Quote

Well, my main instrument is violin, but I think of myself as a songwriter who happens to play violin.

Andrew Bird

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Andrew Bird
Age: 51
Born: 1973
Born: July 11
Fiddler
Film Editor
Guitarist
Jazz Musician
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Chicago
Illinois
Andrew Wegman Bird
Andrew W. Bird
Main
Instruments
Happens
Wells
Well
Songwriter
Play
Violin
Think
Songwriters
Thinking
Instrument

More quotes by Andrew Bird

Image
Some of your best songs come from a desperate attempt to escape, so sitting in an airport for hours I can just start pulling out little fragments of songs from my head. A lot of times a melody will just occur to me and be my companion for a couple of months.
Andrew Bird
Image
I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.
Andrew Bird
Image
The melodies come out so strong that I'm like, Oh, crap. It's really better if they could both be kind of able to compromise, but the melodies, even more recently, they come out very fully cast and formed.
Andrew Bird
Image
The problem is, when you're working with orchestras, you only get the orchestra for about two hours before the performance to pull it all together, and that doesn't sound like a real collaboration.
Andrew Bird
Image
The instrumental record is a bit subtler. It's the kind of stuff on sound check, when I first pick up my violin and start to play, the kind of melodies that just pour out of me. Some of them sound very classical. Some of them sound experimental, polyrhythmic loops that I make.
Andrew Bird
Image
Honestly, I didn't have the patience for biology or history in an academic sense, but I always liked the kind of big questions.
Andrew Bird
Image
I write a lot more when I'm happy, because you're hopeful, you're motivated.
Andrew Bird
Image
The first notes I still play when I start a sound check are classical. Those are my roots.
Andrew Bird
Image
I create little challenges for myself, like, 'Okay, whatever you do in this song, you've got to somehow work in Greek Cypriots,' or something like that.
Andrew Bird
Image
A day off after a show with no agenda in a foreign city is about the most fertile creative situation I can imagine. Just walking with nothing to do, killing time and hearing the sights and sounds of an unfamiliar place.
Andrew Bird
Image
There's a lot of interesting words, nomenclatures, in science.
Andrew Bird
Image
I'm a terrible Scrabble player.
Andrew Bird
Image
The anti-aging advert that I would like to see is a baby covered in cream saying, 'Aah, I've used too much'
Andrew Bird
Image
Anyway, I'm digressing, but this is just kind of this 10-and-a-half-minute, ambient - you hear cicadas and birds and the wind outside and crickets as I'm swelling the piece. I could never do that on a pop record. I could, but why would I want to be agitating?
Andrew Bird
Image
You can build up expectations for a song before you record it, and then it's like nothing's good enough in the studio.
Andrew Bird
Image
Sometimes I think I don't have much choice in the matter. It's just what happens, and I'm following my instincts the whole time.
Andrew Bird
Image
I still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering.
Andrew Bird
Image
Just don't let the human factor fail to be a factor at all
Andrew Bird
Image
There's always that struggle between me wanting to keep [song] new and fresh and then be - I can never get with pop songs being so repetitive.
Andrew Bird
Image
Music as a social conduit has always been important to me.
Andrew Bird