Quote

I can't write anything for myself. I can write when I hear like [John] Coltrane play something I used to write chords and stuff for him to play in one bar. I can write for other people, but I don't never write for myself.

Miles Davis

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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
Never
Hear
Like
Write
People
Stuff
Used
Anything
Coltrane
Play
Chords
Writing
Bars
Something
John

More quotes by Miles Davis

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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
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In music, silence is more important than sound.
Miles Davis
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Some of [drummers] drop time because they want to hear what you're doin'.
Miles Davis
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Sometimes [playing free] doesn't happen, because maybe a guy's wife'll come in, you know, and his ego will catch him. If everybody's completely just straight-without any old ladies over here, a fourth of whisky over there if it's balanced right, it'll come off. It has to be. But when you get egos involved with playing free, you can't do it.
Miles Davis
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The reason [drummers] call things unison, and they sound unison, is because you actually play two different tempos . . . like you're a little sharp, or a little flat it's so slight that they call it unison, but it's not unison.
Miles Davis
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Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging — but they weren't sweet.
Miles Davis
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Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.
Miles Davis
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Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
Miles Davis
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If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.
Miles Davis
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If I hear a song like Time After Time. I'm sittin' there lookin' at video and Cindy Lauper comes on singin' this song. I said, God damnnnnn!
Miles Davis
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Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.
Miles Davis
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I would never try and play like Harry James, because I don't like his tone - for me. It's just white. You know what I mean? He has what we black trumpet players call a white sound. But it's for white music ... I can tell a white trumpet player, just listening to a record. There'll be something he'll do that'll let me know that he's white.
Miles Davis
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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
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Always look ahead, but never look back.
Miles Davis
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Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.
Miles Davis
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The only reason to write a new song is because you're tired of the old ones.
Miles Davis
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What's swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don't have to ask anybody if that's good music or not. You can always feel it.
Miles Davis
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When the band plays fast, you play slow when the band plays slow, you play fast.
Miles Davis
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John Lee Hooker is the funkiest man alive
Miles Davis
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You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
Miles Davis