Quotes about music (3423 quotes, page 33)

“As a mere fourteen-year-old child he composed songs in all the 72 Melakartha Raagas, which form the very backbone of the South Indian System of Raaga Music.”

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

Prince Rama Varma in: Murali And Me: A tribute by Prince Rama Varma http://www.webindia123.com/music/musicians/murali1.htm, Webindia123.com.

“For this reason neighborhoods should be American and a combination of the best of all the races that live in them. It is here that the school can become the conference center and the council chamber. It is the one American institution to be found in every town free, neutral, and powerful. During the daytime it has the children who can interpret it; during the evening it may have the parents who need it for their community expression. From the schoolhouse come the beliefs that living conditions should be decent, that laws should be enforced for all alike, that there should be no racial discriminations. From participation in neighborhood activities and in governing their own communities, the immigrant will grow into the larger responsibilities of State and nation. In order that American political ideals should be understood by him, they must be lived within his consciousness, in the small radius of his neighborhood, and in that way he must see exemplified whatever American literature, art, music, and science have to give.”

Frances Kellor (1873–1952) American sociologist

What is Americanization? (1919)

School , Law , Children , Art

“Under Swati Tirunal’s rule, the forms of music and dance peculiar to Travancore, including - the sapna sangitam (literally: step music) sung on the steps of temples and the dance form of Mohiniattam – were significantly altered, brought closer to the forms of music and dance practiced at Tanjavur. Swapna Sangitam known for its slow renditions and limited improvisation, was altered not only by the influx of new style of composing and singing represented by Vadivelu and other Tanjavur Musicians but also by the very structure of music that Swati Tirunal’s court suggested.”

Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma (1813–1846) Maharajah of Travencore

K.M Panikkar quoted in pp.63-64
About Swathi Thirunal, Singing the Classical, Voicing the Modern: The Postcolonial Politics of ...

Singing , Dance

“In the weeks I stayed there, the Maharajah agreed to paying for the recordings of the Medtner piano concertos, an album of his songs, and some of his chamber music; he also agreed to give me a subvention of 10,000 pounds a year for three years to enable me to put the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Philharmonia Concert society on firm basis….”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

“The visit to Mysore was a fantastic experience. The Maharajah was a young man, not yet thirty. In one of his palaces he had a record library containing every imaginable recordings of serious music, a large range of loud speakers, and several concert grand pianos….”

Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar (1919–1974) Indian writer

Walter Legge, who was invited to Mysore by the Maharaja. Quoted in "Medtner, Music & a Maharaja"

Imagination

“Music, for Gangubai, was an expression of faith and the note had to be searched and discovered each time a phrase was attempted. …In her case, a penetrating search for the note was more important than ornamentation. She could never achieve the sweetness, smoothness or the delicate artistry of tones that the Kirana was noted for, but with inherited talent, scrupulous cultivation and years of struggle what she achieved was unbelievable.”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

Deepa Ganesh, in "Gangubai's search for perfection"

Faith , Time , Search

“The years passed, and sometimes just before I … I awoke, I’d hear music going on inside my head. I’d lie perfectly still, not moving, not waking, and the music would spread all through my body, just as it had done at the pyramids outside Mexico City. Finally I’d leap out of bed and start writing like a madman. Ten, twelve, fifteen hours a day. It was just pouring out of me. It was limitless!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Lie

“We didn’t know what kind of music we’d make, we didn’t know if it would be any good, but we hoped we’d have fun. He brings so much musical knowledge, amazing musicianship, melody and singing power from a different culture.”

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

Mick Jagger’s views Superheavy, 16 December 2013, Official website of ARRahman http://www.arrahman.com/superheavy.aspx,

Singing , Hope , Knowledge , Making love

“Commended, multi-talented and innovative Rahman for bringing East and West closer through music and for making the world look at Indian film music more seriously. Diversity of his styles and themes was appealing to different sections of the society.”

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

Rajan Zed in “Hollywood calling Rehman”.

World , Making love

“He was the undisputed jewel in the crown of Indian music; one who will not be born in the next few centuries. He gave a new meaning to shehnai.”

Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician

“Khan saheb’s music has found its way, penetrating barriers of religion, caste and class, to the hearts of millions of our people, uniting them in a shared ecstasy…. He has never accepted that there is any contradiction between music and his religious faith, rather he sees perfect unity, a connection between the two….”

Bismillah Khan (1916–2006) Indian musician

Faith , Religion , People , Heart

“At about 4 AM…. I was suddenly roused by some singing in the carriage, and, on opening my eyes, I saw Mr. Ranade sitting up and singing two abhangs of Tukaram, again and again and striking his hands together by way of accompaniment. The voice by no means musical, but the fervor with which he was singing was so great that I felt filled through and through and I too, could not help sitting up and listening.”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

Noted by Gokhale who was traveling with him by train. Quoted quoted in "Mahadev Govind Ranade" in page=104

Way , Singing , Help

“Known as the Bethovan of India he occupies a place in South Indian Music in some respects comparable to that of Western Europe, Not only did he compose music that established enduring repertoire and remains at its center. But he also defined a new kind of cultural consciousness. Even today, Tyagaraja’s songs are thought to represent the best of South India’s cultural heritage.”

Tyagaraja (1767–1847) Carnatic musician and composer

Quoted in "Artists, Writers, and Musicians", page=185

“She was the only one where the music and dance were equally important… her dance moves were deeply affected by this… she was able to convey not only the meaning of the dance, but also the emotion of the music. That’s what I liked best.”

Balasaraswati (1918–1984) Indian dancer

Rukmini Devi in Dance readings and musings Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life, 1 December 2013, Narthaki.com http://www.narthaki.com/info/bookrev/bkrev1a.html,

Dance

“What is more, Bhimsen was as much at home in encapsulating the classical mode as in toying with the lighter variety of music. While his alap, bhadat and bandish in the classical mode sported a proportioned, balanced and serene majesty of the melodic range, the lighter Bhava Geet, Thumri, Abhang and Dasapadas were redolent with discreet lyrical flavour.”

Bhimsen Joshi (1922–2011) Indian vocalist

Critique

Home , Sport

“Music challenged him and he pushed its boundaries.”

Bhimsen Joshi (1922–2011) Indian vocalist

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi passes away, 25 January 2011, 29 November 2013, Times of India http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-01-25/pune/28360943_1_kirana-gharana-maestro-pandit-bhimsen-joshi-sawai-gandharva,

“Lata Mangeshkar is known to have been a sympathiser of the Hindutva ideology. In fact, she was a sympathiser of the pro-Hindu Mahasabha, which is a hardcore rightist organisation. Despite that she was given various awards by governments of varying political hues only and only for her mind-boggling contribution to film music.”

Lata Mangeshkar (1929) Indian singer

Strip Lata Mangeshkar of Padma, Bharat Ratna awards, says Congress leader Janardhan Chandurkar, 29 November 2013, DNA India http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-strip-lata-mangeshkar-of-padma-bharat-ratna-awards-says-congress-leader-janardhan-chandurkar-1918239,

“Sarojini Naidu repositioned her own title of Nightingale of India on to Subbalakshmi’s avian frame, it was because that daughter of Bengal saw the gift of song arriving and alighting on this daughter of India’s south, like a migratory bird from the collective genius of our music.”

M. S. Subbulakshmi (1916–2004) singer,Carnatic vocalist

Gopal Gandhi in his book [Gandhi, Gopal, Of a Certain Age: Twenty Life Sketches, http://books.google.com/books?id=Inp4jPFUHUkC&pg=PA164, 2011, Penguin Books India, 978-0-670-08502-6, 166]
About M.S.

Bird , Daughters

“Paul Cilliers was a remarkable Renaissance man and one of the most important academics and Afrikaner intellectuals that this country has produced. I had the privilege of knowing him for close on thirty years as friend, colleague and soul mate with a shared love of ideas, music, food, social interaction and a burning interest in complexity and complex systems.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Jannie Hofmeyr cited in: Stellenbosch University mourns passing of top academic http://blogs.sun.ac.za/news/2011/08/01/stellenbosch-university-mourns-passing-of-top-academic/ at blogs.sun.ac.za, 2011/08/01

Soul , Country , Food , Idea

“This Reger is a sarcastic, churlish fellow, bitter and pedantic and rude. He is a sort of musical Cyclops, a strong, ugly creature bulging with knotty and unshapely muscles, an ogre of composition. In listening to these works…one is perforce reminded of the photograph of Reger which his publishers place on the cover of their catalogue of his works, the photograph that shows something that is like a swollen, myopic beetle with thick lips and sullen expression, crouching on an organ bench.”

Max Reger (1873–1916) German composer, pianist and conductor

Anonymous article in Musical Portraits (1920), as quoted in Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time (1965) by Nicolas Slonimsky, p.120

Strong

“His love of creating, the joy he took in it whether it was drama or comedy or his music, was inspiring to grow up around. The spirit he created on the set of The Andy Griffith Show was joyful and professional all at once. It was an amazing environment. And I think it was a reflection of the way he felt about having the opportunity to create something that people could enjoy. It was always with respect and passion for the opportunity and really what it could offer people in a very unpretentious and earthy way. He felt he was always working in service of an audience he really respected and cared about. He was a great influence on me. His passing is sad. But he lived a great rich life.”

Andy Griffith (1926–2012) American actor, television producer, Southern-gospel singer, and writer

Ron Howard, Nikki Finke, Editor in Chief. "EXCLUSIVE: Ron Howard On Andy Griffith". Deadline.com. Retrieved 2014-04-16.

Making love , People , Joy , Thinking

“What made her talent so great was her capacity to live what she sang. Her music was deepened by her connection to the struggles and the triumphs of the African American experience growing up in her father’s church, the community of Detroit, and her awareness of the turmoil of the South. She had a lifelong, unwavering commitment to civil rights and was one of the strongest supporters of the movement. She was our sister and our friend. Whenever I would see her, from time to time, she would always inquire about the well-being of people she met and worked with during the sixties.When she sang, she embodied what we were fighting for, and her music strengthened us. It revived us. When we would be released from jail after a non-violent protest, we might go to a late night club and let the music of Aretha Franklin fill our hearts. She was like a muse whose songs whispered the strength to continue on. Her music gave us a greater sense of determination to never give up or give in, and to keep the faith. She was a wonderful, talented human being. We mourn for Aretha Franklin. We have lost the Queen of Soul.”

Aretha Franklin (1942–2018) American musician, singer, songwriter, and pianist

John Lewis, "Congressman John Lewis on Aretha Franklin: ‘One of God’s precious gifts’" https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/congressman-john-lewis-aretha-franklin-one-god-precious-gifts/PRXHP5dgRpjhhuIUdjGEsO/, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (August 16, 2018)

Soul , Faith , Time , Night

“Rufus is extraordinary, so musically gifted in many diverse fields. He is a prince in shining armour, a true star in these days of dull and boring, pissy little pop stars.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Gavin Friday, [July 16, 2012, http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/everybody-loves-rufus-3168433.html, everybody loves rufus]

Star

“Rufus is one of those singular musical talents who both transcends and makes a mockery of fashion. It would not matter in which musical era he chose to materialise, but that his voice and his sensibility would be recognised as unique, timeless and without peer.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Sting, House of Rufus box set

Fashion , Making love

“Music is a fine thing, but metal lasts.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

He struck the table with two huge fingers to emphasize his point....
As I left, I thought about what Kilvin had said. It was the first thing he had said to me that I did not agree with wholeheartedly. Metal rusts, I thought, music lasts forever.
Time will eventually prove one of us right.
Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 60, “Fortune” (pp. 443-444; ellipsis represents minor elision of description)

“Remember this son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can’t sing. Words have to find a man’s mind before they can touch his heart. And, some men’s minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly, no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 14, “The Name of the Wind” (p. 113)

Singing , Forgetting , Heart , Men

“I saw DJ AM play in a mansion in Miami, and he amazed me with his skills and the music he picked to make the crowd move. He made sure everyone — I mean everyone — had a good time!”

Adam Goldstein (1973–2009) American DJ

DJ Khaled, club DJ. DJ AM's Turntable Skills Revered By Drama, Just Blaze, More DJs http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1620376/20090830/dj_am.jhtml

Time , Making love

“My plan was not to be a celebrity. My plan was to be a singer and an entertainer. I wanted to go to NYU, major in musical theater, do Broadway, and come out with an album. Unfortunately, I started fucking up when I was in my teens.”

Nicole Richie (1981) American television personality, musician, actress, and author

Source: [Harper's Bazaar, Partners In Crime, Harper'sBazaar, 2008, http://www.harpersbazaar.com/magazine/cover/paris-nicole-feature-0607, html, 2008-03-06]

“Tonight there was music in the saloon, a piano and a violin; two fat women with hard masculine faces and short haircuts. Their song was Over the Waves.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ta de da da, and I watched Camilla dancing with her beer tray. Her hair was so black, so deep and clustered, like grapes hiding her neck. This was a sacred place, this saloon. Everything here was holy, the chairs, the tables, that rag in her hand, that sawdust under her feet. She was a Mayan princess and this was her castle. I watched the tattered huaraches glide across the floor, and I wanted those huaraches. I would like them to hold in my hands against my chest when I fell asleep. I would like to hold them and breathe the odor of them.
Ask the Dust (1939)

Women

“Many consider that Shostakovich is the greatest 20th-century composer. In his 15 symphonies, 15 quartets, and in other works he demonstrated mastery of the largest and most challenging forms with music of great emotional power and technical invention…All his works are marked by emotional extremes – tragic intensity, grotesque and bizarre wit, humour, parody, and savage sarcasm.”

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

Michael Kennedy The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (1980) p. 593.

“Not since the time of Berlioz has a symphonic composer created such a stir. In far-away America, great conductors vie with each other for the jus primae noctis of his music. The score of his Seventh Symphony, the symphony of struggle and victory, has been reduced to a roll of microfilm and flown half-way across the world…to speed the day of the American première. How the old romantics would have loved to be the center of such a fantastic adventure!”

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

Nicolas Slonimsky in The Musical Quarterly, 1942; reprinted in his Writings on Music (2005), p. 84.

Time , Victory , Speed , Way

“An hour of the real thing. Ravi Shankar, a wonderful virtuoso, played his own Indian music to us at the radio station. Brilliant, fascinating, stimulating, wonderfully played. Unbelievable skill and invention.”

Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) Indian musician and sitar player

By the world's most performed opera composer Benjamin Britten quoted in Letter found from Britain's greatest opera composer's drawer shows his love for Ravi Shankar, 2 October 2013, Official website of Ravishnkar Organization http://www.ravishankar.org/,

“Without…Yehudi Menuhin, the West may not have found Indian classical music and decades later…thanks to Menuhin’s chance meeting and later lasting friendship with the master sitarist Ravi Shankar, the Wets witnessed the sublimity that the merging of the Western and Indian classical music could produce.”

Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) Indian musician and sitar player

[Wetzel, Richard, The Globalization of Music in History, http://books.google.com/books?id=kjS9PnHJUE4C&pg=PA26, 17 June 2013, Routledge, 978-1-136-62624-1, 26–]

Chance , Friendship

“Aged Totaram Ji died without suffering. He was an ornament to the Sabramati Ashram. He was not a scholar, yet he was wise. He was a collector of bhajans, but not a scholar of music. With his single-wired instrument he used to charm the people of the ashram. Just as he was, so was his wife. But Totaram died first! Wherever people have gathered, there are conflicts. I do not remember any single incident in which this couple participated, or were in any way the cause. Totaram loved the earth. The fields were his life. He came to the ashram years ago and did not ever leave. They found unfailing encouragement from him. He was a strong Hindu, but his heart was equally disposed towards Hindus, Muslims, and those of other faiths. On him was not even the smell of untouchability, and he had no vices at all. He took no part in politics. Still, his love for his country was strong enough to stand any comparison. Renunciation was easy for him. He adored the ashram.”

Totaram Sanadhya (1876–1947) Fijian writer

Mohandas Gandhi, quoted in T. Sanadhya, My Twenty-One Years in the Fiji Islands (English translation by J.D. Kelly & U.K. Singh, Fiji Museum, 1991), pp. 5-6 http://au.geocities.com/fibiographies/S/SText/TotaramSanadhya.htm.

Faith , Country , Strong , Suffering

“Romain Rolland: His journey to England was a triumphal progress… During his six months’ stay he addressed seventy meetings of 40,000 persons and fascinated his audiences by the simplicity of his English and his musical voice.”

Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–1884) Indian academic

The Life of Ramakrishna by Romain Rolland, translated by E.F. Malcolm-Smith, Advaita Ashrama.

Personality

“Donald Trump and producer Mark Burnett are reportedly considering creating a Broadway musical based on The Apprentice.”

Amy Poehler (1971) American actress

The pair came up with the idea when neither one of them could find a match to set fire to a pile of money.
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/04/04jupdate.phtml
Weekend Update samples

“But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy man means a lonely man—a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier—a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison walls move with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few—wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneath is never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings are ever rising to his lips, but they die away in unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. His heart aches for the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. Contempt and indignation against wrong choke up his throat, and finding no safety-valve whence in passionate utterance they may burst forth, they only turn in again and harm him. All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Soul , Hate , Business , Strong

“We’ve had the same dream from the beginning; to write with everything in us and totally do the music we love while at the same time using that as a tool to share with others what Christ has done in our lives.”

Ben Moody (1981) American musician

About religion and Evanescence being a Christian band

Time , Dreams , Christ , Love

“Yes, in the sense that the negative is like the composer’s score. Then, using that musical analogy, the print is the performance.”

Ansel Adams (1902–1984) American photographer and environmentalist

Paraphrased as "Film is the score and the print is the performance."
Sheff
David
May 1983
Playboy
http://davidsheff.com/article/ansel-adams/
Playboy Interview: Ansel Adams
226

Sense

“Lyrics for songs written for the film; the music for the songs composed by Ennio Morricone.”

Joan Baez (1941) American singer

Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

“Film has dream, film has music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. A little twitch in our optic nerve, a shock effect: twenty-four illuminated frames in a second, darkness in between, the optic nerve incapable of registering darkness. At the editing table, when I run the trip of film through, frame by frame, I still feel that dizzy sense of magic of my childhood: in the darkness of the wardrobe, I slowly wind one frame after another, see almost imperceptible changes, wind faster — a movement.”

Ingmar Bergman book Laterna Magica

Laterna Magica (1987); The Magic Lantern : An Autobiography as translated by Joan Tate (1988).
Variant translation: Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.
As quoted in "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" by John Berger, Sight and Sound (June 1991).

Childhood , Soul , Dreams , Art

“Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

A note to his grandson, Will (2005) http://books.google.com/books?id=9Zy4GJrn--UC&pg=PA350&dq=%22truth+seekers,+lovers+and+warriors%22&hl=en&ei=AyvoTYrBIIq8sQOBg7XtDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22truth%20seekers%2C%20lovers%20and%20warriors%22&f=false, reprinted in "Outlaw Journalist : The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson" (2008), by William McKeen
2000s

Forgetting , Learning , Truth , Lovers

“After this was done I reached in under my left armpit in approved American gangster fashion and produced my ugly little automatic. Without a further word I placed it on the front desk of my Steinway and proceeded with my concert. Every note was heard and, in a sense, I suppose I opened up the way in Hungary for modern music of a non-Bartó k– Kodá ly variety.”

George Antheil (1900–1959) American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor

Lying , Sense , Way , Fashion

“At the peremptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the past nine years and ten months of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these U. S., and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested, do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different States of the Union to assemble in the Musical Hall of this city on the 1st day of February next, then and there to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby cause confidence to exist, both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity.”

Emperor Norton (1811–1880) Self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States

Proclamation in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (17 September 1859)

Home , Confidence , Law , Country

“Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 14

Appearance , Literature

“When I was young, it was not thought proper for young ladies to study very conspicuously; and especially with pen in hand. Young ladies (at least in provincial towns) were expected to sit down in the parlour to sew,—during which reading aloud was permitted,—or to practice their music; but so as to be fit to receive callers, without any signs of blue‐stockingism which could be reported abroad. Jane Austen herself, the Queen of novelists, the immortal creator of Anne Elliott, Mr. Knightly, and a score or two more of unrivalled intimate friends of the whole public, was compelled by the feelings of her family to cover up her manuscripts with a large piece of muslin work, kept on the table for the purpose, whenever any genteel people came in. So it was with other young ladies, for some time after Jane Austen was in her grave; and thus my first studies in philosophy were carried on with great care and reserve.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, vol. 1 [1855]

Family , Study , Time , Reading

“In societies with fewer opportunities for amusement, it was also easier to tell a mere wish from a real desire. If, in order to hear some music, a man has to wait for six months and then walk twenty miles, it is easy to tell whether the words, "I should like to hear some music," mean what they appear to mean, or merely, "At this moment I should like to forget myself."”

W. H. Auden book The Dyer's Hand

When all he has to do is press a switch, it is more difficult. He may easily come to believe that wishes can come true.
Interlude: West's Disease", p. 245
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)

Forgetting , Appearance , Waiting

“I regret not having taken more advantage of time — of the solidity of time, the intention of time. That’s why I don’t like to sleep much anymore. Had I known when I was 20 that I was going to be a musician, I would have taken to the piano, I would have taken the guitar more seriously, I would have perfected my knowledge of music.”

Julio Iglesias (1943) Spanish recording artist; singer-songwriter

On one of his biggest regrets in "Julio Iglesias reflects on a life that 'has been a miracle'" https://apnews.com/7ef030336a5b4a1a949723346d64ec51 in AP News (2019 Jun 14)

Sleep , Time , Knowledge , Perfection

“So often the story of rock’n’roll is told from a male perspective. So often it feels like men own music. And I still get as angry and frustrated about that as I ever did. Reading those women’s accounts of their lives has reminded me how much they paved the way back then. And history too often erases the women, in all art forms. Every single published story of a female artist goes a small way towards redressing the balance, and is another one saved from the fire.I didn’t try to be a soul singer, a jazz singer, a blues singer – no category…My music is my expression of what I feel and believe in a moment.”

Tracey Thorn (1962) English singer and songwriter

On women being excluded from music history in “Tracey Thorn: ‘I went through a phase of carrying Camus under my arm’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/tracey-thorn-interview-another-planet-memoir in The Guardian (2020 Jan 25)

Soul , Reading , History , Art

“When we talk about culture, it includes literature, paintings, music, dance, sculpture, folklores, festivals, and celebrations.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

In Search of History, Chapter I: War and Peace in Historical Perspectives, p. 1
Culture

Literature , Painting , Dance

“The great enigma of anthropology can be phrased like this: All over the world, humans are born with the same cognitive and physical apparatus, and yet they grow into distinctly different persons and groups, with different societal types, beliefs, technologies, languages and notions about the good life. Differences in innate endowments vary within each group and not between them, so that musicality, intelligence, intuition and other qualities that vary from person to person are quite evenly distributed globally.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 1 : Why Anthropology?

Personality , Intelligence , World , Life

“Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all: —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?”

T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

Time , Universe , Coffee , Decision

“Hip-hop saved me,. It gave me permission to use language in a certain way. It validated my community and my friends. It gave our slang a certain elegance. I have a chip on my shoulder I pet every morning, a constant feeling like I have something to prove. Hearing that the canon can’t be diversified, there’s no room for more brown faces—that fueled my fire. I loved music that people said was not music, that it was too violent, too crass, too sexual. And now everyone in the world is rapping Hamilton.”

Jason Reynolds (1983) author of young adult novels

As quoted in [Corbett, Sue, Jason Reynolds Is the Hardest-Working Man in Washington, https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/74244-jason-reynolds-is-the-hardest-working-man-in-washington.html, Publishers Weekly, 10 March 2020, July 14, 2017]

People , Communication , Way , World

“That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Stanza 3
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)

Loss , Soul , Time , Sun

“'Females of all description' is not a music genre. It's sexist. [There would] never be a 'males of all description' section because the rest of the shop and all other music genres are considered male. Female is not a genre. Don't categorise my sex.”

Kate Nash (1987) English pop singer and actor

Source: Kate Nash calls out 'sexist' record shop for 'females of all description' category, 1 September 2016, The Independent, Jess, Denham https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/kate-nash-calls-out-record-shop-for-sexist-labelling-after-spotting-females-of-all-description-a7219586.html,

Sex

“The global village is a reality. We are joined by satellite, supersonic travel, four thousand international meetings each year, tens of thousands of multinational companies, international organizations and newsletters and journals, even an emergent pan-culture of music, movies, art, humor.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Thirteen, The Whole- Earth Conspiracy

Travel , Reality , Art

“I figure there's two things in a movie: that you are looking at something, you are listening to something. So I like to put a lot of attention into the music and into the recording of the dialogue and into the sets.”

Anna Biller (1965) film director

FrightFest 2016 - The Love Witch Interview with Anna Biller - 4 Sep 2016, at 0 Min 30 Sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x4awb_fS84
From interview with FrightFest

“Before you go to bed, think of three things that went well today. I don’t care if it’s a little crazy thing – it doesn’t matter…Take some music you love and if you can’t dance, go do 10 minutes of jumping jacks. Get yourself all cheered up.”

Goldie Hawn (1945) American actress, film director, and producer.

On remaining centered and positive in “Goldie Hawn: ‘I was born with a high set point for happiness’” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/apr/13/goldie-hawn-i-was-born-with-a-high-set-point-for-happiness in The Guardian (2020 Apr 13)

Thinking , Dance , Love , Making love

“[India is the] lost paradise of all religions and philosophies," "the cradle of humanity," and also its "eternal home," and the great Orient "waiting to be discovered within ourselves."... "mankind's origins can be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes of wisdom and virtue with simplicity, strength and sublimity which has - frankly spoken - nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, cold European world."... "O holy land (India), I salute thee, thou source of all music, thou voice of the heart' ... "Behold the East - cradle of the human race, of human emotion, of all religion."”

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic

Quotes by Herder about India. Quoted from Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication. (quoting Ghosh, Pranebendranath Johann Gottfried Herder's Image of India (1900)p334, Singhal, Damodar P India and world Civilization Rupa and Co Calcutta 1993 p. 231)

Home , Religion , Waiting , Heart

“Even though there are mobile devices in the favela, people still need fixed centers like Telecenters and LAN houses. Such centers are points of reference for Internet access where people keep their profiles on social networking sites and download enough music, photos and videos to last until they can return. Not only for Internet access, these centers become important spaces where people share different experiences with their phones and tablets and eventually empower themselves.”

David Nemer

(p. 84)
Favela Digital- The other side of technology. (2013)

People , Housing , Photo

“The most extensive deletions are ordered in regard to the chapter on ‘Aurangzeb’s policy on religion’. Every allusion to what he actually did to the Hindus, to their temples, to the very leitmotif of his rule – to spread the sway of Islam – are directed to be excised from the book. He is to be presented as one who had an aversion – an ordinary sort of aversion, almost a secular one – to music and dancing, to the presence of prostitutes in the court, and that it is these things he banished... In a word, no forcible conversions, no massacres, no destruction of temples. Just that Hinduism had created an exploitative, casteist society. Islam was egalitarian. Hence the oppressed Hindus embraced Islam!
Muslim historians of those times are in raptures at the heap of kafirs who have been dispatched to hell. Muslim historians are forever lavishing praise on the ruler for the temples he has destroyed, for the hundreds of thousands he has got to see the light of Islam. Law books like The Hedaya prescribe exactly the options to which these little textbooks alluded. All whitewashed away.
Objective whitewash for objective history. And today if anyone seeks to restore truth to these textbooks, the shout, ‘Communal rewriting of history’.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud (1998)

Hell , Religion , Time , Law

“Music is the deepest of the arts and deep beneath the arts.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Harvard University Department of Music, Music and Criticism, A Symposium (May 1947; published 1948, p. 11 https://archive.org/details/musiccriticismsy00symp/page/10)

Art

“I didn’t try to be a soul singer, a jazz singer, a blues singer – no category…My music is my expression of what I feel and believe in a moment.”

Roberta Flack (1937) American singer

On her career trajectory in “Roberta Flack: 'My music is my expression of what I feel in a moment'” https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/21/roberta-flack-interview-music-grammys in The Guardian (2020 Jan 21)

Soul , Feeling

“I mean no disrespect to any of our current climate at all, but I have been an actor for almost two decades now, and this is a dream come true to be able to create a network comedy that just makes people laugh…What I love about comedy is that, like music, sports and food, it brings us all together.”

Kal Penn (1977) American actor and civil servant

On his show Sunnyside in “Kal Penn Talks Putting A Twist On Immigration Narrative With ‘Sunnyside’ & Chances For Another ‘Harold And Kumar’ Movie” https://deadline.com/2019/09/kal-penn-sunnyside-nbc-immigration-comedy-harold-and-kumar-1202743466/ in Deadline (2019 Sep 26)

Sport , Food , Dreams , People

“Music religious heat inspires,
It wakes the soul, and lifts it high,
And wings it with sublime desires,
And fits it to bespeak the Deity.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1692), st. 4

Soul

“Good music has no borders, no race, and is timeless!”

Sawao Yamanaka (1968) Japanese singer-songwriter

“…I engage with poetry musically. I think I hear the music of the poem before I put words to it. The poem comes to me as it were a song more than a string of words or images. If I can’t transport that musical quality to the poem, then the poem doesn’t exist for me…”

Lucha Corpi (1945)

On how she favors a musical quality to her poetry in the book Truthtellers of the Times: Interviews with Contemporary Women Poets https://books.google.com/books?id=LkVO9mmfwZYC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq

Thinking

“Rock music makes me alive, it makes me awake, so that tiredness can touch me and make me say – It's enough, I have earned much popularity.”

Ayub Bachchu (1962–2018) Musician, singer, songwriter

Bachchu in an interview with Shomoy TV.

Making love

“Let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

Before the Deluge (1974) from For Everyman (1973)

Secret , Children

“I write music with my mouth — first lyrics, then song, then rhythm.”

Tato Laviera (1950–2013) Puerto Rican writer

On his creative process in “An Interview with Tato Laviera, the King of Nuyorican Poetical Migrations” https://www.latinorebels.com/2012/07/11/an-interview-with-tato-laviera-the-king-of-nuyorican-poetical-migrations/ in Latino Rebels (2012 Jul 11)

“…When I was a kid, I didn’t know what I was going to do. Even when I started playing music, I had no idea that I would get to this point in my professional life…”

Pete Escovedo (1935) Mexican-American jazz musician and percussionist

On whether Escovedo knew he had staying power as a musician in “Pete Escovedo: Rhythms of Life” https://jazztimes.com/features/interviews/pete-escovedo-rhythms/ in Jazz Times (2017 Nov 23)

Idea , Life

“Once I wrote poems, I found that I was able to piece together individual moments that would, I’d hoped, sometimes compound. The line was the most important thing to me—that and the music it produced.”

Jon Pineda (1971) American writer

On how poetry writing eventually led to short stories and other works in “A Poet’s Novel: Jon Pineda talks LET’S NO ONE GET HURT” https://www.booklistreader.com/2018/03/22/books-and-authors/a-poets-novel-jon-pineda-talks-lets-no-one-get-hurt/ in Booklist Reader (2018 Mar 22)

Hope

“Every music has its own soul, Quincy.”

Ray Charles (1930–2004) American musician

Source: Said to Quincy Jones as quoted in The Arranger, an article in Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-arranger-20940901/

Soul

“If science, and devoting oneself to it, had no other use than avoiding exhausting temptations, rushes of hope that give worry, and thoughts that sadden the soul, that alone should give us reasons to seek it… Kinglets have sought distraction in chess, wine, music, hunting and much else that only bring harm in this world and the other.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid

Soul , Hope , World , Science

“I come from a background of experimental music which mingled real sounds together with musical sounds.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

“It could have been extremely boring to write musical scores for only westerns of horror films. It was really exciting for me to work in all these various genres.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

“There are some directors who actually fear the possible success of music. They fear that the audience or the critics will think the film has worked because there was a very good music score.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

Fear , Thinking , Success

“I often use the same harmonies as pop music because the complexity of what I do is elsewhere.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

“The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
⁠Of men-at-arms who come to pray. The roses blossom white and red
⁠On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
⁠And martial music cleaves the sky. Above their wreath-strewn graves we kneel,
⁠They kept the faith and fought the fight.
Through flying lead and crimson steel
⁠They plunged for Freedom and the Righteousness. May we, their grateful children, learn
⁠Their strength, who lie beneath this sod,
Who went through fire and death to earn
⁠At last the accolade of God.In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace . . . Who brought a sword.”

Joyce Kilmer Trees and Other Poems

"Memorial Day"; this poem was later published in The Army and Navy Hymnal (1920)
Trees and Other Poems (1914)

Singing , Peace , Faith , Dead

“The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The common place person begins to play, and shoots into the empyrean without effort, whilst we look up, marvelling how he has escaped us, and thinking how we could worship him and love him, would he but transalate his visions into human words, and his experiences into human actions.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View (1908), Ch. 3

Personality , Thinking , World , Love

“I adore watching movies; horror movies are my favorite pastime. I can watch up to five movies back to back. I also love music and like reading whenever I get the time.”

Nedim Jahić (2001) Bosnian singer

Time , Reading , Love , Making love

“When I’m creating music, I don’t have an agenda for a sound or a genre or a message, I just want it to be truthful and representative of the lyrical content that means something to me, and the music that I love.”

Chris Carmack (1980) American actor and model

‘Nashville’ Star Chris Carmack on Introspective New EP: Ram Report https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/nashville-star-chris-carmack-on-introspective-new-ep-ram-report-188637/ (December 11, 2015)

Truth , Love , Making love

“Oh it’s very beautiful to have a very rich heritage from my Indian ancestors. My mother is Mixtec [a native tribe of Oaxaca], and my father was Scottish American. Growing up with those cultures has been enriching. Though, at first very difficult because I was rejected by one culture — in the Mexican Nation there is a lot of discrimination towards the Indian groups. So I struggled with that and with being discriminated as a Mexican. But I think music has been able to erase those boundaries. I think it’s easier to stop talking about those borders, and talk more about the music — to make music so that those borders are erased in a poetic way.”

Lila Downs (1968) Mexican American singer-songwriter

On her racial heritage in “Q&A: Lila Downs, A Sin and A Miracle” https://remezcla.com/music/lila-downs-sin-miracle-pecados-milagros-interview/ in Remezcla (c. 2011)
Heritage and indigenous peoples

Beauty , Thinking , Way , Making love

“I like to think of it as like watching The Godfather...You might have seen it 1,000 times, but when it comes on it makes you stop. Each time you see it, you find something different. That’s what I want people to get from my music.”

Rubén Blades (1948) Panamanian musician, singer, composer, actor, activist, and politician

On comparing the longevity of his music to The Godfather in "Forty Years Into His Career, Rubén Blades is Still Building Bridges & Inspiring Change" https://daily.bandcamp.com/2018/07/03/ruben-blades-music-interview/ in bandcamp daily

Time , People , Thinking , Making love

“I grew up surrounded by all types of music...You have to remember, Panama is a port so I always had contact with all types of music—from the big bands of Count Basie to all the Cuban bands of people like Benny Moré.”

Rubén Blades (1948) Panamanian musician, singer, composer, actor, activist, and politician

On all of the musical influences that he was exposed to in Panama in "Forty Years Into His Career, Rubén Blades is Still Building Bridges & Inspiring Change" https://daily.bandcamp.com/2018/07/03/ruben-blades-music-interview/ in bandcamp daily

People

“The time I enjoy music most is when it’s not a performance. It’s just trading instrumentals and finding that part in the song that you feel best singing.”

Carly Simon (1943) American singer-songwriter, musician and author

On how much she loves performing music with her family in “Carly Simon on Trolling Trump With ‘You’re So Vain,’ Lost Mick Jagger Duet” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/carly-simon-on-trolling-trump-with-youre-so-vain-lost-mick-jagger-duet-118291/ in Rolling Stone (29 Nov 2016)

Singing , Time , Feeling , Parting

“Music brought me closer to the idea of God…Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief.”

Carly Simon (1943) American singer-songwriter, musician and author

On what Simon wrote regarding music in Boys in the Trees (as stated in “Tales From the Trees: An Interview With Carly Simon” https://www.popmatters.com/tales-from-the-trees-an-interview-with-carly-simon-2495407885.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1 in PopMatters; 2016 Nov 20)

Idea , God

“For the truly creative mind in any field is no more than this — a human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create — to create — to create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of beauty and meaning his very breath is cut off from him. He must create. He must pour out creation. By some strange unknown pressing inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

"The Creative Mind at Work," William Vaughn Moody Foundation Lecture at the University of Chicago (1935), as quoted in Pearl S. Buck: A Biography, Volume 2 - Her Philosophy as Expressed in Her Letters (1971) by Theodore F. Harris, p. 217.

God , Beauty , Joy , Books

“It is the purity of a truth of which you have had only a glimpse. This is the feast, and the tiny tidbits you tasted before, back there, had made you hope for the existence of the Whole. The nameless emotion, longing, nostalgia, sense of destiny that you felt back there when you stared at the cloud layered sunset in Hawaii, when you stood quietly among the tall, waving trees in the silent forest, when a musical selection, passage, or song recalled memories of the past or brought forth a longing for which there was no associated memory, when you longed for the place where you belonged, whether city, town, country, nation, or family—these are now fulfilled. You are Home. You are where you belong. Where you always should have been.”

Robert Monroe (1915–1995) American founder of The Monroe Institute

Journeys Out of the Body (1971), Chapter 8. Because the Bible Tells Me So

Home , Nostalgia , Tree , Family

“Following the stars through the honky-tonks and bars
Dream away on a country music pride
Start the evenin' by myself
You can bet by the hour of twelve
Gonna have a pretty painted lady by my side
Talkin' about a pretty pained lady by my side Painted lady, tell me of the past gone by
Hold me like the open range and ride me high
Listenin' to the days when your dress was made of calico or gingham
And a man was a manI can feel the pain, I can see the fears
On the painted cheeks that hide the tears
Of a lovely, lonesome cowgirl in disguise”

Willis Allan Ramsey (1951) American singer-songwriter

Painted Lady

Pain , Painting , Country , Past

“Wish I was a millionaire
I'd play rock music and grow long hair
Tell you boys
about a new Rolls-Royce Pretty women would call on me
I'd give ‘em all the third degree
Give ‘em satin sheets
To keep ‘em off the streetsHallelujah, let me sock it to ya
Praise the Lord...”

Willis Allan Ramsey (1951) American singer-songwriter

Satin sheets

Women , Boy

“I see a face of love,
Fair as sweet music when my heart was strong:
Yea — art thou come again to me, great Song?”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

The face bent over him like silver night
In long-remembered summers; that calm light
Of days which shine in firmaments of thought,
That past unchangeable, from change still wrought.
The Legend of Jubal (1869)

Strong , Heart , Art , Love

“This is life to come, —
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, — be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)

Soul , Smile , World , Love