Quotes about music (3440 quotes, page 19)

“First the masters died, now their music is dying, because people only want to listen to pop, rock, and punk.”

Elfriede Jelinek book The Piano Teacher

P 69
The Piano Teacher (1988)

People

“I don’t listen to anything on the radio but NPR and occasional oldies programs. I can’t comment on the content or format of most commercial radio but I have read the statistics about the step-by-step deregulation of FCC rules that has allowed monopolies like Clear Channel to buy up massive shares of the airwaves. This has damaged our business (music) and our culture (American). The internet is offering bold alternatives but a transistor radio is only $25.00 and not everyone is hooked up through a computer and high speed connection.”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Quotes from NatalieMerchant.com

Business , Reading , Speed

“I think I should be in a [Disney animated] film called ‘Space Shrews’. Where I go to space. With a load of shrews. And nothing really happens. We just get out and have a lolly and then come back. But it’ll be a musical […] the ship will be built out of my own hair.”

Noel Fielding (1973) British comedian and actor

HermAphroditeZine, Autumn 1999

Thinking , Animals

“Music is a pastime, a relaxation from more serious occupations.”

Alexander Borodin (1833–1887) Russian composer, doctor and chemist

Letter to V A Krylov, 1867, in Borodin: Collected Letters.

“Roger: I think it's different in the way of how they handle stuff. I don't think they were really trying to. They wouldn't want us on it if they didn't like our music, you know what I'm saying? They obviously want us to create what we create and then they do what they're going to do. It's more things like interviews and more videos and photo shoots.. things like that with a major label kind of brings to the table. Which I may or may not be into - but it's a cool chance.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Way , Photo , Thinking , Chance

“I'm waiting 'til they get all this kit in one six by three inch lump of metal and you just stick it up your arse and it does everything for you. You get music all the time, everything's in vivid colour, your taste and all your hearing is enhanced, and you never have to do anything ever again. You can stay in bed and just live in this vortex of sensation.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

on being asked by Jonathan Ross about modern technology
Other

Time , Waiting

“That the sweetly intoxicating three-four rhythm which took hold of hand & foot, necessarily eclipsed great & serious music & made the audience unfit for any intellectual effort goes without saying.”

Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904) austrian musician and musicologist

Quoted by Long Beach Opera Co. http://www.longbeachopera.org/index.php4?id=200403

Effort

“Triune, shaping, restless power,
Life-flow from life's natal hour,
No music chords are in thy sound;
By some thou'rt but a rattle found;
Yet, without thy ceaseless motion,
To ice would turn their dead devotion.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Life Without and Life Within (1859), Sistrum

Life , Dead

“Jazz music is a lifestyle. It’s not notes, chords and arpeggios. Today’s improvisation is too based on the knowledge of chords and the way they practice the chords. It’s not a melodic thing anymore like the older days. It was much more important to play shorter and to play more variable, valid stuff. Today, a lot of solos are long and uninteresting and the influence usually comes from John Coltrane’s group. He himself was a master musician, but he put so much emphasis on chord knowledge and technique, and now the kids want to show how fast they can play. This is the same with piano players and most instrumentalists—it’s speed. That’s gonna change again and hopefully the kids who are now 16 and 17 years old have a little more sense and maybe some more stories to tell.”

Joe Zawinul (1932–2007) austrian composer and pianist

Reflecting on the new generation's take on jazz music
Prasad interview (1997)

Way , Knowledge , Sense , Change

“Who sings of all of Love's eternity
Who shines so bright
In all the songs of Love's unending spells? Holy lightning strikes all that's evil
Teaching us to love for goodness sake.
Hear the music of Love Eternal
Teaching us to reach for goodness sake.”

Jon Anderson (1944) English singer

Lyrics of "Loved by the Sun", on the soundtrack of the film Legend (1986).

Love , Evil , Singing

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”

Martin Mull (1943) American actor

(on or before 1979), attributed in print in the magazine Time Barrier Express in the September-October 1979 issue in an article by Gary Sperrazza. Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture: Laurie Anderson? Steve Martin? Frank Zappa? Martin Mull? Elvis Costello? Thelonius Monk?, Quote Investigator (blog), November 9, 2010 http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/08/writing-about-music/,
Attributed

Dance

“For all families, participation in music and the arts, can help people reclaim and achieve the American dream.”

Linda Ronstadt (1946) American pop singer

Linda Ronstadt, Arts Advocacy Day 2009 Congressional Hearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLo6o_ayKZ0, 1 May 2009

People , Family , Dreams , Art

“For many human beings, religion has been the music which they believe in.”

George Steiner (1929–2020) American writer

Source: Real Presences (1989), III: Presences, Ch. 6 (p. 218).

Religion

“Style. It varies from person to person. Without it music will be monotonous.”

M. Balamuralikrishna (1930–2016) Carnatic vocalist, instrumentalist and playback singer

Source: Chitra Swaminathan "He defines ‘style’ as tradition".

Personality

“Should the music in the churches not at the most be for the heart? Are fugues made for that?”

Joseph Martin Kraus (1756–1792) German composer

Soll die Musik in den Kirchen nicht am meisten fürs Herz seyn? Taugen darzu Fugen?
96
Etwas von und über Musik fürs Jahr 1777

Heart

“The Lost Music was his way of talking about the way he believed that old wives' tales and dance tunes and folktales were just the tangled echoes of something that's not quite of this world … something we all knew once, but have forgotten since.”

Charles de Lint (1951) author

Part One: The Hidden People, "The Quarrlsome Piper" p. 19
The Little Country (1991)

World , Way , Dance

“I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Life , Idea , Thinking , Effort

“I think musicians here [India] get ripped off. Music production houses take good care of artists abroad and though the upfront signing amount is much less than what I get here, the royalty takes care of future returns.”

A. R. Rahman (1966) Indian singer and composer

In A R Rahman: Composing a winning score, 21 September 2002, 16 December 2013, Rediff.com http://www.rediff.com/money/2002/sep/21bizsp.htm,

Thinking , Future , Housing

“My music is not modern, it is merely badly played”

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) Austrian-American composer

Genette, Gérard. 1997. Immanence and Transcendence, translated by G. M. Goshgarian. p. 102
Undated

“I was blessed by God with a talent to express myself through the art-form called music, I eventually found love in it and had no other choice than to embrace it and ever since, I’ve come to enjoy it; I feel like I was born to do it and I really want to continue to make music. To me, it’s sort of like life because I can relate it with everything that happens around me.”

Slim Burna (1988) Nigerian singer and record producer

" Slim Burna-Burn it up! http://www.afro-hits.com/slim-burna-burn-it-up/", Afro-Hits (September 2nd, 2013)

Love , Life , God , Art

“Rhythmical music is that which is made by instruments which render the sound by touch.”

Johannes Tinctoris (1435–1511) Flemish composer

Dictionary of Musical Terms (1475)

“Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

A Morning Exercise.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“I never really had the intention of being a rock 'n' roller. It's just that all of my best friends were great musicians and they felt sorry for me so they had me.”

Anthony Kiedis (1962) American singer

Much Music 1991

“It was a bright September afternoon, and the streets of New York were brilliant with moving men…. He was pushed toward the ticket-office with the others, and felt in his pocket for the new five-dollar bill he had hoarded…. When at last he realized that he had paid five dollars to enter he knew not what, he stood stock-still amazed…. John… sat in a half-maze minding the scene about him; the delicate beauty of the hall, the faint perfume, the moving myriad of men, the rich clothing and low hum of talking seemed all a part of a world so different from his, so strangely more beautiful than anything he had known, that he sat in dreamland, and started when, after a hush, rose high and clear the music of Lohengrin's swan. The infinite beauty of the wail lingered and swept through every muscle of his frame, and put it all a-tune. He closed his eyes and grasped the elbows of the chair, touching unwittingly the lady's arm. And the lady drew away. A deep longing swelled in all his heart to rise with that clear music out of the dirt and dust of that low life that held him prisoned and befouled. If he could only live up in the free air where birds sang and setting suns had no touch of blood! Who had called him to be the slave and butt of all?… If he but had some master-work, some life-service, hard, aye, bitter hard, but without the cringing and sickening servility…. When at last a soft sorrow crept across the violins, there came to him the vision of a far-off home — the great eyes of his sister, and the dark drawn face of his mother…. It left John sitting so silent and rapt that he did not for some time notice the usher tapping him lightly on the shoulder and saying politely, 'will you step this way please sir?'… The manager was sorry, very very sorry — but he explained that some mistake had been made in selling the gentleman a seat already disposed of; he would refund the money, of course… before he had finished John was gone, walking hurriedly across the square… and as he passed the park he buttoned his coat and said, 'John Jones you're a natural-born fool.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Then he went to his lodgings and wrote a letter, and tore it up; he wrote another, and threw it in the fire....
Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. XIII: Of the Coming of John

Life , Men , Money , World

“The only thing my mother would say about my music—I'd say, "Mom, listen to this," and she'd say, "Junior, I know who you are."”

Ornette Coleman (1930–2015) American jazz musician

Esquire, January 2010, p. 90

Moms

“We are living in a period in which many people have changed their mind about what the use of music is or could be for them. Something that doesn't speak or talk like a human being, that doesn't know its definition in the dictionary or its theory in the schools, that expresses itself simply by the fact of its vibrations. People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote of John Cage: the last lines of his 'Autobiographical Statement', April, 1990 http://www.johncage.org/autobiographical_statement.html
1990s

People , School , Change , Time

“Writing provided me as a teenager, first with a tool to navigate my way through a constantly humming nighttime swamp of inner traumas, and second with a means to comprehend and address the material world of race, poverty, and social backwardness that characterized my hometown at that time. Words, like music, gave themselves to me as companions and have always endowed my existence with a strength and resilience that otherwise I would not have.”

Aberjhani (1957) author

(GCA Interview with Aberjhani).
From Articles, Essays, and Poems, Gale Contemporary Authors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_Authors

World , Way , Time

“Many a young fellow has found himself in a similar predicament, but I doubt whether anyone ever became so desperately hungry as I did on that day. I recollect that, having rashly eaten up my sausage before eight o'clock, I felt a sinking towards twelve; it was aggravated by the savoury smell of roast meat which steamed from the cookshops and dining-rooms as I walked along the streets. About one o'clock I gazed with malignant envy on the happy clerks who could go in and order platefuls of the roast and boiled which smoked in the windows, and threw a perfume more delicious than the sweetest strains of music into the streets where I lingered and looked. And at two I observed the diners come out again, walking more slowly, but with an upright and satisfied air, while I -- the sinking had been succeeded by a dull gnawing pain -- was slowly doubling up. At half-past two I felt as if I could bear it no longer. I had been walking about, trying different offices for a clerkship. I might as well have asked for a partnership. But I could walk no more.”

Walter Besant (1836–1901) English novelist and historian

The Case of Mr. Lucraft (with James Rice), 1875 http://books.google.com/books?id=fn5lH8qnLygC&pg=PA19, p. 19

Pain , Happiness , Past , Envy

“The music reached us. Clumsily,
stumbling over our own roots,
rustling our leaves
in answer,
we moved, we followed.”

Denise Levertov (1923–1997) Poet

A Tree Telling of Orpheus (1968)

“Early on, presenter Mark Evans observes that a snake is essentially just "one massive tube with a head at the end", which, coincidentally, is also how he might describe his genitals to an audience of blind women in a hypothetical situation I've just invented in which hen nights for the visually impaired are held in special strip clubs where naked men describe their bodies in time to disco music. For what it's worth, I don't know what I'm going on about, either”

Charlie Brooker (1971) journalist, broadcaster and writer from England

Discussing Inside Nature's Giants 12 jUNE 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/jun/12/charlie-brooker-screen-burn
Guardian columns, Screen Burn

Women , Men , Time , Night

“He (King Philip) wanted as many Greeks as possible to take part in the festivities in honour of the gods, and so planned brilliant musical contests and lavish banquets for his friends and guests. Out of all Greece he summoned his personal guest-friends and ordered the members of his court to bring along as many as they could of their acquaintances from abroad.”

Diodorus Siculus (-90–-30 BC) Greek historiographer

Histories 16.91.5-6

God , Parting , Personality

“The United States stands tall, representing a parade of nations, 300 million strong. That number will grow during today's citizenship ceremony, featuring the national anthem performed by pop star Gloria Estefan. She captures the essence of what makes this country so great: Ms. Estefan arrived from Cuba as a 2-year-old and would eventually chase her amitions of becoming a singer. She would incorporate salsa into mainstream American music, reflecting the true meaning of this country as a melting pot.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

editorial on www.orlandosentinel.com (July 5, 2007)
2007, 2008

Star , Strong , Country

“I've had worried parents come up to me and ask me for advice. They'll say "I don't know what to do. My teenage son won't cut his hair, he drives too fast, and I don't know what that stuff is he listens to, but it sure isn't music." I'll just say to them "I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. By the time he's my age, I don't think you'll need to worry about him anymore."”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Living It Up: Or, They Still Love Me in Altoona! (1976)

Age , Thinking , Parent , Sleep

“The first-century church in Jerusalem clearly had it. And they didn't have any fancy accoutrements. So it can't possibly be stained-glass windows, hand-carved cherubs, custom silk tapestries, gold-inlaid hymnals, thousand-pipe organs, marble floors, mile-high steeples, hand-painted ceilings, mahogany pews, giant cast-iron bells, and a three-piece, thousand dollar suit. It doesn't stick any better to a young, hip, shaved-headed pastor with rimmed glasses, a goatee, and tattoos than it does to an older, stately gentleman in a robe. Nor is it spotlights and lasers, video production, satellite dishes, fog machines, shiny gauze backdrops, four-color glossy brochures, sexy billboards, loud "contemporary" music, free donuts, coffee shops, hip bookstores, break dancing or acrobatics, sermon series named after television shows, a retro-modern matching chair and table onstage, or blue jeans and Heelys. It is not being on television, being on the Internet, or being on book and magazine covers. It is real. It is genuine.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

Books , Color , Coffee , Tattoo

“Computers are no more able to create information than iPods are capable of creating music.”

Robert J. Marks II (1950) American electrical engineering researcher and intelligent design advocate

Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, HarperOne (2009) p. 292

“I feel close to the rebelliousness and vigour of the youth here. Perhaps time will separate us, but nobody can deny that here, behind the windows of Manchester, there is an insane love of football, of celebration and of music.”

Eric Cantona (1966) French actor and association football player

Eric Cantona Manchester Quote T-Shirt, TShirtsUnited, 2010-01-06 http://www.tshirtsunited.com/catalogue/tshirts/explayers/eric-cantona-manchester.html,

Love , Youth , Feeling , Time

“Our arts, particularly music, are more livelier than any sport. I play with my `raagas.' And there is no defeat here. Only victory for everyone - singers, listeners and the music itself.”

M. Balamuralikrishna (1930–2016) Carnatic vocalist, instrumentalist and playback singer

Source: Staff Reporter, "Mangalampalli can't wait to come home"
On his singing on the occasion of an India-Pakistan cricket match.

Art , Sport , Victory

“Can you appreciate music without playing it? Yes, you can. You can appreciate baseball without playing it. Many people attend a football game merely for the crowd, the excitement, the color.”

Jascha Heifetz (1901–1987) Lithuanian violinist

Heifetz official web site http://www.jaschaheifetz.com/about/quotes.html

People , Color , Game , Football

“Music helps you understand the deeper musings of the mind. Listening to music can help a person to a better understanding of his inner drives. This, in turn, gives him the confidence to follow the path in life dictated by his heart.”

Hariprasad Chaurasia (1938) Indian bansuri player

My father's wrestling techniques made my lungs strong: Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia

Life , Confidence , Understanding , Help

“the octopus's secret wish
is not to be a formal fish
he dreams that some time he may grow
another set of legs or so
and be a broadway music show”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

archy and mehitabel (1927)

Secret , Dreams , Fish , Time

“Just because Beethoven doesn’t sound like currently popular art doesn’t mean his music is worthless.”

John Varley (1947) American science fiction author

"The Phantom of Kansas" (1976), The World Treasury of Science Fiction (ed. David Hartwell), p. 375

Art

“I think America concedes that (true American music) has sprung from the negro. When we take these things that come from the art of the Negro and from the heart of the man farthest down.”

W. C. Handy (1873–1958) American blues composer and musician

Music Preservation Society biography http://www.wchandymusicfestival.org/downloads/HandyBiography.pdf

Art , Thinking , Heart

“Aye, ye were blest with folly. Who may tell
What strange conceits upon the earth were sown
And gender'd by the fond garrulity
Of your aereal music? Scatter'd notes,
Half heard, half fancied by the erring sense
Of man, on which they fell like downy seeds
Sown by autumnal winds, grew up, and teem'd
With plenteous madness.”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

Prometheus
Poems (1851), Prometheus

Autumn , Sense , Madness

“It is a nation of contradictions, sir. Consider this: Ireland is an island nation that has never developed a navy; a music-loving people who have produced only those harmless lilting ditties as their musical legacy; a bellicose people who have never known the sweet savor of victory in a single war; a Catholic country that has never produced a single doctor of the Church; a magnificently beautiful country, a country to inspire artists, but a country not yet immortalized in art; a philosophic people yet to produce a single philosopher of note; a sensual people who have never mastered the art of preparing food.”

Pat Conroy The Lords of Discipline

p 274. Said by character Colonel Edward T. Reynolds.
The Lords of Discipline (1980)

Love , War , People , Food

“He who knows the surface of the earth and the topography of a country only through the examination of maps.. is like a man who learns the opera of Meyerbeer or Rossini by reading only reviews in the newspapers. The brush of landscape artists Lorrain, Ruysdael, or Calame can reproduce on canvas the sun's ray, the coolness of the heavens, the green of the fields, the majesty of the mountains…but what can never be stolen from Nature is that vivid impression that she alone can and knows how to impart--the music of the birds, the movement of the trees, the aroma peculiar to the place--the inexplicable something the traveller feels that cannot be defined and which seems to awaken in him distant memories of happy days, sorrows and joys gone by, never to return”

José Rizal (1861–1896) Filipino writer, ophthalmologist, polyglot and nationalist

"Los Viajes" in La Solidaridad (15 May 1889)- translated from the Spanish by Nick Joaquin

Happiness , Travel , Feeling , Mountain

“I am an old man!… I’m given to meditation and prayer. I would enjoy sitting in a rocker, swallowing prescriptions, listening to soft music, and contemplating the things of the universe. But such activity offers no challenge and makes no contribution. I wish to be up and doing. I wish to face each day with resolution and purpose. I wish to use every waking hour to give encouragement, to bless those whose burdens are heavy, to build faith and strength of testimony.”

Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Testimony, Ensign, May 1998, 69.

Faith , Universe

“I think I gave indications early on that mine wasn't just going to be a commercial, er, career. If that were the case, then the first record would have been 10 versions of 'Loser.' I always thought it would be interesting if there was no such thing as gold and platinum records, or record deals, and people were just making music. What would the music sound like?”

Beck (1970) American Musician (b.1970)

Blender magazine, October 2002

People , Thinking

“Chopin absolutely was influenced by Bach. We know that before Chopin himself performed in concert, he didn’t play anything other than Bach. His own Preludes are a reference to the Well-Tempered Clavier of Bach, and all Chopin’s students had to play Bach. In whole, Chopin admired Bach most of all composers, and it was nothing less than the Well-Tempered Clavier itself that was his musical diary. I also have said that Chopin is the crowning and climax of piano-playing. It’s something so unique, all-affecting in emotionalism, musical architecture, and structure, that all past giants are present in it: Bach and Mozart. Chopin’s elegance is so singular, that again you need much experience to convey his music in the real and original style. The question of rubato is very sensitive: It’s nothing arbitrary, but much more something well calculated and well proportioned, something that is integrated in the classical strength of form, which is constructed on the profound knowledge of the polyphonic and contrapuntal structures of Bach and Mozart. Whether the Goldbergs may relate to this question? Absolutely! I again want to mention a certain and special term: jeu perlé.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Without this you can’t play Chopin, you can’t play Mozart, and lastly absolutely not the Goldbergs.
Talkings on Bach

Question , Knowledge , Past

“When I was getting into punk rock and hardcore when I was younger, "emo" was like Fugazi. It was these weird bands that were almost like post hardcore or post punk bands. Many were really political. Emo had to do with how they would vocalize, not the way in which it refers to our music.”

Joe Trohman (1984) American musician

My Heart Will Always Be The B-Side To My Tongue (2004), Ultimate Guitar Interview (2008)

Way

“A fellow in a market town,
Most musical, cried razors up and down.”

John Wolcot (1738–1819) English satirist

Farewell Odes, Ode iii; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“With a stiff forefinger I silenced the koto music. Peace flooded in; the world thanked me.”

George Alec Effinger book When Gravity Fails

Source: When Gravity Fails (1986), Chapter 3 (p. 23).

World , Peace , Silence

“The function of music is to release us from the tyranny of conscious thought.”

Thomas Beecham (1879–1961) British conductor and impresario

Quoted in Atkins and Newman, Beecham Stories, 1978

“Mendelssohn was the greatest child prodigy the history of Western music has ever known. Not even Mozart or Chopin before the age of nineteen could equal the mastery that Mendelssohn already possessed when he was only sixteen. Most astonishing is the nature of Mendelssohn's precocious talent: not only a gift for lyrical melodic lines and delicate, transparent textures, but, above all, a control of large-scale structure unsurpassed by any composer of his generation.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 10 : Mendelssohn and the Invention of Religious Kitsch

Age , History , Nature

“It is only rigorous training and in depth study that make music mature into the realm of the classical.”

M. Balamuralikrishna (1930–2016) Carnatic vocalist, instrumentalist and playback singer

Source: Staff Reporter, Mangalampalli can't wait to come home http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2003/03/01/stories/2003030108610300.htm, The Hindu, 1 March 2003.

Study , Training

“I get really annoyed with photo shoots and interviews and handshakes. I’m a musician; God forbid I actually have time to make music.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

Blender Magazine, "Boy Crazy" Article- June, 2006
Source: http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=1927

God , Photo , Time

“Music is the outward and audible signification of inward and spiritual realities.”

Peter Warlock

The Sackbut (1920)

Reality

“All old Poems, Homer's and the rest, are authentically Songs. I would say, in strictness, that all right Poems are; that whatsoever is not sung is properly no Poem, but a piece of Prose cramped into jingling lines,—to the great injury of the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most part! What we wants to get at is the thought the man had, if he had any: why should he twist it into jingle, if he could speak it out plainly? It is only when the heart of him is rapt into true passion of melody, and the very tones of him, according to Coleridge's remark, become musical by the greatness, depth and music of his thoughts, that we can give him right to rhyme and sing; that we call him a Poet, and listen to him as the Heroic of Speakers,—whose speech is Song.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Passion , Singing , Heart , Parting

“An audience is just a mirror of what's happening on stage, and if what's happening on stage has love in it—real feeling and conviction and strength and purity—then we are truly reflecting them, because it is their own nature that is coming back. Everything is. The music is. For me, the only barriers in music are the barriers in the musician and in the equipment he has to use. If a musician has no barriers within himself, then there are no barriers within his music. His only battle is with the problems of expressing his true nature against the difficulties of the real world—the limits of his amplifiers and his guitar or his piano or whatever, the limits the outer world places upon the natural perfection of the spirit.”

John McLaughlin (1942) guitarist, founder of the Mahavishnu Orchestra

When describing the sources of his music
New York Times interview (1972)

Love , World , Feeling , Nature

“There are certain devices that one uses in Romantic music that are appropriate only for Romantic or subsequent music. If you take those devices and apply them to earlier music, then it’s totally inappropriate, and it makes the Classical music sound silly. However, if you were to use what you might call ‘Classical devices’ on Romantic music, historically, that would be correct! It very often benefits Romantic music, which is sometimes rather disjunctive, rather shapeless in comparison with Classical symphonic or sonata form. Romantic music very often benefits from that tighter organization that you get from Classical music.”

Leon Fleisher (1928) American conductor and pianist

Interview with pianist Leon Fleisher http://www.examiner.com/article/interview-with-pianist-leon-fleisher by Elijah Ho (October 1, 2014)

“In actual fact, the female function is to explore, discover, invent, solve problems crack jokes, make music - all with love. In other words, create a magic world.”

Valerie Solanas (1936–1988) American radical feminist and writer. Attempted to assassinate Andy Warhol.

Source: SCUM MANIFESTO (1967), p. 6.

Love , World , Problem

“Bread and beauty grow best together. Their harmonious integration can make farming not only a business but an art; the land not only a food-factory but an instrument for self-expression, on which each can play music to his own choosing.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"The Conservation Ethic" [1933]; Published in The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott (eds.) 1991, p. 191.
1930s

Food , Beauty , Art , Business

“I certainly owe a lot of awesomeness to blogs, to people who have been blogging about a show, or blogging about a single, or blogging about something. It's just amazing to me that it seems to be a nice equalizer. People don't necessarily need the clout of a big "record company machine" to put their face on a billboard. It seems more organic and honest in a lot of ways, for fans of music to be critics I suppose.”

St. Vincent (musician) (1982) American singer-songwriter

QRO Magazine interview (2007)

People , Way

“Schumann is the most representative musical figure of central European Romanticism as much because of his limitations as because of his genius: in his finest works, indeed, he exploited these limitations in such a way that they gave a force to his genius that no other contemporary could attain.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 12 : Schumann: Triumph and Failure of the Romantic Ideal

Way

“Dad used to say it’s [live recording] the backbone for any musical endeavour. And I’ve realised that with time. So most often, my re-recordings are live. Technology does enhance music, but the warmth of a live orchestra is incomparable. Fans wrote to me after ‘Oru Devadai…’ (“Vaamanan”) saying the score had a divine quality. That’s because it was done live. Besides, I’m also conscious of the employment problem that technology-driven music creates.”

Yuvan Shankar Raja (1979) Indian musician

Yuvan Unplugged (2009)

Problem , Time

“Hi I'm Patrick. Today we're going to look at how long it takes for spilt Coke to sink into a carpet. [plays Jeopardy music] Note that it's still fizzy.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

Friends or Enemies.com

“Skylark,
Have you seen a valley green with Spring
Where my heart can go a-journeying,
Over the shadows in the rain
To a blossom covered lane?
And in your lonely flight,
Haven't you heard the music in the night,
Wonderful music,
Faint as a will-o-the-wisp,
Crazy as a loon,
Sad as a gypsy serenading the moon.”

Johnny Mercer (1909–1976) American lyricist, songwriter, singer and music professional

Song "Skylark" (1942)

Sadness , Spring , Heart , Night

“Music expresses the motion of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.”

Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer

As quoted in The Twentieth Century (1972) by Caroline Farrar Ware, p. 222
Variant translation: Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.

Water , Change

“Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an "engine of free expression."
But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends.”

Lawrence Lessig book Free Culture

Free Culture (2004)

Life , Books , Time

“Music allows a person to express their deepest thoughts, thoughts that cannot be expressed with just words. I am often asked how I begin a song or develop a melody from nothing. That is the spiritual aspect of creating. Finding something deep within yourself that can only be created by you.”

Bradley Joseph (1965) Composer, pianist, keyboardist, arranger, producer, recording artist

Interview with Bradley Joseph, The Spiritual Significance Of Music, World Edition http://www.xtrememusic.org/world/joseph_bradley.pdf http://www.xtrememusic.org/new.html (from extrememusic.org) http://xtrememusic.org/world.html

Personality

“It's a dream for any artist to have a catalogue of music that would be considered his greatest hits. For me, as a singer and songwriter, to release a collection of music that spans over two decades of my life and career is especially meaningful. Those songs represtent a life in progress. As it is with any life, people and experiences become a part of one's creations and helped give birth to twenty-four albums. I would like to dedicate this body of work -- especially "Nayib's Song" and "Along Came You" -- to my two beautiful children who inspired those songs and who inspire me on a daily basis, and whom I consider my best works to date. I owe a great deal of gratitude to all of my fans who have ridden this incredible rollercoaster of life with me and who are the reason I have tried to remain true to the gift I have been granted: that of making music. And although it's very difficult to decide what is truly essential, you can be sure that what is in this collection is what you -- the fans across the world -- made into hits. And for that, I will be eternally thankful.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment on gloriaestefan.com on release of 2-CD "The Essential Gloria Estefan" (October 4, 2006)
2007, 2008

Life , Children , People , World

“She had come to Aka to learn how to sing this world's tune, to dance its dance; and at last, she thought, away from the city's endless noise, she was beginning to hear the music and to learn how to move to it.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Telling (2000), Ch. 4, §3 (p. 91)

World , Learning , Singing , Dance

“A lot of my tracked music was written when I was very young, relatively speaking. I was very optimistic, I had finally discovered some sort of public musical outlet, it was generally a very happy time. So, the music of that time sort of reflects that, I think? By the time I started the Alpha Conspiracy project, I was older, a bit more sophisticated (and, well, cynical), and so the music got more complex.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Andrew Sega Shrine interview, 2011

Happiness , Thinking , Time

“I love baths. Absolutely love baths. I like to just draw a nice warm bath with a lot of bubbles, get a few sweets, maybe put them by the bath, put on really good music and chill.”

Aaliyah (1979–2001) American singer, actress and model

MTV Stripped interview (2001)

Love , Drawing

“I wrote and recorded music for many years, thinking I was only pleasing myself. The fact that so many people have appreciated the music, makes my life incredibly rewarding and full.”

Happy Rhodes (1965) American singer-songwriter

Message at the Happy Rhodes fan Guestbook http://www.e-guestbooks.com/cgi-bin/e-guestbooks/guestbook.cgi?action=view&user=Equipoise

Life , People , Thinking

“If he doesn’t want to skate to music that’s pretty and wear a pretty costume, then go rollerblade or skateboard or do one of those extreme sports.”

Johnny Weir (1984) figure skater

About Evan Lysacek
"Figure Skating Rivalry Pits Athleticism Against Artistry," 2008

Sport

“For my spirit hath left her earthly home
And found a nobler dwelling,
Where the music of light is that of life,
And the starry harps are swelling.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - Amenaïde
The Golden Violet (1827)

Life , Home , Light

“Literature is the noblest of all the arts. Music dies on the air, or at best exists only as a memory; oratory ceases with the effort; the painter's colors fade and the canvas rots; the marble is dragged from its pedestal and is broken into fragments.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Source: The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927), p. 170.

Art , Color , Literature , Effort

“Dissembling was the specialty of Broadway musicals. The storylines were scrupulously heterosexual. What could I have heard in them that made me think they explained me? It was this: The innocent characters were so wonderfully compromised by the actors who played them; by the writers and musicians who created them. The scar tissue on voices. The makeup on faces. Youth! The wicked stage! The jaded legend refreshed the innocence of my youth. Musical comedy songs were more real than my life because they were articulate and because they had ligaments of narrative attached to them. For today’s young queers and lonelys, these songs must seem quaint and campy and not useful. But they were never campy for me—for us?—they only became camp in the attempt to share them without embarrassment.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

Life , Youth , Thinking

“I want to be the George Clooney of music.”

George Clooney (1961) American actor, filmmaker, and activist

Jason Liberatore, when asked if he could mirror any artist's career, whose would it be and why.
No byline (2007). "Bio" http://www.almostgreen.com/bio_jay.htm AlmostGreen.com (accessed June 25, 2007)
About