George Gershwin: Quotes about music

George Gershwin was American composer and pianist. Explore interesting quotes on music.

George Gershwin: 24 quotes5 likes

“The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.”

George Gershwin

Isaac Goldberg Tin Pan Alley (New York: John Day, 1930) p. viii.

“My people are American, my time is today…music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times.”

George Gershwin

Quoted in Merle Armitage Accent on America (New York: E. Weyhe, 1944) p. 292.

“Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music.”

George Gershwin

"The Relation of Jazz to American Music", in Henry Cowell (ed.) American Composers on American Music (1933); reprinted in Gregory R. Suriano (ed.) Gershwin in His Time (New York: Gramercy, 1998) p. 97.

“I like to think of music as an emotional science.”

George Gershwin

Page 388
The Composer in the Machine Age (1933)

“Modern European composers…have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of musical technique which has helped them put into musical terms a little more clearly the thoughts that originated here. They can express themselves more glibly.”

George Gershwin

Page 386
The Composer in the Machine Age (1933)

“I frequently hear music in the heart of noise.”

George Gershwin

Letter to Isaac Goldberg; published in Joan Peyser The Memory of All That (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) p. 80.