97+ Herbie Hancock Quotes (Creative, Innovative And Influential)

Herbie Hancock is an American pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, composer, and actor. He is one of the most acclaimed and influential jazz musicians of the 20th century, and he has been a major force in jazz since the 1960s. His music embraces elements of funk, soul, hip hop, and electronic music, and he has won an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards.

Top 10 Herbie Hancock Quotes

1. Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.
2. The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.
3. Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the joy and the adventure lie.
4. Forget about trying to compete with someone else. Create your own pathway. Create your own new vision.
5. Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.
6. The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit.
7. Jazz is about being in the moment.
8. Life is not about finding our limitations, it's about finding our infinity.
9. Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.
10. Nobody told me I was a child prodigy.

Herbie Hancock Short Quotes

• I look for what's of value and extract that. I don't look to criticize.
• It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.
• Since time is a continuum, the moment is always different, so the music is always different.
• One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.
• In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.
• The music becomes something that is its own entity.
• I'm always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.
• When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your life never ends.
• I think I was supposed to play jazz.
• Music truly is the universal language.

Herbie Hancock Famous Quotes And Sayings

A jazz musician is not a jazz musician when he or she is eating dinner or when he or she is with his parents or spouse or neighbors. He's above all a human being . . . the true artform is being a human being. — Herbie Hancock

The strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what's really inside, it's just not going to be there. — Herbie Hancock

I keep recycling and repackaging music that I've done in the past, as though I can't write anymore. Like, okay, I'm done with that. But I need to kind of prod myself again into come on, Herbie, get off your duff and start writing some new music. — Herbie Hancock

I never dreamed I would be a Goodwill Ambassador, and for UNESCO. Perfect organization. It is apolitical and it's about education, science and culture. I mean that is what I live. That is what UNESCO is really about; it's all about bringing human beings together with one common goal, which is to move human kind forward. — Herbie Hancock

But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I'm a husband and a father. — Herbie Hancock

Of course, it's not the technique that makes the music; it's the sensitivity of the musician and his ability to be able to fuse his life with the rhythm of the times. This is the essence of music. — Herbie Hancock

I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things. — Herbie Hancock

I spent five years, at least, working with Miles. Together, we recorded ESP, Nefertiti, Sorcerer -- and I can tell you; each of these albums instantly became jazz classics. Hey, we had Wayne Shorter playing tenor sax, Ron [Carter] on bass, Tony Williams played drums. That was great band we had. — Herbie Hancock

I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism. — Herbie Hancock

It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project. — Herbie Hancock

There's so much spontaneity involved, what do you practice? How do you practice teamwork? How do you practice sharing? How do you practice daring? How do you practice being nonjudgmental? — Herbie Hancock

The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique. — Herbie Hancock

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way. — Herbie Hancock

In the past, there's always been one leader that has led the pack to development of the music. — Herbie Hancock

Miles' sessions were not typical of anybody else's sessions. They were totally unique. — Herbie Hancock

When a human being is oppressed, the natural tendency is to feel anger. Jazz is a response to oppression that is not bullets and blood. Jazz is the expression of harmony ... and at the same time of hope and freedom. — Herbie Hancock

When you struggle to reach for something you don't know, that's where most of the interesting stuff is. — Herbie Hancock

The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom. — Herbie Hancock

Getting the Oscar had the biggest impression on me. — Herbie Hancock

I try to practice with my life. — Herbie Hancock

It is people's hearts that move the age. — Herbie Hancock

You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life. — Herbie Hancock

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose. — Herbie Hancock

As a human being, I'm concerned about the world that I live in.So, I'm concerned about peace.I'm concerned about man's inhumanity to man. I'm concerned about the environment. — Herbie Hancock

Jazz to me is the spirit of freedom. I mean real freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express. Freedom to pour out your guts. — Herbie Hancock

You make different colors by combining those colors that already exist. — Herbie Hancock

Creativity shouldn't be following radio; it should be the other way around. — Herbie Hancock

You can practice to learn a technique, but I'm more interested in conceiving of something in the moment. — Herbie Hancock

I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we learn. — Herbie Hancock

Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference. — Herbie Hancock

We can all be ourselves, be true to ourselves, and all be together. — Herbie Hancock

Inspiration is constantly in the air. It's up to us to develop the sensitivity to pick up on it. — Herbie Hancock

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules. — Herbie Hancock

I'm aware that a lot of what is happening in jazz has not had a very dynamic change in a long time. — Herbie Hancock

While knowledge may provide useful point of reference, it cannot become a force to guide the future. — Herbie Hancock

You can expand, repeat, even change keys and do other things electronically to give certain elements and phrases more cohesiveness. — Herbie Hancock

You don't need the fame to be vital. — Herbie Hancock

But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already. — Herbie Hancock

The arts have always served relationships between people of different cultures so well. In a way, the arts function as a very serious kind of ambassador. — Herbie Hancock

A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students' creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves. — Herbie Hancock

The first thing I ever heard about synthesizers, they were being used in rock. — Herbie Hancock

People always want to protect what's really going on inside. They want to kind of make visible something that looks more pleasant than what may be happening inside of themselves. — Herbie Hancock

One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing. — Herbie Hancock

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am. — Herbie Hancock

You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom. — Herbie Hancock

I have to care and I have to be honest and have the courage to be vulnerable. If that happens, then that's the best I can do. To just be a puppet for the audience is not very courageous. Just to do whatever they say they want - because a lot of times people will hear something new that they hadn't heard before and get turned on by a new experience and will want to hear more of that. — Herbie Hancock

It's not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz. — Herbie Hancock

I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness. — Herbie Hancock

Wisdom corresponds to the future; it is philosophy. — Herbie Hancock

There are a lot of records coming out, in every field of music, not just jazz. — Herbie Hancock

Wisdom is the key to understanding the age, creating the time. — Herbie Hancock

Jazz is a music that is open enough to borrow from any other form of music, and has the strength to influence any other form of music. — Herbie Hancock

We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment. — Herbie Hancock

Oscar Peterson is the greatest living influence on jazz pianists today. — Herbie Hancock

I try stuff. I synthesize what's of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal. — Herbie Hancock

You can change your character and, at the same time, change your fortune. — Herbie Hancock

Technology has developed to a whole other level and theres the scientist part of me that loves that stuff. — Herbie Hancock

When I was young I used to listen to everything. — Herbie Hancock

The true artform is being a human being. — Herbie Hancock

People are afraid to spend money now because they dont know how long theyre going to be working. — Herbie Hancock

If you're not judging what happens, then you're trusting what others are doing, what you're playing, and trusting what you're playing.And it can lead you to other ideas, to something maybe you hadn't expressed before. — Herbie Hancock

I don't look at music from the standpoint of being a musician; I look at it from the standpoint of being a human being. — Herbie Hancock

We need to move into a culture of peace. What I hope to promote is the idea that we all need each other and that the greatest happiness in life is not how much we have but how much we give. That's a wealth that's priceless. You can't buy compassion. — Herbie Hancock

I've been a religious, spiritual person for a long time. — Herbie Hancock

I don't mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn't really start out that way. I started in classical music, but my formative years were in jazz, and it makes a great foundation. — Herbie Hancock

Fact is that I played piano and performed, as a young kid, a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra . Don't forget I was only eleven-years-old and to be on the stage at that age had tremendous impact on me. Basically love for classical music and performing as a kid on the big stage probably led toward this decision, which meant that music is going to be my big love but also my profession. — Herbie Hancock

Each human being exists because there's something they have to offer for the evolution of the universe that only they can fulfill. — Herbie Hancock

When I was coming up, I practiced all the time because I thought if I didn't I couldn't do my best. — Herbie Hancock

Jazz translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not only the musicians but for the listeners. — Herbie Hancock

Like no matter what happens, this would be the ultimate, they can make something positive happen. — Herbie Hancock

So I didn't actually change my name the way some people did. — Herbie Hancock

I'm very conscious of the idea of trying to each time present something that I haven't presented before. It's a challenge to me to find something new, to find something innovative, but it's also very exciting. — Herbie Hancock

So in other words, we were constantly challenged to grow, and thats what a master does. — Herbie Hancock

I learned the importance of being nonjudgmental, taking what happens and trying to make it work.That's something you should apply to life. — Herbie Hancock

Being vulnerable is allowing yourself to trust. That's hard for a lot of people to do. They feel a lot more secure if they kind of put walls around themselves. Then they don't have to trust anybody but themselves. But to allow you to trust not only yourself but trust others means - is what's required to be vulnerable, and to have that kind of trust takes courage. — Herbie Hancock

One of the greatest attributes of jazz, I think, is that it is that open. — Herbie Hancock

Music isn't about music, it's about life. — Herbie Hancock

Life Lessons by Herbie Hancock

1. Herbie Hancock's music is a great example of how to combine different genres in a creative and unique way.
2. He is also a great example of how to stay relevant in the music industry over a long period of time by constantly experimenting and pushing boundaries.
3. His work is a reminder of the importance of staying true to your own artistic vision and never compromising on your creative integrity.