Herbie Hancock

Being a musician is what I do, but it’s not what I am.

It is people’s hearts that move the age.

You can practice to learn technique, but I’m more interested in conceiving something in the moment.

The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique.

When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn’t I couldn’t do my best.

I’m always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.

I’ve always liked the Freddie King/B. B. King rich tone, and at the same time, I like the manic Buddy Guy/Otis Rush Strat tone. So I’m always caught in the middle of the Gibson and Fender sounds. If I’m playing my black [Fender] Strat, and I’m in the middle of a blues, I kind of wish I was playing a [Gibson] Les Paul. Then again, if I was playing a Les Paul, the sound would be great, but I’d be saying, “Man, I wish I had the Stratocaster neck!”

I discovered very early that it wasn’t quite enough for me to imitate people.

You can’t rehearse a blues darlin’.

Anyone who doesn’t give [his debut album, The College Dropout] a perfect score is lowering the integrity of the magazine

I’m meant to be an artist who can stand on my own. That’s my place; that’s what I’m supposed to do.

You want the listener to find the song on their own, give too much away and it takes away from the imagination.

Musicians have to suffer to a certain degree in order to obtain their outlet.

I’ve never recorded anything I didn’t like.

You not only have to know your own instrument, you must know the others and how to back them up at all times. That’s jazz.

I’ve studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.

If I’m not saying it in four choruses or less, then I’m not saying it.

We all played bad before we played good.

You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the ass.

I came from an era when we didn’t use electronic instruments. The bass wasn’t even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.

We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.