“For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever.”

— Aaron Copland

Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812.

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American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conduct… 1900–1990

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“If the listener does eventually come to the point where he makes the ultimate performance by splicing tapes from other musicians' recordings, he will eventually become just as bored with it as with other recordings, for it will still always be the same. Look, for instance, at electronic music. The boys are already becoming bored with what they do because they put it irrevocably on tape. The best indication of this is that more and more they are mixing the live performance element with their tapes.”

Aaron Copland (1900–1990) American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor

Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812.

“I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiments – astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever! … I think it is the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced, and I congratulate you with all my heart on this wonderful discovery.”

Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) English composer of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

A message on a phonograph cylinder, recorded by Arthur Sullivan at a demonstration of Thomas Edison's phonograph in London on 5 October 1888; cited from Michael Chanan Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and its Effects on Music (London: Verso, 1995) p. 26. See also "Historic Sullivan Recordings" http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/sullivan/html/historic.html at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive; and Very Early Recorded Sound http://www.nps.gov/edis/photosmultimedia/very-early-recorded-sound.htm at the National Historical Park website. The recording was issued on CD by the British Library (Voices of History 2: NSACD 19-20, 2005).

“In preparing this record, penned by my own hand, of my life and my participation in our great struggles for national existence, human liberty and political equality, I make no pretence to literary merit. The motive that induces me is not authorship. The import of the subject matter of my narrative is my only claim to attention. The statements of facts are a matter of documentary evidence. The comments are my own and show how I saw the matters treated of, whether others saw them in the same light or not. Respectfully dedicating this work to the millions of armed men and devoted women who participated in the great wars of this country, I leave it as a heritage to my wife and son.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Source: Reminiscences (1964), p. vi

“I mean, even Joy Division are a bit over-rated, I think. They're very good live, but on record…”

Ian McCulloch (1959) singer, musician

NME (1980)

“I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.”

Aaron Copland (1900–1990) American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor

Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812.

“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

“A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. Any prelude or fugue of Bach can be played at any tempo, with or without rhythmic nuances, and it will still be great music. That's how music should be written, so that no-one, no matter how philistine, can ruin it.”

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) Russian composer and pianist

Letter to Isaac Glikman, August 28, 1955; Josiah Fisk & Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (1997) p. 364.

“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

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“The only thing that can kill me is death, that's the only thing that can ever stop me, is death, and even then my music will live forever.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Prison interviews and interrogations (1995)

“Maybe you're the same as me / We see things they'll never see / You and I are gonna live forever.”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

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