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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

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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
Whatever
Song
Littles
Little
Greek
Work
Somehow
Something
Okay
Like
Challenges
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I've literally opened it up to suggestions and it's totally chaotic and kind of a bad idea. You don't need the actual feedback to get a sense. When you're showing a song for the first time, people can feel that newness.
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I still play solo shows. And some of those shows are still some of the best, most gratifying shows.
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All the folks I play with come from jazz backgrounds or at least appreciate spontaneity within the parameters of a pop song.
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Honestly, I didn't have the patience for biology or history in an academic sense, but I always liked the kind of big questions.
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There's always a tension between wanting to write a really concise, instant gratification type song that gets under your skin the first time you hear it, and wanting to really stretch out. I think it's a healthy tension.
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I'm a terrible Scrabble player.
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I'm just trying to get my body in shape so that I can handle it. It's a very physically demanding thing. I've been doing it for 16 years, so I know what I'm going into now. I'm trying to stay calm and not panic.
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Well, my main instrument is violin, but I think of myself as a songwriter who happens to play violin.
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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.
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Sometimes the word dictated the melody.
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What you see at the Field Museum is only like, 10 percent of the collection. It's birds of paradise and passenger pigeons and in all these drawers that pull out, these specimens come out and it's spectacular. And it worked out.
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I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.
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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.
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I've never approached classical music in a formal way, ever. I couldn't read very well. I'd have to play every piece and internalize it, almost as if I had written it myself.
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I'm not a home-studio guy. I spend a lot of time working by myself developing songs, but I really need some other counterpart to help me pull it all together, because you go nuts working if I had to finish an entire project all within my own head.
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It's not set in stone. I like to keep it rolling and changing, and so I am like, Great, I get to remake my song.
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I've always found that whatever you say about indie rock, it is the most inclusive genre or title for anything. It doesn't pin you down too much, like other labels would. It's just newer, it has less baggage.
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What you see with your eyes when you're making music is going to have a profound effect on what you hear.
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I just pay attention to what's in my head. That's my number-one rule.
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When I'm onstage, I'm completely comfortable, and I feel very vital and alive.
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