“
I always tell musicians, whenever you perform for a large body of people, you must hear the real grand fundamental tone that comes from the people. You have to arrive there and go into a nice little area where you plant yourself and you try to hear that big sound, that harmony that everybody’s making- the way they’re talking, the laughter. I get the fundamental tone of all of that. Once you get that tone, all the things are going to fall into place because all of the people are just the harmonics.
[…]
What I do is I try to internalize that sound, and say ‘what does that feel like to me.’ If I feel it’s a positive sound, then I say ‘this thing could take me someplace else.’ I can give them a much greater whatever-they-need if I do this or I do that. If I feel hurt from there, what I do is change that around. The thing is this- somebody would say ‘everybody’s not going to respond to this.’ But if you can get a large segment of people in there just to be thinking very positive, then the person next to them is going to feel that! You try to get harmony in there. People always want to be in a surrounding where they feel people are positive. If you people are smiling, feeling great comfort, not intimidated, they can relax and feel no stress. So everybody helps each other out.
But you as an artist… What I’m talking about is an artist has to be really together. Spirit-wise, body-wise, mind-wise. You have to be in the best condition that you can be in. Or else you’re no good to anybody. It’s like a medical doctor telling you ‘I can take care of your cold’ and he’s sneezing and coughing all over the place.
“
Milford Graves
from
http://www.furious.com/perfect/milfordgraves.html
see also
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4510912
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