lucky that I've been given different areas in which I'm able to do that - whether it be film or television or theatre or whatever. I'm also still into music and recording. — Richard O'Brien

I'm consistently recording and releasing stuff online or YouTube videos or whatever it is. I just don't know if it's going to be a full on, I'm the next Rihanna, or whatever. I'm not going for it to that level. But I love making music and I don't think I could stop if I wanted to. — Drew Seeley

We sometimes take photos (or record a video) so that we can later see what was happening while we were busy taking photos (or recording a video). — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Today, with a recording, he can hear the thing enough times until he really gets acquainted with the language, and then he can begin to make an estimate of the intrinsic, aesthetic value of that piece of music. — Leo Ornstein

I'm a keen musician. Me and my mates have a great times jamming and recording stuff. We have a great band behind us and have turned my nursery-rhyme songs into quite credible pieces of music. — Tom Felton

In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school. Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students, music as painting? They knew how to do that. — Brian Eno

Well, I've been recording myself on a computer since I was about 13 or 14. So it's completely entwined with my creative process. Essentially, it allows you to make music that's better and smarter than you are, by using your ears to lead the way. — St. Vincent

Recording in Nashville was absolutely essential to get the sound, the musicians, the atmosphere, the warmth ... There are just cult places like that in the world, like Chicago for the blues or New York for jazz. Nothing sounds the same in Nashville as it does elsewhere. Nashville is the Mecca of country music and everyone knows it. — Roch Voisine

The dream world of sleep and the dream world of music are not far apart. I often catch glimpses of one as I pass through a door to the other, like encountering a neighbor in the hallway going into the apartment next to one's own. In the recording studio, I would often lie down to nap and wake up with harmony parts fully formed in my mind, ready to be recorded. I think of music as dreaming in sound. — Linda Ronstadt

I would like to stop worrying so much, because I worry all the time. And to learn how to be happier, just in general. I have to learn to take things not so seriously. And to stop biting my nails! ... Recording music has helped take my mind off certain things. For me, my music is therapy. — Britney Spears

The churches weren't going to accept me looking like a street person with long hair and faded jeans. They did not like the music I was recording. And I had no desire to preach the gospel to the converted. — Larry Norman

It's kind of odd when you think of Loretta Lynn, when she was first traveling and recording country music. It was all built through word of mouth. If you pleased the fans, they would pass it around to their friends and family. — Patty Loveless

I love my music and recording people. — Edwyn Collins

When I first started recording, I was told by all of the experts in the business that the kind of music that I was doing was never going to sell. That disco was the coming thing and it was going to take over and what I was interested in was a minor sideline. — Tom Scholz

A big part of making music is the discovery aspect, is the surprise aspect. That's why I think I'll always love sampling. Because it involves combining the music fandom: collecting, searching, discovering music history, and artifacts of recording that you may not have known existed and you just kind of unlock parts of your brain, you know? — Gotye

I have always loved music and singing, and I am open to listen to any type of music. Regardless of my mood, my heart is always set racing when I listen to opera. When I decide which music I want to hear, my choice is almost invariably an opera recording. — Andrea Bocelli

When I am not recording, I do live shows or am at home catching up on shows which I regularly watch. But there will always be some music around me. — Shreya Ghoshal

Sheet music, recording, radio, television, cassettes, CD burners, and file sharing have all invalidated, to some extent, the old model of making a living making music. — Kent Beck

My mom is a very religious woman. So when I began recording music, I was afraid she wouldn't accept it. But when I played her a song, she loved it. — Leon Bridges

One reason for the bustle was that over large parts of the continent other people preferred to make money without working at all, and since the Disc had yet to develop a music recording industry they were forced to fall back on older, more traditional forms of banditry. — Terry Pratchett

It was so interesting, when [John Coltrane] created A Love Supreme. He had meditated that week. I almost didn't see him downstairs. And it was so quiet! There was no sound, no practice! He was up there meditating, and when he came down he said, "I have a whole new music!" He said, "There is a new recording that I will do, I have it all, everything." And it was so beautiful! He was like Moses coming down from the mountain. And when he recorded it, he knew everything, everything. He said this was the first time that he had all the music in his head at once to record. — Alice Coltrane

Private listening really took off in 1979, with the popularity of the Walkman portable cassette player. Listening to music on a Walkman is a variation of the "sitting very still in a concert hall" experience (there are no acoustic distractions), combined with the virtual space (achieved by adding reverb and echo to the vocals and instruments) that studio recording allows. With headphones on, you can hear and appreciate extreme detail and subtlety, and the lack of uncontrollable reverb inherent in hearing music in a live room means that rhythmic material survives beautifully and completely intact; it doesn't get blurred or turned into sonic mush as it often does in a concert hall. You, and only you, the audience of one, can hear a million tiny details, even with the compression that MP3 technology adds to recordings. You can hear the singer's breath intake, their fingers on a guitar string. That said, extreme and sudden dynamic changes can be painful on a personal music player. As — David Byrne

My relationship with Music Row has always been, from my end, optimistic and hopeful that there is more than one way to approach the writing, recording, and marketing of an album. — Deana Carter

Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music. The very practice of music is a celebration that we own nothing. — John Cage

Actually, I very much dislike routine. Creating music is my chaos therapy. The writing process puts me in a good place. Recording the music is the release of however I felt in the song. — Mpho Koaho

The parties happen when we book the studio. That's a safe place. Get alcohol, food, girls, homies, and have these small listening parties while I'm recording. And that energy always gets into the music. — DJ Quik

Sometimes when you have multimedia, people use it too much. It has to be a tool and not the end product, if you can use it as a tool. The same thing apples when you are recording. We had this problem in the 80's, we got so computerized there was no heart and soul in the music anymore. — Donny Osmond

I'm from the generation that's always been recording, from the very beginning. I learned to play the guitar on the four-track. I started listening to music at a time when people were doing recording at home, when the discussion about songwriting correlated to the discussion about producing and engineering. I think that's a description of my generation. — Sufjan Stevens

Records are only one-dimensional. Even film is only one-dimensional. That's why music and live theatre is so important, because it's not the same thing. A recording is just a record of part of the experience, but it's not the whole experience. — Steve Earle

No one likes to work for free. To copy an artist's work and download it free is stealing. It's hard work writing and recording music, and it's morally wrong to steal it. — Gary Wright

When I was recording music, I'd record all the parts myself, and I wouldn't let other people in; that's essentially what Blood Orange is the result of; me trying to find the most comfortable I can be with everything. — Dev Hynes

I didn't realize what I was even doing when I started to record music. I was just doing it for fun. I picked up whatever recording gear I could get my hands on and I'd sit there day-in and day-out ... experimenting with different sounds and trying to write songs. — Alex Goot