I want to make music that somehow connects to the things that I love in America music. Joanna Newsom More Quotes by Joanna Newsom More Quotes From Joanna Newsom Families of privilege and money would have harps in their parlors, and their cultured daughters would learn to play. It's got such a strange history. But that wasn't the context that I learned it in, so the inherent friction between that history and the more humanist folk-y history wasn't in my conscience at all. Joanna Newsom privilege daughter play I played piano for about two years when I was a kid. I didn't play long enough to be really great. Joanna Newsom play kids years I am consciously trying not to make it sound Celtic or African. Joanna Newsom corny sound trying There are some mornings when the sky looks like a road. Joanna Newsom sky morning looks I am always trying to write. Joanna Newsom always-trying writing trying In high school, we studied a lot of poetical forms. I was really interested in the math that was involved and the strange live break ups. That gave me a great amount of respect for a rhymed stanza. Joanna Newsom rhyming math school I am not doing something that it is experimental music in relation to classical music. Joanna Newsom experimental-music classical-music relation Lyrics are very different. There is a clear line between that and a poem. Something that has been a source of great excitement and delight for me is this idea that I get to rhyme. Joanna Newsom delight different ideas I did spend a year in high school being obsessed with Fleetwood Mac. Joanna Newsom obsession years school I can understand someone not liking the voice or the songs. Joanna Newsom i-can voice song I am producing sounds that people are not used to hearing from the harp. Joanna Newsom hearing sound people I've been unaware of how people react to the instrument. People have ideas of what a harp is supposed to sound like, and a lot of them are negative ideas. Joanna Newsom sound people ideas I don't look at people's expressions, because I still get nervous when I play, especially when I first put the harp up there. I just try to tune - it takes me a half-hour to tune, and I get nervous if I look at anybody when I do it. Joanna Newsom expression play people I never thought people would be mortally offended by the sounds I was making. Joanna Newsom would-be sound people The so-called positive press has in some ways been more difficult to swallow than the negative. Joanna Newsom difficult way negative I recorded harp first or singing first. I recorded it all together. Part of the reason is that I don't know how to play the songs without also singing. I forget how they progress. I don't think that any of them are verse, chorus, verse, and so on. They are not simple. Joanna Newsom simple song thinking The very first Walnut Whales recording was recorded just a few weeks after I had started singing, out of the blue, started singing. And the voice, you can hear how uncomfortable I am with it, and how terrified I am with it. Joanna Newsom whales voice blue I had known that people would probably have strange reactions to my voice, because I have kind of an unwieldy, difficult voice, but I never thought that anybody would have a problem with the harp. I just assumed... C'mon, it's a beautiful instrument. Joanna Newsom voice beautiful people I didn't sing for years and years, but I started playing harp when I was maybe 9 or 10. I had actually wanted to play for years leading up to that, but no teacher in our little town would take me on as a student, because I was too young. Joanna Newsom play teacher years I have writing songs on my own for about six years. Joanna Newsom writing song years
