Abigail Washburn
Abigail Washburn
Abigail Washburnis an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet, experimental group The Wu Force, and as a duo with her husband Béla Fleck...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBanjo Player
Date of Birth10 November 1977
CountryUnited States of America
music
You can enjoy many different types of music. I think that's something more Americans should think about.
believe change music power
I believe in music because it has the power of change.
music pot
I feel like my kind of music is a big pot of different spices. It's a soup with all kinds of ingredients in it.
beauty common drive human louder music needs search share sure
My whole drive is to make sure that music is a common space where we search for beauty and share it. It needs to be louder than any conversation. That's where we have to go as a human race.
area becoming brought china divine industry intention living miraculous music powers
I had no intention of becoming a performer, and yet under miraculous circumstances I was brought into the music industry fold. If divine powers hadn't intervened, I'd still be living in China working in some area of Sino-American comparative law.
common complete ground home music nation universal
I do see music as complete refuge. It's a universal home, complete common ground between everyone; it comes from a place that has no nation and no boundaries around it.
elements felt gotten life moved music separation situations time
I've moved around so much my whole life, and I've gotten so used to being the Other in situations - the foreigner, the outsider. The first time I've ever felt like there was no separation between me and the other elements was in music.
chinese novelty chinese-music
For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty and it's not what it is for me,
believe power-of-music
I really believe in the power of music.
chinese feels music
For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty, and it's not what it is for me.
call music obsession played
My parents played the radio, but music was never an obsession or something that I thought I could call a career.
absolute coming feeling gives home music outsider ready tired
In some ways, my most comfortable feeling has been that of being an outsider coming in, but over the years I've tired of that and I'm ready to feel at home. That's what music gives me: a feeling of absolute home.
belong both chinese gene music musical scale seem understand whenever
I'm no ethnomusicologist. There is a connection between the five-note scale used both in traditional Chinese music and the blues, but I don't really understand it. All I know is, whenever I play with Chinese musicians, we seem to belong to the same musical gene pool.
china fell felt intimate love process time truly trying
China was the first time I truly felt like an outsider. I fell in love with the process of trying to become intimate with the culture.