How to Create Record-Breaking Hits | Quincy Jones' Advice in 12 Minutes

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me. It's work, man. They say that the dictionary is the only place you see success before work, and that's alphabetical. I was ready to do myself in. I just couldn't handle the pressure anymore. From day one, we knew how to play every kind of music. Our entire business is all based on two things: a great song and a great story.

He's an American record producer, composer, musician, and entertainment executive. His career spans 6 decades in the entertainment industry, and he's been nominated for a record 79 Grammy Awards. Time magazine listed him as one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century. He's Quincy Jones, and here's my take on his top 10 rules for success. Rule number 1 is my personal favorite, and make sure to stick around all the way to the end for some special bonus clips.

Number 1 is to know who you are and learning to love who you are. 'Cause you can't love anybody else if you don't love yourself. Ray Charles and I used to say every day in Seattle, "Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me." Every day, that was the deal with racism and everything, 'cause you don't want an external force defining who the hell you are. Where have you gone to improve your arranging skills as an arranger? Work. Work and study, man. Work and study. You know, and I did that, but I did that a long time ago. I put 28 years on my course. Skill and orchestration, counterpoint, everything. Because you got, you know, music is always left and right brain, intellect and emotion. And you've got to work to keep the science going. You don't work to keep the science going, you can't support the emotion. A million guys come and tell me, man, if I could play piano, I could be better than Herbie Hancock. I say, yeah, but you ain't going to be better than Herbie Hancock because you haven't worked enough. But you have to work. It's work, man. They say that the dictionary is the only place you see success before work. And that's alphabetical. In school we were exposed to march music and kind of classical music and semi-classical music, and to make a living you had to play schottisches and all those things and so forth. So there was always the full range of music around. And I remember once Ray Charles said to me, we were trying to put bebop feeling into shottishes one time. He said, "No." He said, "You just put your soul into the music you playing, you're playing, and let it be a shottish and it'll be okay." And I never forgot that. When Quincy Jones was stranded in Europe, he realized the importance of being a good businessman as well as being a good musician. He had to really look at every aspect of the business. To try to get home. This is my responsibility. I got them over here, I'm gonna get them back. I was ready to do myself in. I just couldn't handle the pressure anymore because it was performing and on the payrolls, trying to book and everything else. They were just— I think when people to think about taking their own life, it's not about— it's, uh, it's, uh, just about 15 minutes apiece, you know, you get some rest for a while. It's amazing how it works because a whole series of mistakes at one point, people start to call it experience. Oh, he's very experienced in that. That means you had a chance to mess up a lot. And that's great, because if you don't take any chances, you're not going to make any mistakes, you know? My father said to us every day of our lives, once a task has just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labor, great or small, Do it well or not at all. Every day of our lives he said that. And he would never let us half-step. That I learned from him, and I treasured that, you know, because he didn't believe in doing anything halfway. What advice do you have for the future of making great records? Know what you're doing. Study everything. You know, study music. You know, because I'm hearing some funny stuff now that drives me crazy. I'll talk to some of the producers today. We were doing an amazing project in Rabat, Morocco last year. We had all of the number one singers in the Arab Spring, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Aleppo, Damascus, everywhere. And we're recording over there and I'm calling no names over there. And I said, do you read music? He said, yeah, I used to, but I forgot. Give me a break, man. You don't forget how to read music. But man, you have to understand and put the work in to learn the It's a science, man. You do. You can't play a trumpet if you don't know how to. It's a science, the armatures, the diaphragmatic breathing. There's a lot of secrets with everything you attempt to do. Retrograde inversion and counterpoint. It's been, as I say, there's only 12 notes, man, so you can figure out what you have to do to get your own sound. You have to do that through rhythm, melody, and harmony. And you have to do a lot of research to figure that out. You know, you have to know what's going on. You have to understand, I don't know, Ravel and Alpenberg and Basie and Duke and Bo Diddley and Melly Mel and Ludacris and Drake and all of them. Come on, man. You know, it's doing your homework, man. That's all I can say. Prepare yourself because my thing, was, I was all, my biggest fear, and I don't play with that word at all, was to get a great opportunity that I'm not prepared for. So when Frank Sinatra called me, man, I was ready for him, I'm telling you. And he'd test me, he really, Ray Charles too, 'cause those guys are rough, man. Billy Eckstine, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, they will kick your booty, you know. And he'd say to me, in the first, we'd do an arrangement at Capitol Studios, He'd say, Q, that first 8 was a little dense. I said, no problem, man. And I put all the horn, the trumpets and harmoniums, pull the stems out, transfer the saxophones to alto flutes and stuff like, let's go. He was testing me. He only did it 3 times. And after that, he said he knows what he's doing. And I, because I was ready for it. And that's the biggest compliment, man, and accomplishments you can have in your life is to say, I got my stuff together. I got my shit together. You have to have it together, man. You do. Let me ask you me about creativity then and the diversity that is Quincy Jones, because I'm a kid of the 1980s, so I know Quincy Jones, the famous guy, the hit maker, the pop wizard, the R&B soul guy. You were a serious jazz guy through the '50s. I mean, you were, you're on tour with Lionel Hampton. Understand, man, yeah, from day one we knew how to play every kind of music. Sousa, Debussy, Shostakovich, uh, Rhythm and blues, everything. We played everything, man. I got a lot of disses when I started doing Michael Jackson. I didn't have to learn anything to do Michael. I mean, I've been doing that all my life. That's my question though. Does the guy who is the guy who toured with Count Basie or did arrangements for Count Basie and Gene Krupa, Sarah Vaughan. Everybody. That's the same guy who can produce hip-hop or pop music? We were doing it all our life. It's the same. There's no— Nadi Boulanjea said, Quincy, God gave us 12 notes that Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, O'Dinnely, Basie, Bird all use the same 12 notes until he gives us 13. I want you to know what everybody did with 12. And I studied hard for 28 years, man. And there's not— for 7 decades, we never stopped, you know. We'd try to play like Miles, try to play like Charlie Parker, like Fats Navarro. And when you'd— come out of that, there's 10 different people, and your personality is going to finally transcend— not transcend that, but morph into its own personality, because it is a personality. And if you have traveled the roads of all the great people— but I think that happens with anything. If it's a cameraman, you know, you look at, uh, Serrano or whatever, you know, all your favorite people, and and just deal with just the best, or like classical composers or whatever, and, or people that deal with drama, you know, with the elements of drama. They can say, all do it a different way, and jump into it, jump all over it. I'm serious, you know, just don't be bashful, jump into it, try to copy it just like it is. I mean, you can't do this on a professional level, but I mean in training your mind, you know, to think on that level. The highest level, go with everybody from Johnny Williams to Goldsmith, you know, to Alon Silvestri, you know, Stanley Clark, everybody. I have 7 kids. I have 6 daughters, 21 to 60. That's why I don't have any hair. And 1 son. But I— my part of the tough love is to tell them the first thing they have to know is know who you are, because a lot of people don't know who they are. And that's very difficult, but that, that's the first challenge I think is to know who you are. And if it's 70/30, work on it at the 30%, stop whining and move on, you know? And then after you know who you are, love who you are. That's the first two steps. And that's what I've— mantra to my children. 'Cause you are on your way once you know who you are and, and love who you are, you're on the way. 'Cause if you don't love who you are, you're in trouble. We're on the— Always be true to yourself, baby. Our entire business is all based on two things: a great song and a great story. Film and television, great— if you don't have that story, nothing else matters. You don't call anybody else to direct anybody. The same with a song. Great song can make the worst singer in the world a star. But a bad song, the three best singers in the world cannot save it. And that's the bottom line, man. If you are not working as a musician until the later years of your life— It doesn't matter, man. At 60, you can start, man. Nadie Boulanger told me that. She said, "You can become an attorney at 60 years old, man. You can do whatever you feel like doing if you're willing to put your mindset behind it and the passion and the work." Anything, any time in life. 70 years old. I mean, I feel like I'm just starting, man. I really do.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I made this video because Ari Gabriel asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, leave in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of Quincy's top 10 rules had the biggest impact on you and why. Leave it in the comments, I will join in the discussion. And lastly, I want to give a quick shout out to Mark Drigger from Fantamedia. Mark, thank you so much for buying one of my books. It means a lot to me. For those of you watching, if you want a chance at a shout out in a future video, make sure to pick up a copy of the book and Email in your receipt so we can keep track. Thank you so much for watching. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is, and I'll see you soon.

It starts with the human being, you know. That's what Ahmadu Bilal Musa said that to me every day. Quincy, your music can never be more or less than you are as a human being. And that's what it's about. You know, you can have all that science technique and everything else, if you don't have a life and love and live and give and stuff like that, you have nothing to say, to spread, to share. You have nothing to share, to give. And she's right. Man, I lived. I did my best. After Ray Charles, you kidding me? Basie, Miles, Dizzy, Sinatra, please. Sinatra used to tell us every night we got off the stand, If you live every day like it's your last, one day you'll be right.