I got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins.
Instruments are a phenomenal investment, especially violins and violas and celli, because the value really doesn't go down, and it just rises up at incredible speed and has done, and I believe will continue to do so, because these rare instruments are not getting more. They are getting less and less through the years.
It is as absurd to say that a man can't love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.
You know, the truth is that us actors would all like to believe we re-invent the wheel, every time we play a character. But, we're human beings and our instruments are not violins, they are our bodies and our consciousness and our collective life experience.
The violin is very beautiful. Some people relate it as the shape of a lady, but, whether you like it or not, it's been so for more than 400 years, unlike modern stuff that easily looks dated. But I think it's very personal and unique that, although each violin looks pretty similar, that no two violins sound the same.
Every single one of us can do things that no one else can do - can love things that no one else can love. We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops, or we can make music. You know what to do.
When it comes to orchestral music, whenever I see a concert with orchestra and strings, and I arrive and there are speakers up, my heart always sinks a little bit, and I think, 'It's going to be down to some sound guy's ideas.' Contact microphones on the violins. I'm a purist, I suppose.
Usually bands with violins - it's this little, poorly amplified looking kind of futile on stage, and that's not the way that my music is put together.
Sometimes in films it's nice to have violins on either side, rather than on one side, so you've got more of a stereo picture with the violins. Sometimes it's good to have the basses in the middle.
I often play on the cello-bass side of the orchestra, because I prefer the deep sounds. I can't hear the violins well.