I do a one-hour workout called Drenched, a cardio-boxing fitness routine, Monday through Friday. There are usually between twenty-five and fifty people there - everyone from stay-at-home moms and professional martial artists to teenagers and seniors. They play great dance music. When I can, I take two classes back-to-back.
I was going to be a doctor, but I think my music allowed me to help more people than I could have done one-on-one as a psychologist. Just like other people's music really helped me.
Everyone one-on-one will be completely honest about the music that they listen to. But then you get into a group situation, and then it's the cool/uncool debate. I have really done my very best to reinforce the very fact that your heart knows better than your head does what you like when it comes to music and what not.
Music can also be a sensual pleasure, like eating food or sex. But its highest vibration for me is that point of taking us to a real understanding of something in our nature which we can very rarely get at. It is a spiritual state of oneness.
A lot of marathon runners access flow state. That's why it's so addictive: because they just get into this state where they're just completely one - they are in complete oneness. That's what happens to me when I play music and, I suppose, a lot of other people, too, which is why we do it.
For me, music is so passionate, I have to give it my all every time I go onstage. Onstage, it was always comfortable for me, because that's where I felt at home.
I took a page out of the U2 book. They've always had a universal approach. Nobody doubts they're Christian, but there's an open door for everybody in any faith to consume the music at any level.
I write for myself; I'm trying to keep myself interested in the music. But at the same time, I want to make the songs relatable in a way; I want to keep melodies pretty simple and the lyrics open-ended so that people could maybe relate them to their own life in different ways. Something for everybody to have a piece of.
Music is nothing but a door opener to meet families and their children and the elderly.
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.
I had this exceptional classical music voice. If I'd followed a true path for my talent, I would have ended up being an opera singer.
We used to listen to all the marvelous operas on records. Music was a very important part of our lives.
Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously.
Even with so many artists using auto-tune, there's still a growing group of artists rising up and going in the opposite direction, making music that's real and fresh. And those cats are getting back to the basics without auto-tune. And a lot of those cats are packing out venues without getting played on the radio!
I don't go to regular music festivals because I tend to run in the opposite direction wherever there's big crowds.
I play guitar, the ukulele and the piano. I grew up on a mountain in Tennessee, and we had 'The Mountain Opry,' where anyone could just get up on stage to perform. It was just about the soul and heart of music. My upbringing was less about being great and more about just doing what you love. It was always for joy.
It means so much being a part of country music and the Opry.
I've gotten to go to the Opry a couple of times and stand backstage and watch. But I made it a point not to take a tour or stand in the circle until music took me there. I told myself that was one place I'd never go unless music took me there.
The only music we ever listened to out in the piney woods was Roy Acuff and the Grand Ole Opry. That was the only night of the week I was allowed to lay in the middle of the bed with Mama and Daddy, just long enough to hear Roy Acuff sing; then I had to go back to bed.
I find that if I interact more, the crowd gets way more into the music. We also have a full live show happening, and I have lighting crew that travels around with me. We've got this Infinity Prism thing, which is lots of fun. It's an optical illusion device that we carry around.
