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Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary.

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
Even
Ceremony
Arbitrary
Somewhat
Requires
Started
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Process

More quotes by Andrew Bird

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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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When I start asking my friends, What do you think this means? And it leads to way more interesting conversations than what it actually ends up meaning in the dictionary. Like apocryphal, for instance.
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The first splurge of creativity is kind of free, and the last 30 percent is painstakingly hard work, but it's good to light a fire and make it public and create that expectation. It's become part of the writing process, really, a way to ask the audience what they think, how they think it's going. I can't write songs in a vacuum.
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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.
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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
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The way I work, I'm not a confessional singer-songwriter.
Andrew Bird
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The earth almost looks like it's packed down and dense from so many feet treading over it.
Andrew Bird
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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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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
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I think when I was pretty young I got really into the tone of my instrument and I remember just playing one note for an hour to just kind of feel the resonance of the violin.
Andrew Bird
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With digital sound just becomes simply information, not the sum of its parts.
Andrew Bird
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With the words, a lot of things start with questions. Some word kind of piques my interest, and I love the way it sounds, but I really don't know what it means. And I honestly don't care for a while.
Andrew Bird
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Well, my main instrument is violin, but I think of myself as a songwriter who happens to play violin.
Andrew Bird
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Guitars are kind of just, you know, sexy, especially old vintage ones.
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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I have some irrepressible pop impulses to write an appealing, concise song. And I also have some irrepressible kind of restlessness as well, and I need to keep myself interested. When I'm left to my own devices, there's a struggle.
Andrew Bird
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I am, in some sense, a writer. Even though I kinda downplay the word thing, I do enjoy writing sometimes.
Andrew Bird
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The first notes I still play when I start a sound check are classical. Those are my roots.
Andrew Bird
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I'm into lately being a little less precious about writing and being like, Okay, what if I just locked myself in my room, pretend that there's someone outside with a gun that's saying, 'Don't come out until you write something.'
Andrew Bird
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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