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The orchestra's an amazing instrument, but I don't want to just arrange my songs for it. I think that might be kind of boring and a little bit overdramatic, perhaps. I'm still just having too much fun doing it my way, for the time being.

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
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More quotes by Andrew Bird

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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
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The weirdest time is when I'm having to explain myself all day to journalists, and then I don't perform, so there's no release, just a lot of self-consciousness. Then what do you do with that at the end of the day? How do you release your brain from talking about yourself all day?
Andrew Bird
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I just pay attention to what's in my head. That's my number-one rule.
Andrew Bird
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Norman is a very up-close, personal, character drama and I'd like to do something more zoomed out, a little more pastoral, some sweeping epic. I'd like to try something different.
Andrew Bird
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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
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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
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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
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There's kind of this unequaled thrill of playing a half-finished song, it's kind of sense of slight embarrassment like you're blushing. I like doing that. I did that with Eyeoneye and it was almost a curse on the song for a while I debuted it when it was half-finished in a very public way
Andrew Bird
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Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound.
Andrew Bird
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I don't write poetry and then strum some chords and then fit the words on top of the chords.
Andrew Bird
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Playing the violin and singing and whistling are just three different ways of making sound. It's not trying to replace a band, per se. It's become a completely different thing. And it's not just simply an effect. It's just a very surprisingly intuitive thing.
Andrew Bird
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When I'm onstage, I'm completely comfortable, and I feel very vital and alive.
Andrew Bird
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There's been this perception that Europeans still hold on to, that they discover the real talented ones in American culture and give them proper credit and that's not true anymore - it used to be. A lot of jazz musicians would get respect in Europe.
Andrew Bird
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The music that I write is often not necessarily full of doom and gloom. You'll notice in most of the darkest songs, the music is actually pretty peaceful and lulling.
Andrew Bird
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Every time I make a record, it's kind of like scarification or something. You work 15 hours until you're stupid. You're just kind of all jittery.
Andrew Bird
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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.
Andrew Bird
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There's songs that could either be taken as a conversation between two people, like The Privateers, or Why, from a much earlier record. Or Glass Figurine. That's my version of a relationship song.
Andrew Bird
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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.
Andrew Bird
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My favorite literature to read is fairly dry history. I like the framework, and my imagination can do the rest.
Andrew Bird
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I really believe there's more honesty in one live show than there may be in my whole output.
Andrew Bird