It is one thing to be a virtuoso, but a different thing to play with compassion. — Vijay Iyer Compassion Copy Share Image
To interact means being among others, and taking others into account in a way, to act. — Vijay Iyer Interact Copy Share Image
This is the last sentence of my dissertation: "What is soul in music if not powerfully embodied human presence?" — Vijay Iyer Dissertation Copy Share Image
Resonance is a physical process through which similarities are highlighted. — Vijay Iyer Resonance Copy Share Image
I want to make sure that I represent a variety of backgrounds and that represents the reality out here in the world. — Vijay Iyer Backgrounds Copy Share Image
My music is always called "cerebral." It is a way of saying I'm Asian, and therefore everything I do is brainy. — Vijay Iyer Asian Copy Share Image
What we call music is what reminds us of ourselves. And sometimes electronic music helps lead the imagination to a space that… — Vijay Iyer Electronic music Copy Share Image
What I find the challenge is with working with, say, digital machines - performing electronic music - is that when we play… — Vijay Iyer Challenges Copy Share Image
Whatever we can do to just give people a sense of hope in the face of what seems like hopelessness. That's a… — Vijay Iyer Art Copy Share Image
The sense of having to be the best at everything gets in the way of anybody doing anything. I put all that… — Vijay Iyer Art Copy Share Image
Electronic technology has been a part of music making and music listening for a century. We always treat it like it's new,… — Vijay Iyer Cutting Copy Share Image
In a mystical sense, three can become one, in the sense that two is not one; three is a way of resolving… — Vijay Iyer Balance Copy Share Image
With electronic music it's often a little more hidden - the relationship between gesture and sound - which makes it confounding for… — Vijay Iyer Audience Copy Share Image
Lately I feel being political is also about the company I keep and the ideas I put forward. When I do a… — Vijay Iyer Business Copy Share Image
When I give a concert, I know they're not going to hear everything; there might be a lot going on. My individual… — Vijay Iyer Different Copy Share Image
The thing about physicists is that they tend to think that everything is physics. I don't. That's not what music is to… — Vijay Iyer Anatomy Copy Share Image
If we reject the word, or any word that labels music, what's left? That's the question we should all ask ourselves. Ben… — Vijay Iyer Aesthetic Copy Share Image
There are records I'll listen to one time and zero in on what's happening, and then I'll listen again to something I… — Vijay Iyer Art Copy Share Image
In the 1990s I got to play in a group that played in prisons in California. We would play in maximum security… — Vijay Iyer Audience Copy Share Image
I'm what they call a 'non-black person of color': NBPOC. It's easy and seductive and common to mobilize around these identity issues,… — Vijay Iyer Art Copy Share Image
A successful relationship is not about two people staring into each other's eyes, it's about two people looking ahead together. I think… — Vijay Iyer Balance Copy Share Image
You figure out how to create opportunities to make music, and then, if you take care of the music, audiences will come… — Vijay Iyer Audience Copy Share Image
My concern with this approach is that music becomes a substance devoid of people. It's a consumer model of what music is:… — Vijay Iyer Concern Copy Share Image
I like the idea of the objecthood of music being destabilized by process and things like improvisation. That's what empowers us; that's… — Vijay Iyer Empowering Copy Share Image
I make a lot of music with other desis - that's hugely important to me, but it can't be the sum total… — Vijay Iyer Important Copy Share Image
It doesn't matter if it's jazz or not. It's about how we listen, how we interact, how we guide our attention when… — Vijay Iyer Attention Copy Share Image
I know from the elders that it's not so easy to sustain a life in music, a presence in the music world,… — Vijay Iyer Change Copy Share Image
I use are provisional terms, and they usually put any proper nouns in critical distance. I'm in a tradition of people who… — Vijay Iyer Distance Copy Share Image
We can create the sensation of community through the accrual of actions, and that's often the clichéd way that storytelling is talked… — Vijay Iyer Action Copy Share Image
I find myself skeptical of music that forces you to have a certain experience, emotional reaction, or specific constructive arc of experience.… — Vijay Iyer Care Copy Share Image
I notice that Indians love to tweet about each other - will be like, yeah, go India, we're awesome, Indians are awesome,… — Vijay Iyer Community Copy Share Image
This is a tradition of resistance to the term that's as old as the term itself, especially because that term has been… — Vijay Iyer Black Copy Share Image
I've realized that a lot of people come to me because of what's called identity. In the sense of "he's like me"… — Vijay Iyer Evolve Copy Share Image
I've put live performance in a lot of spaces. Part of what I want to do is take over the takeover. Another… — Vijay Iyer Artist Copy Share Image
What I've learned from my gurus is that when you hear music, you hear a person, or you hear people, and you… — Vijay Iyer Book Copy Share Image
The phrase I use is 'easy camaraderie.' Non-western immigrants of color and their progeny like me - my parents came here fifty… — Vijay Iyer Barack Copy Share Image
Beyond that, it gets down to the nuts and bolts of discipline - not a tradition or genre, I don't care about… — Vijay Iyer Attention Copy Share Image
Music is made of what we do when we move, and we can only move in certain ways, in certain ranges of… — Vijay Iyer Imagination Copy Share Image
Music making features real-time creation, real-time decisions and actions. It's basically improvisation, which is the stuff of everyday life. In the realm… — Vijay Iyer Action Copy Share Image
I think what music can offer is the feeling of forward motion, also the feeling of accumulation of information, of sensations, of… — Vijay Iyer Feeling Copy Share Image
