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You've got to learn your instrument.
Charlie Parker
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Charlie Parker
Age: 34 †
Born: 1920
Born: August 29
Died: 1955
Died: March 12
Composer
Jazz Musician
Musician
Saxophonist
Kansas City
Kansas
Yardbird
Bird
Charles Parker Jr.
Charlie Parker Jr.
Charles Christopher Parker
Jr.
Instruments
Jazz
Learn
Instrument
More quotes by Charlie Parker
Some guys said 'Here's bop!' Wham! They said, 'Here's something we can make money on!' Wham! 'Here's a comedian!' Wham! Here's a guy who talks funny talk!'
Charlie Parker
I don't care who likes it or buys it. Because if you use that criterion, Mozart would never have written Don Giovanni, Charlie Parker would have never played anything but swing music.
Charlie Parker
Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.
Charlie Parker
They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
Charlie Parker
When I first heard music, I thought it should be very clean, very precise. Something that people could understand, something that was beautiful.
Charlie Parker
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom.
Charlie Parker
I kept thinking there's bound to be something else? I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it.
Charlie Parker
I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes (harmonies) that were being used all the time. I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.
Charlie Parker
Man, there's no boundary line to art!
Charlie Parker
If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.
Charlie Parker
Any musician who says he is playing better either on tea, the needle, or when he is juiced, is a plain, straight liar. When I get too much to drink, I can't even finger well, let alone play decent ideas. You can miss the most important years of your life, the years of possible creation.
Charlie Parker
I can play all I know in eight bars.
Charlie Parker
Once I could play what I heard inside me, that's when I was born.
Charlie Parker
I look at melody as rhythm.
Charlie Parker
It's just music. It's trying to play clean and looking for the pretty notes. The beat in a bop band is with the music, against it, behind it. It pushes it. It helps it. Help is the big thing. It has no continuity of beat, no steady chug-chug. Jazz has, and that's why bop is more flexible.
Charlie Parker
Don't be afraid, just play the music.
Charlie Parker
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.
Charlie Parker
You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.
Charlie Parker
