Bill Frisell Quotations

It's incredible how one song or even one little phrase or just a few notes, if you really concentrate on it, can be a kaleidoscope of possibility.

Music doesn't hurt anybody, that's what's amazing. Everything is in there, every kind of human emotion, from the darkest to the lightest. And it has power. Unbelievable power.

I can write the stuff and play it myself and have something in my head, but the best feeling is when somebody else plays it and they're hearing something other than what I'm hearing.

First I was a European-style player, then I was a downtown 'noise guy,' and now some people call me an Americana guy.

I've been lucky with the circle of people I'm playing with. We've played enough that there's a language we talk with each other when we play.

I hate labels; the problem is that if you say you're one thing, it's hard for people to imagine you as something else. Music is way more complicated than that.

In so many ways, it feels the same now when I play as the very first time I picked up the instrument. There's always this sound out there that's just a little bit beyond my reach and I'm trying to get there and that just sort of keeps me going.

There's always this sound out there that's just a little beyond my reach & that just sort of keeps me going.

Every time I play with someone, not just a new person, but someone I've been with all along, that's where I really learn.

I love listening to other musicians and seeing what they do to gain their distinctive respective sounds and edge.