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Because I refuse to perform my music in a traditional sense of instrumentation, I don't have an amazing live stage spectacle to provide, and I don't want to go there. I don't see how the music would stay true to the spirit of the work.
Sep 17, 2025
Usually one or two things happen: Either you have an idea straightaway - the sort of sound that you want or the instrumentation or one particular sound that you want to feature - or you don't.
I hate to say this, but I always listen to the music and the instrumentation first, and then grab on to the lyrics later.
I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs.
Raucous drunken trumpets and instrumentation tend to guide the way you think. They can give you a path to follow lyrically.
Hopefully each film can be given a musical voice of its own, which is not to say that the instrumentation is always unique, but that the relationship between the sound and the image is unique.
I'm just a sucker for new-agey synth sounds and instrumentation. I wasn't really thinking of soft rock, but I know that kind of quiet-storm format uses a lot of these sounds.
Our five senses evolved for survivability, and probably are the minimum necessary for our survival. There is so much of the universe which we cannot and do not see... We do now know from instrumentation developed just in the last fifty years more about some of what's out there in the universe.
Now, the instrumentation in the jazz band and the jazz dance band has gone through many evolutions. For instance, in the 'twenties the tradition was two or three saxophones
There are some superficial things that connect me to the stream. There's instrumentation, there's timbre, use of electronics, the way that samples are used, the way the electric guitar is used. I'm thinking of things that are particular to this era. But I don't always feel particularly close to the music of my peers. I often feel that I have more in common with writers and visual artists. I try to connect to people in an emotional kind of way.
No matter how great we get with digital formats of instrumentation, nothing really quite duplicates the real thing
The music I love listening to is more of the Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Dido, Jewel Kilcher, Norah Jones, Joss Stone, a bit more of that organic live-instrumentation feel.
My identity is mostly as a songwriter and lyricist and singer. I also have a lot of production ideas but I have my own limitations in terms of what instruments I'm actually proficient at and what I can do myself, so I really love working with people on the production end; just really going for it with orchestration and instrumentation and production. That's where I see myself going: maintaining my integrity and abilities as a songwriter, but applying it to different contexts, to where I can put on a huge feathered costume and roll around in the ocean.
I love contrast in music. Being inspired by classical, actually - in high school especially - classical and metal both, I remember having this cool realization that they are really similar. It's just different instrumentation.
When you grow up, you're told that rock 'n' roll is the only authentic way to express yourself. Live instrumentation, singer, live drums. You're told that's the best medium to communicate.
I never sit down to write. When I'm moved, I do it. I just wait for it to come. You just hear it. I can't really describe writing. It's in my head. I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs...A lot of people don't listen to the lyrics, really. A lot of people pretty much only listen to the chorus.
Not only do you need great lyrics, a great message, a great story, great vocals, great chords... you also need great instrumentation, great editing, great sonics, great mixing, and great mastering. It all comes together to make something truly great, and I think each element combines together to create a powerful impact on the consumer.
It required unusual inquisitiveness to pursue the development of scientific curiosities such as charged pith balls, the voltaic cell, and the electrostatic machine. Without such endeavors and the evolution of associated instrumentation, initially of purely scientific interest, most of the investigations that lead to the basic equations of electromagnetism would have been missed. ... We would have been deprived of electromagnetic machinery as well as knowledge of electromagnetic waves.
I wanted to do an album that was very simple and very minimal in the context of instrumentation and stuff. I wanted to use as few means as possible to create a very powerful and interesting sound that would breathe.
Because of my Portuguese heritage, I have an interest in all of the instrumentation that comes from Portugal and Brazil as well.
There was a band in San Diego, Bluegrass Etc, that played a weekly gig. My parents would take my brother and me every Saturday night for 7 or 8 years. Sean and I started taking lessons with them and they gave us a great foundation in bluegrass instrumentation. They were the lens through which I saw music for a very long time.
I think the great country songs mixed with some of that bluegrass instrumentation - and surrounding all that with a little bit of a rock vibe and energy - is the kind of music I make.
Country music is just country. It's going to shift around a little bit, doing some different instrumentations, different production styles. But it will always come back to what you heard at the Opry. Nobody wants it to change.
It's got to feel, the pulse has to feel like this part of the world, the instrumentation has to be true to that, and so, between him, [composer] Mark Mancina and myself, we really chased that, while serving our story Moana].
I really love that type of music where someone can take a guitar or light instrumentation and a beautiful voice and can send me somewhere.
In the beginning I had a lot of self-imposed limitations as far as production and instrumentation. It was really inspiring for us at the time, because those limitations allowed us to push ourselves as songwriters and gave us a strong sound that people could recognize as ours, like wearing a leather jacket every day. A uniform. They know it's you - and that's great - but my original intention wasn't to be a shoegaze band or to be derivative of one sound.
Another factor is that in terms of the original compositions, this is our strongest year yet. Everyone wrote a fantastic piece and everyone really had a greater sense of how to write for this band -- not only for this particular instrumentation, but for these particular players. Each year, the reality is getting closer to the ideal of a collective.
I wanted to be different and original but still have it be something my fans could get into. There also are some big, beautiful ballads. I told my producers that I wanted tracks that are going to blow up in the clubs, but I also wanted songs that were very melodic and with a lot of instrumentation.
The things that keep me awake at night are things like textures and instrumentation and plotting out what things are going to do and what the sounds are that I'm trying to capture.
In aviation they have auto pilot and color radar and a lot of other instrumentation that is a backup for pilots. It's really brought the incidents of plane crashes way down. Same thing ought to happen in the medical industry, I think.
After years of study and personal on-site investigation of UFO reports, I am certain that there is more than ample high-quality observational evidence from highly trained and reliable lay witnesses to indicate that there are unidentified machine-like objects under intelligent control operating in our atmosphere. Such evidence in some cases is supported by anomalous physical effects upon the witnesses, electrical devices, and the environment, as well as by instrumentation such as radar and Geiger counters.
Rhythms, beats, etc., are fundamentally central to my creative drive: my first instrument was the drums, nearly every band I have been involved in or at the helm of, is driven by rhythm, my band is driven entirely by rhythm, machine rhythm, and the purpose of the rock instrumentation is literally to speak the beats, to emulate the rhythms with guitars and bass, with very little articulation, and without being 'progressive'.
I didn't really hear any other music other than what my dad was working on until I was 12. My recollection of hearing other music was that I liked some things that I heard but I always thought, 'Where's the rest of it?' It didn't have the same amount of detail or instrumentation or imagination in the arrangements.
I knew I had to have a hit. I would get no more chances. Analyzing what they had in common I discovered they had many similar elements: harmonic rhythm, placement of the chord changes, choice of harmonic progressions, similar instrumentation, vocal phrases, drum fills, content, even the timbre of the lead solo voice. I decided to write a song that incorporated all these elements in one record.
It's one thing having a great song, but I think for me if you take it to the next level... say you had a guitar and a vocal, and the song was amazing but the vocalist wasn't that great and it just was a guitar and vocal acoustic track, switching that to something like an amazing voice singing the exact same song with the instrumentation being really nice and lush or unique in some way and interesting and diverse... I think it's all about the instrumentation and textures in the sound.
Up till now I wrote the songs on my acoustic guitar alone with the Lord. Then I would take the song and share it with my family and then we all would figure out instrumentation together.
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