A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!
Interpretation
Great songs can enhance the performance of a singer, but talented singers truly shine with great material.
This quote by Quincy Jones emphasizes the importance of both the quality of the song and the skill of the singer in creating a great musical performance. While a great song can uplift even a mediocre singer's performance, it is the combination of a talented vocalist with an exceptional song that leads to truly remarkable music. This highlights the collaborative nature of artistry in the music industry.
In practice
This quote could be shared in a music production seminar to highlight the importance of songwriting.
Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know?
Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.
I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it's not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.
There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.
Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.
There's a reason why the Foo Fighters don't blast out Nirvana songs every night: because we have a lot of respect for them. You know, that's hallowed ground. We have to be careful. We have to tread lightly. We have talked about it before, but the opportunity hasn't really come up, or it just hasn't felt right.
When I go to the Gate, I'll play a duet with Gabriel. Yeah, we'll play 'Sleepy Time Down South' and 'Hello, Dolly!.' Then he can blow a couple that he's been playing up there all the time.
We don't want to be Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. That type of thing wasn't what we were after. It was most important for each of us to be equal in input and output - each of us has to pull the same amount, musically, in composition and in every sense of being in the band.
I approach everything as chamber music. Even with Beethoven symphonies, I lead from the violin and basically encourage the orchestra to think of it as a giant string quartet.
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