It's funny: I'm a lifelong musician but because I principally play the piano it's been a solitary thing.

You know fame is a funny thing man especially you know actors musicians rappers rock singers it's kind of a lifestyle and it's easy to get caught up in it - you go to bars you go to clubs everyone's doing a certain thing... It's tough.

Maybe a part of me recognized how right the improvising spirit of jazz is. Not the sounds but the freedom to work with musicians who work that way. It felt very natural to me but I think there's a way to do it without it being a jazz record.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise and take chances and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

When I was 19 I made my first good week's pay as a club musician. It was enough money for me to quit my job at the factory and still pay the rent and buy some food. I freaked.

My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances we've become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.

You've got certain guys that just want to be famous and then you've got the real musicians that just love playing music.

I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department. And I suppose because I am fairly well off and a famous musician I'm up for grabs. And that makes me an eligible bachelor in the press.

Like family we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.

Visible Faith is an expression of my Christian faith which must be visible to be real! I gave the name to the collection of musicians who worked with me on the record.

No one else in our family was a professional musician so this took an enormous leap of faith on their part.

Once you're in a particular country and you're surrounded by musicians who are so adept at traditional music you suddenly realize how much there is to explore and digest and learn and experience.

I have such happy memories of performing in a choir and I don't think I'd have got where I am today without all that experience. So my advice to young singers is to either join your school or church's choir or find one in your local area. Choral music at any level teaches you so much about musicianship and blending your voice.

I sought my father in the world of the black musician because it contained wisdom experience sadness and loneliness. I was not ever interested in the music of boys. From my youngest years I was interested in the music of men.

Historically musicians know what it is like to be outside the norm - walking the high wire without a safety net. Our experience is not so different from those who march to the beat of different drummers.

Session musicians kind of respected me because what I was talking about made sense. That all came from an education. Believe me education does you more good. Maybe that's the reason I've been around so long.

When I was a young musician the only option available to pursue secondary education in music was to attend a classical conservatory.

My training as an engineer has enabled me to design the stuff but the reason I do it is not to make music but for the opportunity to work with musicians.

THE GODS was my first professional band and I learned a lot during that time. It was very cool playing with so many great musicians as it helped me to learn.

If a musician wants to be an actor everyone thinks that's pretty cool. But if an actor wants to play a song even if they've been doing it for 40 years that's bad news.

I started getting into Internet technologies and computers. I wasn't especially interested in being a musician but I wound up finding my way back to being interested in music through computers.

Most of the musicians that I know almost to the man everybody uses Apple computers. They've thought of the steps that you're going to think of when you're trying to create your thing. And that's where the tools get invented to make better art.

Musicians and journalists are the canaries in the coalmine but eventually as computers get more and more powerful it will kill off all middle-class professions.

I happen to think that computers are the most important thing to happen to musicians since the invention of cat-gut which was a long time ago.