Quote

Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

Miles Davis

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Notes
Jazz
Playing
Worry
Pretty
Find

More quotes by Miles Davis

Image
I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
Miles Davis
Image
I've come close to matching the feeling of that night in 1944 in music, when I first heard Diz and Bird, but I've never got there. . . . I'm always looking for it, listening and feeling for it, though, trying to always feel it in and through the music I play everyday.
Miles Davis
Image
He sounded to me like he's supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.
Miles Davis
Image
Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery
Miles Davis
Image
I've gotten hernias from drummers when they drop tempo.
Miles Davis
Image
In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn.
Miles Davis
Image
[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
Miles Davis
Image
Sometimes, if you ask people to go downstairs and get me this or that, they'll say, It's rainin or It might rain, or There's some bumpy roads on the road, or bla-bla-bla. They give you all those excuses, so when they do something which is easy, you're supposed to say, Damn, you did that?
Miles Davis
Image
I couldn't do What's Love Got To Do With It, Tina Turner because it wasn't the right tempo so I scratched it from the record. I wanted to do it about a year ago, but something happened.
Miles Davis
Image
You can tell whether a person plays well or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not.
Miles Davis
Image
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
Image
We're not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got 'em, so they can keep 'em.
Miles Davis
Image
Everybody ought to listen to Benny [Carter]. He's a whole musical education.
Miles Davis
Image
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
Image
Always look ahead, but never look back.
Miles Davis
Image
You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
Miles Davis
Image
The only way a drum machine will get out of beat is for you not to pay your electric bill.
Miles Davis
Image
You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
Miles Davis
Image
Maybe you play a melody twice. You play it once like you like it, and some parts that you don't like you can just switch. An eight-bar motive - you can just take it and put it in the front or back or something like that. It can save you 50 or 60 or 70,000 dollars, a drum machine. That's why everybody uses it.
Miles Davis
Image
There are no wrong notes.
Miles Davis