John Coltrane Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.”
-- John Coltrane -
“My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls.”
-- John Coltrane -
“I would like to bring to people something like happiness. I would like to discover a method so that if I want it to rain, it will start right away to rain. If one of my friends is ill, I'd like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he'd be broke, I'd bring out a different song and immediately he'd receive all the money he needed.”
-- John Coltrane -
“You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.”
-- John Coltrane -
“My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there's no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.”
-- John Coltrane -
“Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.”
-- John Coltrane -
“All of the technique doesn't matter... only if the feeling is right.”
-- John Coltrane -
“Damn the rules, it's the feeling that counts.”
-- John Coltrane -
“Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.”
-- John Coltrane -
“The real risk is not changing. I have to feel that I'm after something. If I make money, fine. But I'd rather be striving. It's the striving, man, it's that I want.”
-- John Coltrane -
“God breathes through us so completely...So gently we hardly feel it...yet it is our everything.”
-- John Coltrane -
“I'd like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to their souls.”
-- John Coltrane -
“There are so many things to be considered in making music. The whole question of life itself... I know that I want to produce beautiful music, music that does things to people that they need.”
-- John Coltrane -
“The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.”
-- John Coltrane -
“We should pray and seek for knowledge which would enable us to portray and project the things we love in music, in a way that might wholly or in some part, be appreciated as having been conceived and composed or performed and presented with dedication and in positive taste”
-- John Coltrane -
“When you are playing with someone who really has something to say, even though they may be otherwise quite different in style, there’s one thing that remains constant. And that is the tension of the experience, that electricity, that kind of feeling that is a lift sort of feeling. No matter where it happens, you know when that feeling comes upon you, and it makes you feel happy.”
-- John Coltrane -
“Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft”
-- John Coltrane -
“When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.”
-- John Coltrane -
“My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.”
-- John Coltrane -
“The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.”
-- John Coltrane -
“All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.”
-- John Coltrane -
“Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.”
-- John Coltrane -
“Change is inevitable in music - things change.”
-- John Coltrane -
“I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.”
-- John Coltrane -
“Invest yourself in everything you do. There's fun in being serious.”
-- John Coltrane -
“I believe that men are here to grow themselves into the best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.”
-- John Coltrane -
“Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe. . . Thats what I would like to do. I think thats one of the greatest things you can do in life and we all try to do it in some way. The musicians is through his music.”
-- John Coltrane -
“The reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I'm trying so many things at one time, you see? I haven't sorted them out. I have a whole bag of things that I'm trying to work through and get the one essential.”
-- John Coltrane -
“I think I know what it is but don't ask me to play it”
-- John Coltrane
