Esperanza Spalding Quotes & Sayings

“You can grow up with literally nothing and you don't suffer if you know you're loved and valued.”

“I think there's so much negative influence on children in school settings. It becomes learning by rote to pass a test. It's not contextualized.”

“For what I can imagine and feel and think and hear, I can hardly do anything on the acoustic bass. It used to be just pure frustration of imagining so much more and being able to get to a certain level of execution.”

“It's a pity that if someone who has a really profoundly potent art to share chooses not to or doesn't fit into this very thin slice of what's desirable and marketable, chances are the public will never get a chance to hear what they're doing.”

“I just think music is so intrinsically linked with images in the culture that we live in that you'll be hard-pressed to have an experience with the music without a preconceived notion.”

“If you don't already know about jazz music, how would you be exposed? How would get an opportunity to find out if it spoke to you? If you get exposed to it enough, you might find a taste for it.”

“My earliest attempts at writing were when I was seven. I would sit at the piano and transcribe the songs I heard on the radio. I'd change little things in the music and write different lyrics.”

“I love people, and I love to be with people and to make music with people, but my natural state is to revert back to being by myself in my house, which is cool because that's where I practice and write and listen and study.”

“I don't watch TV, I don't spend time on the Internet, and I don't party much. I don't text very much, either.”

“The benefit of the radio is, something beyond your realm of knowledge can surprise you, can enter your realm of knowledge.”