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Quotes by Herbie Hancock

I'm happy if anything that I did takes the limelight.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm involved in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, and I work with students with that, and I also help try to raise funds for that.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm looking at other sources for inspiration; feelings and developments that are happening in human life itself.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm looking less to musical sources for inspiration and broadening my scope beyond the entertainment field and looking more into life itself. Life today.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm not telling students not to practice or advising people to limit themselves.
– Herbie Hancock
I've been a religious, spiritual person for a long time.
– Herbie Hancock
'I've got to learn how to do this. That's my instrument, and he can do it. Why can't I?
– Herbie Hancock
I've had a lot of music in my own head.
– Herbie Hancock
I've started something called the Rhythm of Life Foundation to encourage the technological community to develop ideas and software that directly effect the advancement of humanity.
– Herbie Hancock
If people are pleased that there is a popular acceptance of anything that came from me, I'm thrilled, you know, and flattered.
– Herbie Hancock
In the past, there's always been one leader that has led the pack to development of the music.
– Herbie Hancock
It gets boring when you look out at the audience and you see that 90 percent of the people out there are males.
– Herbie Hancock
It hit me like a ton of bricks, and I had to almost hide my face, because tears were welling up in my eyes. Just the thought of playing with Bird, wow!
– Herbie Hancock
It is people's hearts that move the age.
– Herbie Hancock
It might have been somewhat derivative otherwise, and I'm not the kind of person who's satisfied with being derivative.
– Herbie Hancock
It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.
– Herbie Hancock
It was interesting putting this record together, because I was putting it together with musicians who claim that I was a big influence on the music they're making now.
– Herbie Hancock
It was put together in layers. The disadvantage is that there isn't really any interaction together, so you have to manufacture that interaction to make it believable.
– Herbie Hancock
It's a statement of our position, which is that we are not making this record in order to honor technology; we're not slaves to that, we don't want to be slaves to that.
– Herbie Hancock
It's not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
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
It's primitive now, but when you get to the point where you could see someone's face on your screen while you perform with them, that's a step in the right direction.
– Herbie Hancock
It's very different from classical music. In classical music, you are playing something that is written by someone else.
– Herbie Hancock
Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.
– Herbie Hancock
Jazz is a music that is open enough to borrow from any other form of music, and has the strength to influence any other form of music.
– Herbie Hancock
Jazz is a music that translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not only the musicians but for the listeners.
– Herbie Hancock
Jazz is about being in the moment.
– Herbie Hancock
Jazz is purely about just the music, whereas any of the areas of rock n' roll, because it's a popular area, has in many cases show involved.
– Herbie Hancock
Like no matter what happens, this would be the ultimate, they can make something positive happen.
– Herbie Hancock
Miles' sessions were not typical of anybody else's sessions. They were totally unique.
– Herbie Hancock
Most people think that classical music is a higher form than jazz only because it is from Europe, and we were taught in schools only about Western European history.
– Herbie Hancock
Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.
– Herbie Hancock
Music is sound.
– Herbie Hancock
Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference.
– Herbie Hancock
Music videos on MTV are the perfect example. Everything is quick visual and sound bytes. Same thing on TV, people's attention span is not really long at all.
– Herbie Hancock
My approach to music doesn't come from me being a certain type of musician, or a musician at all. It comes from me being a human being.
– Herbie Hancock
My idea is that young people who are not as jaded about technology and the use of technology as we are, who didn't create the technological age, but are born into it, may be able to create software that addresses the issues that pertain to the human being and lead toward the advancement of creativity and the human spirit.
– Herbie Hancock
Nobody told me I was a child prodigy.
– Herbie Hancock
Not just in jazz, I think in politics too. Men have gotten to the point where we're not doing a good job anymore. It remains to be seen whether we really did a good job in the past.
– Herbie Hancock
Not too many people my age really zeroed in on the blues. Most of the people that listened to it were older than teenagers.
– Herbie Hancock
Now we see that we have to pay attention to the environment. We have to protect it. It's become a real issue and a lot of people are still looking at it from a 20th century standpoint.
– Herbie Hancock
Nowadays people jog and listen to music. Work out and listen to music. They've got these headphones on all the time. It's just the normal scene.
– Herbie Hancock
Oh yeah, the funny thing is that all my pictures in the past were all smiley pictures, and it's only been in recent pictures where I've had some where I don't smile.
– Herbie Hancock
On a human level, the garbage man is just as important as the teacher or a rock star or a president, because you have to have them. The world would have been dead a long time ago without garbage men.
– Herbie Hancock
One of the greatest attributes of jazz, I think, is that it is that open.
– Herbie Hancock
One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.
– Herbie Hancock
One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.
– Herbie Hancock
Other highlights? When I started practicing Buddhism 21 years ago. Marrying the woman I married 26 years ago; my wife is quite a woman. The birth of my daughter. Joining Miles Davis' band.
– Herbie Hancock
Over the years I've made decisions about things, especially music, and have been scoffed at and ridiculed and opposed, but I knew I had to do these things.
– Herbie Hancock
People are afraid to spend money now because they don't know how long they're going to be working.
– Herbie Hancock
People put you on a pedestal when you become famous, in their eyes, or if they really respect your work, they might put you on a pedestal, but I didn't get that as a kid.
– Herbie Hancock
Pieces don't have to have the same tempo from beginning to end.
– Herbie Hancock
Radio is getting... broadcast is getting narrower and narrowcast.
– Herbie Hancock
Ravel is one of my favorite orchestrators, and I love Stravinsky's work, and Beethoven.
– Herbie Hancock
Recently I've been listening to Mahler; it's beautiful stuff. I just saw a performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony on television, and it was awesome. The music was so gorgeous I wasn't just crying tears, I was sobbing.
– Herbie Hancock
See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.
– Herbie Hancock
Since time is a continuum, the moment is always different, so the music is always different.
– Herbie Hancock
So I didn't actually change my name the way some people did.
– Herbie Hancock
So I'm out of the box - and understanding that has opened up my interests in the rest of the world.
– Herbie Hancock
So in other words, we were constantly challenged to grow, and that's what a master does.
– Herbie Hancock
So my parents, particularly my mother, she noticed that I seemed to be interested, so on my seventh birthday my parents got me a piano.
– Herbie Hancock
So to answer your question more directly, I think it's very important, in order not to have a boring life, to continue to have a sense of exploration, and the courage to take risks, in order to utilize and expand your sense of creativity.
– Herbie Hancock
So, he taught me how to play a simple riff and I somehow found a couple of other notes to play, then I learned how to watch his left hand and I learned where the notes were.
– Herbie Hancock
Somehow be constructive rather than destructive. Or else you're not fulfilling your raison d'etre as an entity.
– Herbie Hancock
Sometimes it was good and sometimes it wasn't, but I had to stand up for all of it or else I couldn't play any of it. I learned how to be courageous from that experience.
– Herbie Hancock
Sometimes you can practice something but what you wind up playing when you're out doing a gig is not what you practiced. What you learn is not necessarily what you practice.
– Herbie Hancock
Still, when I finally left Miles in '68 and got my own band, it was a logical step; because anybody that left Miles always had their own band.
– Herbie Hancock
Technology has developed to a whole other level and there's the scientist part of me that loves that stuff.
– Herbie Hancock
Technology has made so much information available but what the technological community has not done is to make any attempt for us to figure out how we're going to assimilate all this information.
– Herbie Hancock
That interest was there before, but coming from the standpoint of being a human being, now I understand more clearly why it's important to watch CNN, for example, and to pay attention to the news and politics and social issues and cultures of other nations.
– Herbie Hancock
That's one of the reasons for the title of the record, Future 2 Future, because here they are creating kind of a new musical approach, underground approach, but coming out of what used to be underground but what has become popular, which is the whole hip-hop scene.
– Herbie Hancock
That's when I began to understand what a chord is. So I learned theory to find a shorter method to take things off a record.
– Herbie Hancock
The arts can help establish stronger relationships between countries and cultures, in a way that is difficult to achieve by our political ambassadors.
– Herbie Hancock
The concept of improvisation is an idea that's very close to my heart, but I can manifest that in a lot of different genres. It really comes from a jazz sensibility.
– Herbie Hancock
The fact that young hip-hop artists are searching for the jazz roots of their music acknowledges the greatness of roots, helps a person get a sense of being grounded, of being attached, of coming from somewhere.
– Herbie Hancock
The first thing I ever heard about synthesizers, they were being used in rock.
– Herbie Hancock
The idea for Dis Is Da Drum was to combine those tools with elements of today's sound to create music people can dance to without sacrificing the art.
– Herbie Hancock
The mixture of all kinds of things, all kinds of beings - it's just like what we have here in this country.
– Herbie Hancock
The music becomes something that is its own entity.
– Herbie Hancock
The one thing that we should stick to is to figure out how to become better human beings, but in order to do that we have to go to the second level which is to work on defining the palette of what a better human being is made of, and creativity is one of them.
– Herbie Hancock
The other reason is the concept of attitude. I didn't want to appear angry, but it's okay to appear serious or to not smile.
– Herbie Hancock
The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.
– Herbie Hancock
The thing is, much of the way I look at music now, and its role as an aspect of culture, and creative expression for human beings in the 21st century, much of the way I look at it for a record like Future 2 Future is very similar to how I might look at it for a record like Directions in Music.
– Herbie Hancock
The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom.
– Herbie Hancock
The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique.
– Herbie Hancock
The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.
– Herbie Hancock
Then I would watch him improvise, and I would be fascinated by what he was doing.
– Herbie Hancock
There are a lot of records coming out, in every field of music, not just jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
There are some other things I'm looking for in the future. I'm getting ready to put together something, to open up a new avenue for myself, having to do with a symphony orchestra.
– Herbie Hancock
There was a radio station in Chicago, there was a guy named Al Benson, and he pretty much dominated black radio in the '50s.
– Herbie Hancock
There's also an organization called the Rhythm of Life Organization or ROLO, which was put together to further the use of technology in a more humanitarian way, using technology to be a part of a tool set directed toward social issues and human issues, the real kind of problems people face every day.
– Herbie Hancock
There's Charlie Parker and there's Miles, there's Trane. I'm none of those guys, so why am I beating myself up trying to find the lost chord all the time?
– Herbie Hancock
There's only one person named Herbie Hancock.
– Herbie Hancock
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
Things like creating in the moment, being in the moment, trusting your instincts, not being afraid to go outside the comfort zone.
– Herbie Hancock
Things that happen to you are events. It's what you do with them that determine whether they're going to be problems or solutions.
– Herbie Hancock
Tradition can be negative though, if the importance of having roots outweighs the importance of searching for what's valuable in new things being presented.
– Herbie Hancock
We are all on the same trip in the band. We all realize that people in the music business, and the audience have an eye on us because collectively our history is extensive.
– Herbie Hancock
We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment.
– Herbie Hancock
We can all be ourselves, be true to ourselves, and all be together.
– Herbie Hancock