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Music Quotes by Chris Thile

43 Music quotes by Chris Thile

All Music quotes Chris Thile’s page

Chris Thile says music is the thing he does best and that exploring many styles is worth encouraging. He explains that improvisation is a way of writing music, turning a performance into a new composition. He also notes that without performance, composition stays like a tree that never bears fruit.

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There are two genres of music: there's good music and there's bad music.

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I love music so much. It's like the one thing I'm good at.

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I obviously love music very, very much.

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My life conforms to music, not the other way around.

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The world's music is at our fingertips, so if we like music, we kind of owe it to ourselves to check in…

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I just love getting as many experiences making music for and with people as possible.

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The goal of serious musicians is to play outside of yourself. That's most likely with people who suggest things that are outside…

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My thesis statement would be—Bach didn't write Baroque music. He wrote great music.

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I think there's probably really wonderful music that has been lost due to the lack of preservation methods way back in the…

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The great musics of the world are great for very similar structural reasons: good melody, good harmony, and a balance of feminine…

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In my mind, there's this one 'super genre,' which is the only genre that matters, and that's the super genre of good…

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My musical output has been consistently acoustic, but my taste has not. I love everything. As long as it's good, I'm in.

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I'm a musician, and I feel like musicians owe it to themselves and owe it to music to concern themselves with as…

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I think people are largely proud of being musically on the risk. Any time you talk to someone about music, I feel…

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I've always taken a lot of joy in my work, but it's also been very results-oriented. It's kind of like, making the…

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Growing up in a bluegrass or acoustic-oriented world, the musicians become so focused on performance, as far as playing. We tend to…

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You need to put yourself in the way of the music that stood the test of time. You're doing yourself an incredible…

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Improvisation is an important part of bluegrass, and I would hasten to add that classical music wasn't always such an improvisational void.…

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For me, music always leads. Lyrics are only about how they sing. It is wonderful if they read well, too. In the…

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I was introduced to classical music by my grandparents - my parents were mostly into folk and jazz. Even as a young…

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Ever since I became better acquainted with classical music, I've wanted to try my hand at longer forms, but I could never…

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The fact that I'm a fifth of Punch Brothers... that's lucky for me because I feel like I get to operate in…

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Musicians and non-musicians alike are priding themselves on the width and breadth of their musical interests, which I think is to be…

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I would love to be one of those fellows who combine formal and folk music approaches.

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Music should never be a dictatorship. It should be a symbiotic relationship between the musician and the audience.

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The power of live music is vast. Live music is a wonderful way to spend some time.

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We love music, and when it's good we flip. And we want to get to the core of why it's good.

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I'm always excited about music, but having spent so much time in its pursuit - well, my musical life is complicated.

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What makes one type of music classical and one bluegrass and one folk - these things aren't what's important.

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If you want to be happy, you listen to the music; if you want to be sad, you listen to the words.

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Great music is the only genre that actually matters, and the members of that club are far more similar to each other…

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It's like wine and food, or coffee and a pastry - coffee's awesome and a chocolate croissant is awesome, and together, they're…

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Really the greatest music I've ever heard I've hated the first time I heard it. It's been abrasive at first; it's been…

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I love music with everything I have, and when I am in a front of a classroom talking about music sometimes someone…

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It was kind of sort of the heavens opened up and I realized that Bach, at least, you know - out of…

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I think, until I was 16, classical music had just seemed like a little bit of a rhythmic wasteland for me. Coming…

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I can't listen to music while I'm doing something else. Well, unless I'm working out. But I, like, fall off the treadmill…

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Bill Monroe is not singing about life in America. He's singing about life in Kentucky and Tennessee. And yet it's had this…

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There's a lot of steps between there not being music and there being music. Composition is one part of that, but if…

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For years, my actual listening activity has been governed by what I perceived to be good for me as a musician, almost…

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More by Chris Thile

A cocktail and an oyster is an awfully good thing after a park, especially one close to water.

I think people react so strongly to hearing the human voice, you can't give them too much of it or else they want it…

I'm always going to need to play in front of people.

I love music so much. It's like the one thing I'm good at.

Like a sporting event, live events are the one thing you can't have anytime you want them.

Musicians and non-musicians alike are priding themselves on the width and breadth of their musical interests, which I think is to be encouraged.

There's a lot of steps between there not being music and there being music. Composition is one part of that, but if no one…

The fact that I'm a fifth of Punch Brothers... that's lucky for me because I feel like I get to operate in the context…

It seems like if they'd given Bob Dylan a pen and paper in the cradle that he would've come up with a great song.…

Improvising is writing, too - there was no music and now there's music. So that's composition. And any time you take any sort of…

It's very hard to make grand, romantic gestures on a mandolin, and there are times, particularly when playing Bach, that you long for just…

Everything in our lives is encouraging us to turn inward with all the technology that we have available to us.

Improvisation is an important part of bluegrass, and I would hasten to add that classical music wasn't always such an improvisational void. Back in…

It was kind of sort of the heavens opened up and I realized that Bach, at least, you know - out of all the…

I think that we'll see the concept of 'genre' continue to die a slow and painful death.