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

More quotes by Miles Davis

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Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
Miles Davis
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If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
Miles Davis
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When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
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'm not messing around with nobody's woman. If I want a woman I go get her - you know what I mean?
Miles Davis
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You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.
Miles Davis
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John Lee Hooker is the funkiest man alive
Miles Davis
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Americans don't like any form of art, man. All they like to do is make money. They don't like me, Sammy Davis, or anybody else. They don't like nothing. They just like Sammy because he can make 'em a lot of money.
Miles Davis
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I began to realize that some of the things Ornette Coleman had said about things being played three or fours ways, independently of each other, were true because Bach had also composed that way.
Miles Davis
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If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
Miles Davis
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Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.
Miles Davis
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In improvisation, there are no mistakes.
Miles Davis
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I can tell. I'm gifted with that, you know. When I hear that the tempo is slightly off, it's hard for me.
Miles Davis
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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
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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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I usually write from the rhythm section...If a drummer got a funky beat on some things - like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that's even - I can write something.
Miles Davis
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You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.
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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Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
Miles Davis
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I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.
Miles Davis