Top 100 Herbie Hancock Quotes
#1. I don't mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn't really start out that way. I started in classical music, but my formative years were in jazz, and it makes a great foundation.
Herbie Hancock
#2. One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.
Herbie Hancock
#3. You can change your character and, at the same time, change your fortune.
Herbie Hancock
#5. It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.
Herbie Hancock
#6. Creativity shouldn't be following radio; it should be the other way around.
Herbie Hancock
#7. If you're not judging what happens, then you're trusting what others are doing, what you're playing, and trusting what you're playing.And it can lead you to other ideas, to something maybe you hadn't expressed before.
Herbie Hancock
#8. I just express myself in any way I feel is appropriate at the moment.
Herbie Hancock
#10. When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your life never ends.
Herbie Hancock
#11. Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference.
Herbie Hancock
#12. But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already.
Herbie Hancock
#13. When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn't I couldn't do my best.
Herbie Hancock
#14. One of the most important functions of jazz has been to encourage a hope for freedom, for people living in situations of intolerance or struggle.
Herbie Hancock
#15. One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.
Herbie Hancock
#16. Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.
Herbie Hancock
#17. Wisdom corresponds to the future; it is philosophy.
Herbie Hancock
#18. I spent five years, at least, working with Miles. Together, we recorded ESP, Nefertiti, Sorcerer
and I can tell you; each of these albums instantly became jazz classics. Hey, we had Wayne Shorter playing tenor sax, Ron [Carter] on bass, Tony Williams played drums. That was great band we had.
Herbie Hancock
#19. Oscar Peterson is the greatest living influence on jazz pianists today.
Herbie Hancock
#20. I'm very conscious of the idea of trying to each time present something that I haven't presented before. It's a challenge to me to find something new, to find something innovative, but it's also very exciting.
Herbie Hancock
#21. One of the greatest experiences I ever had was listening to a conversation with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter. Just to hear them talking, my mouth was open. They understand each other perfectly, and they make these leaps and jumps because they don't have to explain anything.
Herbie Hancock
#22. I wonder where she came from,
I wonder where she's gotta go.
Who's to say she's single
and who's to say she's on her own ...
Girls like that don't sleep alone
Herbie Hancock
#23. The Internet opens up a whole new range of possibilities in a wide range of areas.
Herbie Hancock
#24. The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.
Herbie Hancock
#25. To my wife, I'm not Herbie Hancock the musician. I'm her husband. When I'm talking to a neighbor, I'm a neighbor. When I vote, I'm a citizen.
Herbie Hancock
#26. One of the greatest attributes of jazz, I think, is that it is that open.
Herbie Hancock
#27. The strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what's really inside, it's just not going to be there.
Herbie Hancock
#28. Music is not the only reason that I practice Buddhism anymore because it has affected my whole life.
Herbie Hancock
#29. Getting the Oscar had the biggest impression on me.
Herbie Hancock
#31. The arts have always served relationships between people of different cultures so well. In a way, the arts function as a very serious kind of ambassador.
Herbie Hancock
#32. I look for what's of value and extract that. I don't look to criticize.
Herbie Hancock
#33. I've never really been interested in doing a solo piano tour.
Herbie Hancock
#34. Life is not about finding your limitations; it's about finding your infinity.
Herbie Hancock
#35. I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.
Herbie Hancock
#36. Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music
Herbie Hancock
#37. When you struggle to reach for something you don't know, that's where most of the interesting stuff is.
Herbie Hancock
#38. Jazz has been the voice of freedom for so many countries over the past half century,
Herbie Hancock
#39. When the suggestion was made that I might consider doing music of Joni Mitchell, I thought it was a fantastic idea. Joni, I admire not only for her music but for her person, because she's a person that really stands out for what she believes in.
Herbie Hancock
#40. Jazz to me is the spirit of freedom. I mean real freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express. Freedom to pour out your guts.
Herbie Hancock
#41. When a human being is oppressed, the natural tendency is to feel anger. Jazz is a response to oppression that is not bullets and blood. Jazz is the expression of harmony ... and at the same time of hope and freedom.
Herbie Hancock
#42. There's so much spontaneity involved, what do you practice? How do you practice teamwork? How do you practice sharing? How do you practice daring? How do you practice being nonjudgmental?
Herbie Hancock
#43. You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom.
Herbie Hancock
#44. People always want to protect what's really going on inside. They want to kind of make visible something that looks more pleasant than what may be happening inside of themselves.
Herbie Hancock
#45. As a human being, I'm concerned about the world that I live in. So, I'm concerned about peace. I'm concerned about - about man's inhumanity to man. I'm concerned about the environment.
Herbie Hancock
#46. I think people have learned that Herbie Hancock can be defined as someone that you won't be able to figure out what he's going to do next. The sky is the limit as far as I'm concerned.
Herbie Hancock
#47. I've been a religious, spiritual person for a long time.
Herbie Hancock
#48. The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit.
Herbie Hancock
#49. The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.
Herbie Hancock
#50. My hope is that the music will serve as a metaphor for the actions taken by the inhabitants of this wonderful planet as a call for world harmony on all levels.
Herbie Hancock
#51. I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.
Herbie Hancock
#52. My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement.
Herbie Hancock
#53. I hope that I can make good music out of whatever genre I go into. Just to prove to myself that I can.
Herbie Hancock
#54. Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.
Herbie Hancock
#55. I'm one of the people who was a pioneer in encouraging musicians, early in the game, to get interested in technology, and now all the musicians are getting into it.
Herbie Hancock
#56. But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I'm a husband and a father.
Herbie Hancock
#57. It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.
Herbie Hancock
#58. I don't go around, the way many musicians do, with earbuds in my ear listening to my iPod all day and just sticking my head in the music all the time.
Herbie Hancock
#59. Life is not about finding our limitations, it's about finding our infinity.
Herbie Hancock
#60. It's not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.
Herbie Hancock
#61. It's easy to get sidetracked with technology, and that is the danger, but ultimately you have to see what works with the music and what doesn't. In a lot of cases, less is more. In most cases, less is more.
Herbie Hancock
#62. I don't see how we can have both the freedoms we had before and the safety net that we all need considering the way the world is today. And that's just because human beings can't trust each other. We've given in over and over to some of the darkest elements that exist in life itself.
Herbie Hancock
#63. Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human.
Herbie Hancock
#65. While knowledge may provide useful point of reference, it cannot become a force to guide the future.
Herbie Hancock
#66. Globalization means we have to re-examine some of our ideas, and look at ideas from other countries, from other cultures, and open ourselves to them. And that's not comfortable for the average person.
Herbie Hancock
#67. I think risk-taking is a great adventure. And life should be full of adventures.
Herbie Hancock
#68. My father was really good with math. It's a funny thing, I don't remember my father or my mother being so mechanical-minded. My father always wanted to be a doctor, but he came from a really poor family in Georgia, and there was no way he was going to be a doctor.
Herbie Hancock
#69. The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique.
Herbie Hancock
#71. You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment.
Herbie Hancock
#72. The music becomes something that is its own entity.
Herbie Hancock
#73. So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.
Herbie Hancock
#74. At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music.
Herbie Hancock
#75. One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.
Herbie Hancock
#76. I am not fundamentally a musician, I am fundamentally a human being.
Herbie Hancock
#78. It's part of life to have obstacles. It's about overcoming obstacles; that's the key to happiness.
Herbie Hancock
#79. A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students' creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.
Herbie Hancock
#80. Forget about trying to compete with someone else. Create your own pathway. Create your own new vision.
Herbie Hancock
#81. The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom.
Herbie Hancock
#82. We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment.
Herbie Hancock
#83. I like to present something that the people haven't seen or haven't heard before. Otherwise they might as well just stay home and play the record.
Herbie Hancock
#84. We can all be ourselves, be true to ourselves, and all be together.
Herbie Hancock
#85. So in other words, we were constantly challenged to grow, and thats what a master does.
Herbie Hancock
#86. You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life.
Herbie Hancock
#88. When you talk about 'doing the work', that's the work I'm interested in. What can I contribute as a human being?
Herbie Hancock
#89. I'm always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.
Herbie Hancock
#90. I've had a life that has taken many interesting paths. I've learned a lot from mentors who were instrumental in shaping me, and I want to share what I've learned.
Herbie Hancock
#91. Miles' sessions were not typical of anybody else's sessions. They were totally unique.
Herbie Hancock
#92. So I didn't actually change my name the way some people did.
Herbie Hancock
#93. Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.
Herbie Hancock
#94. I like the idea of an eclectic approach, incorporating jazz with other forms and other genres of music.
Herbie Hancock
#95. I hope to use dialogue and culture as a means of bringing people of various cultures together, and using that as a way to resolve conflict.
Herbie Hancock
#96. You can expand, repeat, even change keys and do other things electronically to give certain elements and phrases more cohesiveness.
Herbie Hancock
#97. Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the joy and the adventure lie.
Herbie Hancock
#98. I like to be on the edge, on the cutting edge, or be into the unknown, into the territory where I have to depend on being in the moment and depending on my instincts.
Herbie Hancock
#99. There are a lot of records coming out, in every field of music, not just jazz.
Herbie Hancock
#100. Technology has developed to a whole other level and theres the scientist part of me that loves that stuff.
Herbie Hancock
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