Quote

Sometimes the word dictated the melody.

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
Dictated
Melody
Word
Sometimes

More quotes by Andrew Bird

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I can't relate to the process of just disappearing and writing a record, all at the same time, followed by the sort of drudgery of going out on tour and trying to recreate the record, playing the same 12 songs every night.
Andrew Bird
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I still kind of believe this absurd line that if you have to write it down, it's not worth remembering.
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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I really believe there's more honesty in one live show than there may be in my whole output.
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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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 definitely have to give myself permission, like on Master Swarm, to rip a lead on that. Just play a violin solo that's - it's a bit showoff-y, but it's fun, so who cares?
Andrew Bird
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There's a lot of interesting words, nomenclatures, in science.
Andrew Bird
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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.
Andrew Bird
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I put a lot into my records, and I won't release anything I'm not totally thrilled with.
Andrew Bird
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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.
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.
Andrew Bird
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Most of the songs that I appreciate are lyrically vague.
Andrew Bird
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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
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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.
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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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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I write a lot more when I'm happy, because you're hopeful, you're motivated.
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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Most records, you build from the drums and bass up. This one, we started with the vocals in Nashville and recorded them live with just the guitars and tried to make that complete and lovely-sounding without any adornment at all. I really wanted to get something with the vocal that I've never gotten before Armchair Apocrypha.
Andrew Bird