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Quotes by Herbie Hancock

A couple of years ago, I came up with the idea for a film that I thought could be interesting, and I took it to a couple of people - nobody professional or anything - but I thought it was kind of cool.
– Herbie Hancock
A lot of the people that are making the music didn't have the kind of experiences I've had, playing with some of the great masters of jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
A lot of this look backwards in society and musically is to find some of the real roots, because they can't find them here. There are roots in the past, but not so much now. Maybe this explains their need to do that, and if that's the case, it's OK.
– Herbie Hancock
A lot of times, other people turn me on to new people that are doing stuff, so I don't consider myself a spokesman for everything that's going on in jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
A method that doesn't use what you know. It's just pure, raw emotion.
– Herbie Hancock
A roadie had some difficulties downloading a certain file. I was able to fix it myself.
– Herbie Hancock
Actually, African Americans I think are completely now all mixed.
– Herbie Hancock
Also, I haven't heard an synthesizer yet that I can truly say has the resolution and is capable of the nuances of the acoustic piano, so I don't even try and compare those anymore.
– Herbie Hancock
Although I had stopped listening to R&B, it still would move my soul.
– Herbie Hancock
Although my parents were playing jazz for me when I was a kid, I didn't pay much attention until I saw someone my age improvising, playing jazz..
– Herbie Hancock
Americans are taught that white people did everything, but that is changing. American history and our dealings with other cultures are a constant conflict of understanding.
– Herbie Hancock
And I don't always talk about music, and I don't always play music, and I don't always think about music.
– Herbie Hancock
And I just practiced on it and practiced on it. I found a lot of little things about details, about accents and how much of an accent to make.
– Herbie Hancock
And I loved it, I loved it! I wanted to be part of the newer stuff.
– Herbie Hancock
And if I don't express that, then what's my life worth?
– Herbie Hancock
And it's also made me aware that music isn't about music.
– Herbie Hancock
And jazz is also for the body because it is rhythmic, but it's also for the mind and for the soul, and it is very creative.
– Herbie Hancock
And that was fascinating, because you could do something different every time.
– Herbie Hancock
And you allow yourself to play off that plane. You're in this dark room of unknowns, you allow yourself to go there.
– Herbie Hancock
Another convention is that the drummer and bass player are timekeepers, but there's no reason they have to be bound to that.
– Herbie Hancock
Another thing that I noticed is a lot of people in the hip hop scene have a great respect for jazz and have incorporated by sampling some elements that come from jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
As far as actually writing scripts or stories... now scenarios, most people have ideas for scenarios that could be the basis for a film.
– Herbie Hancock
As the 1960s began, jazz music was still at an apex, with hard bop groups led by the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane remaining a force on the musical landscape.
– Herbie Hancock
Aside from that, what was more in our heads when we made the new album is the concept of forging through and exploring new territory and encouraging other musicians to not be afraid to explore new territory.
– Herbie Hancock
At first I sounded like any stiff classical musician, trying to play that stuff.
– Herbie Hancock
At the same time, I'm still enjoying working with young people.
– Herbie Hancock
Because I have certain things I feel very passionate about, and I don't want to just make albums with tunes anymore.
– Herbie Hancock
Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.
– Herbie Hancock
Both men and women have masculine and feminine elements. We've just been concentrating on the masculine elements in jazz coming out for too long. It's time for feminine elements to emerge.
– Herbie Hancock
Buddhism has helped me toward gaining control over my own destiny, and given me the courage to follow directions I believe in.
– Herbie Hancock
Buddhism opened me up to seeing things from the standpoint of being a human being - looking at the purpose of action and the effects on life.
– Herbie Hancock
But I cant name a specific synthesizer that is my favorite.
– Herbie Hancock
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
But I'm not so focused on intensity from that kind of testosterone level that a lot of jazz is on.
– Herbie Hancock
But I'm talking about responsibility, a sense of responsibility. Developing software to help human beings develop more of a sense of responsibility. Kids need that. Adults need it too. More self worth. More self-respect.
– Herbie Hancock
But if I'm banging my head against a wall because I can't come up with any ideas, that's not so much fun.
– Herbie Hancock
But in jazz, the song may be written by somebody else, but how you treat it is entirely with your notes and your expression.
– Herbie Hancock
But it's all part of the humanistic approach. Humanism amid the machines, you know?
– Herbie Hancock
But once Miles would start to play on top of these things we were doing, all of a sudden, it was as though he would go to the core of it.
– Herbie Hancock
But these days I never turn on radios, I always turn them off.
– Herbie Hancock
But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already.
– Herbie Hancock
By contrast, wisdom captivates people's hearts and has the power to open a new age.
– Herbie Hancock
Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.
– Herbie Hancock
Creativity shouldn't be following radio; it should be the other way around.
– Herbie Hancock
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
Even during the major avant-garde period of jazz in the late '60s and early '70s, the songs usually had melodies, some harmonic starting-off point, or something to unify a particular piece in the beginning.
– Herbie Hancock
Even the things that are on the Plugged Nickel set. I don't know how we did some of that.
– Herbie Hancock
Everything has focused on what the technology is capable of doing and making tools and then taking human beings and saying, what can you do with that.
– Herbie Hancock
First of all I should explain that synthesizers themselves, I don't consider them instruments, they are instrument makers, because you can program them to be whatever sound you want.
– Herbie Hancock
First of all, most people might think that I would sit down, compose the music before anything was recorded, work with Bill Laswell about how we're going to put it on tape, etc.
– Herbie Hancock
From '70 to '73 I'd had a sextet, but the band was not self-supporting and I couldn't afford it, so I broke it up. And then I didn't know what kind of music I wanted to do, because I was just fed up to here with it. It wasn't fulfilling anymore.
– Herbie Hancock
Getting the Oscar had the biggest impression on me.
– Herbie Hancock
He just blew me away and what it taught me was that Miles didn't hear it as a mistake.
– Herbie Hancock
I actually own Final Cut Pro, which is software for editing video, and Premiere from Adobe, I have that.
– Herbie Hancock
I agree with taking the time and respecting the great innovators of the past, but the word innovation would cease to exist if we all do is look at the past.
– Herbie Hancock
I always hope that as a performer I'm able to come out with something that not only makes people feel inspired but even beyond that, I always hope that what happens on the stage makes people feel like they can do it.
– Herbie Hancock
I am still a jazz musician and not a pop star in terms of money and so I have to take care of my family first, then my extended family and my country.
– Herbie Hancock
I decided years ago that I wasn't interested in being a virtuoso of the piano.
– Herbie Hancock
I didn't know much about this new electronic scene. I knew it was going on, but I hadn't really followed it or paid any particular attention to it.
– Herbie Hancock
I don't go back to anything, I just add. Just like when you eat a meal, it you eat one thing all the time it gets kind of boring.
– Herbie Hancock
I don't look at music from the standpoint of being a musician; I look at it from the standpoint of being a human being.
– Herbie Hancock
I don't really concentrate on just listening to jazz players. And I don't concentrate on just listening to music either.
– Herbie Hancock
I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness.
– Herbie Hancock
I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.
– Herbie Hancock
I get bored easily, but later I learned that it is OK to do something that others have done.
– Herbie Hancock
I had just come out of college, and I figured that I would probably be in Chicago for the next couple of years, and then maybe, I 'd get a chance to go to New York and hang out with the big boys.
– Herbie Hancock
I have available to me all of the tools of my musical experience.
– Herbie Hancock
I have some of Ravel's piano pieces at home, but I don't practice them.
– Herbie Hancock
I hope to do more movie scores, I hope to do more work in the orchestral setting, some more tours that are more in the line that classical musicians play.
– Herbie Hancock
I hope to still be making records, but still traveling and touring, I don't know to the extent that I am now, because it's pretty wearing on your physical energy.
– Herbie Hancock
I just wish more attention could be placed on the human being.
– Herbie Hancock
I knew of jazz, but I didn't like it. I always thought only older people liked jazz - you know, you had to be 19 or 20.
– Herbie Hancock
I look for what's of value and extract that. I don't look to criticize.
– Herbie Hancock
I mean, nobody has a statement on their record.
– Herbie Hancock
I remember my very first recording. It was on a wire recorder, as the tape recording was only just out but too expensive.
– Herbie Hancock
I started playing piano when I was 7. And I started with classical lessons. Then I really got exposed to jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
I think a lot of young people being brought up in this scene feel a sense of ruthlessness. There's nothing to plant them deeply down in the soil somehow so they can bend and sway from there.
– Herbie Hancock
I think I heard the name Muddy Waters first, then John Lee Hooker.
– Herbie Hancock
I think I was supposed to play jazz.
– Herbie Hancock
I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we learn.
– Herbie Hancock
I took a different view of what it was I had been doing before and started to come to some realizations about the way I looked at life.
– Herbie Hancock
I try stuff. I synthesize what's of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.
– Herbie Hancock
I try to practice with my life.
– Herbie Hancock
I want to have a purpose.
– Herbie Hancock
I was blown away when Donald asked me to stay in the band. He said that both he and the band really liked my playing.
– Herbie Hancock
I was excited about the possibility of going to New York.
– Herbie Hancock
I was making a hierarchy out of music, and it's ridiculous.
– Herbie Hancock
I was very much aware of blues, because it was on the radio all the time.
– Herbie Hancock
I wasn't concerned about jazz - that's just one of the tools.
– Herbie Hancock
I wasn't really aware that the blues was making the transition from acoustic to electric then, but that doesn't mean it didn't have any effect on what I was doing at the time.
– Herbie Hancock
I went to New York in January of 1961 and I wasn't following blues per se when I went to NY. I wasn't following Muddy Waters, even though I'd heard of him, and I actually saw him perform one time in Chicago.
– Herbie Hancock
I would be all over the piano, but Miles would play a few notes that would just wipe out all that fancy stuff I was playing.
– Herbie Hancock
I'd find the notes, but I couldn't play with the same feeling. Then, when I got to Earl Gardner and Oscar Peterson and more bluesy kind of things, which I really like, then I had to learn to feel.
– Herbie Hancock
I'd rather be a doer than a listener.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm a human being all the time, even when I sleep. But I'm not a musician when I sleep, and I'm not a musician when I eat, unless I'm paying attention to music or talking about music.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm aiming that towards people, towards humanity, not even just musicians. Because this is about life, not about musicians.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm an American man, and I'm concerned about the present and the future as has as this country and its people are concerned.
– Herbie Hancock
I'm aware that a lot of what is happening in jazz has not had a very dynamic change in a long time.
– Herbie Hancock