Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
Miles Davis
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Miles Davis
Age: 65 †
Born: 1926
Born: May 26
Died: 1991
Died: September 28
Actor
Autobiographer
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Film Score Composer
Jazz Musician
Musician
Recording Artist
Songwriter
Television Actor
Alton
Illinois
Miles Dewey Davis III
Miles Dewey Davis
III Davis
Chess
Nothing
Play
More quotes by Miles Davis
When we edit the music, I always remember, It's my band. Save me a place to play.
Miles Davis
Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.
Miles Davis
You want to know how I started playing trumpet? My father bought me one, and I studied the trumpet. And everybody I heard that I liked, I picked up things from.
Miles Davis
It took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?
Miles Davis
The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
Miles Davis
I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
Miles Davis
I put all those synthesizer sounds behind Decoy and Code M.D. A lot of things we write together. A lot of things are his, but they don't have that thing I want on the bottom. I often tell him, I say, Bobby [Irving], if there's a melody, there's another one somewhere that goes with it.
Miles Davis
When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
Miles Davis
I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it - like, they say rock. Because the white singers can't sound like James Brown, they call him soul. They've been doing that for years. That's the prejudice crap.
Miles Davis
I never thought that the music called jazz was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all the other dead things that were once considered artistic.
Miles Davis
Always listen for what you can leave out.
Miles Davis
If you have a tone like mine that is recognizable. No matter what I play, when you hear my tone you can tell it's me.
Miles Davis
I can hear what I want [people] to play. If you don't hear what you want someone to play, then you can't tell 'em.
Miles Davis
When the band plays fast, you play slow when the band plays slow, you play fast.
Miles Davis
Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
Miles Davis
Do not fear mistakes. There are none.
Miles Davis
Always look ahead, but never look back.
Miles Davis
I keep telling Ron Lorman and them in the control room, It's my band! The reason I have a band is because I can't stand for somebody to tell me what to do.
Miles Davis
Some of [drummers] drop time because they want to hear what you're doin'.
Miles Davis
In respect for drummers, see, I love drummers.
Miles Davis
