The music you make is shaped by what you play it on ... if you feel that you're not getting enough out of a song, change the instrument - go from an acoustic to an electric or vice versa, or try an open tuning ... do something to shake it up.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of experimentation in music and creativity.
Mark Knopfler's quote suggests that the quality and impact of music can be significantly influenced by the tools and methods used to create it. If one feels dissatisfied with the outcome, it may be time to change approaches, like switching instruments or techniques, to discover new sounds and experiences.
In practice
During a music workshop, you can inspire participants with this quote to encourage them to explore different instruments.
Each song has its own secret that's different from another song, and each has its own life. Sometimes it has to be teased out, whereas other times it might come fast. There are no laws about songwriting or producing. It depends on what you're doing, not just who you're doing.
If you feel that you're not getting enough out of a song, change the instrument - go from an acoustic to an electric or vice versa, or try an open tuning. Do something to shake it up.
I did learn eventually - perhaps far too late - to respect the talent I have. For a lot of years out there, I was just bashing on to the next thing and not really thinking about it too much. That's what we do. But I'm learning to appreciate the moment.
Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.
All great composers of the past spent most of their time studying. Feeling alone won't do the job. A man also needs technique.
If the audience, in minute 50, is thinking about the way a movie is shot, there's a problem. I want it to permeate emotionally.
If you're going to play human beings, and you're going to play them three-dimensionally, you have to show every side of them.
To be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail, that failure is his world and the shrink from desertion, art and craft, good housekeeping, living.
The problem was to sustain at any cost the feeling you had in the theater that you were watching a real person, yes, but an intense condensation of his experience, not simply a realistic series of episodes.
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