Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.
Interpretation
Ray Charles emphasizes the importance of learning and memory in mastering music.
In this quote, Ray Charles reflects on how the process of learning to read music in Braille and developing the skill to play by ear contributed to his exceptional memory. He suggests that the challenges he faced not only enhanced his musical abilities but also sharpened his cognitive skills, illustrating the profound connection between education, adaptability, and personal growth.
In practice
In a graduation speech to inspire students about the power of education.
I suppose I've always done my share of crying, especially when there's no other way to contain my feelings. I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human. Oh yes, I cry.
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.
Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes.
Any artist, when he goes in to record, should have the feeling that any song he records can be a hit. This may sound egotistical, but it makes sense.
When I started to sing like myself - as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while - when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it.
The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.
Had I the power, I would scatter libraries over the whole land as the sower sows his wheatfield.
Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
I am a product [...of] endless books. My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them.... I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass.
The thought of these vast stacks of books would drive him mad: the more he read, the less he seemed to know β the greater the number of the books he read, the greater the immense uncountable number of those which he could never read would seem to beβ¦. The thought that other books were waiting for him tore at his heart forever.
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
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