“The musicians who interest me most are people like Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh, Django Bates. They are not just writing music but performing it, recording it, putting tours together and running their own labels. That is what real musicians are, rather than over-publicised specialists.”

— Joanna MacGregor

Independent On Sunday, 14/10/2001
On Classical Music

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Joanna MacGregor 38

British musician 1959

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“There's no record industry, and so musicians I know, because I get mail from young musicians, I mean, they're really just struggling to survive, because they're not gonna get a record contract! So what are they doing? To survive? Like I did? I mean, okay I drove trucks, and sold caviar and repaired instruments just to survive. But in the end, you know, I'm in the studio, you know, recording rock music, pop music, whatever! Whatever gives me money to put in my, you know, food in my mouth. And so there's a lot of great musicians today, they're just looking for a gig! And what are the gigs that are going around? The gigs with pop bands or with smooth jazz, funky jazz, you know, a lot of this kind of cliched music. I'm sorry to criticize it like that, but I grew up with Tony (Williams) and you know Miles (Davis), (John) Coltrane, and real things, where there's blood all over the floor, blood all over the stage, that's what the passion's all about.”

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

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“Anybody who wants to be a real musician must be able to set a menu to music.”

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) German composer and orchestra director

Other sources

“Be your own artist, and always be confident in what you're doing. “A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. “I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.” “The true beauty of music is that it connects people.”

Dc Themmie

“And we would play together,
like fine musicians should,
And it would sound like music,
and the music would sound good.
But in real life I'm stuck with
that same old formula,
me and my monophonic symphony,
six string orchestra.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Six String Orchestra
Song lyrics, Verities & Balderdash (1974)

“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.

“Memory for playing a musical piece… involves a process very much like that for music listening… through establishing standard schemas and expectation. In addition, musicians use chunking… tying information together into groups, and remembering the group as a whole rather than individual pieces.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

“But a musician or someone who's into music is different.”

Katie Melua (1984) British singer-songwriter

Context: I don't think I could see myself with someone who's famous. I don't like the lifestyle and everything it stands for. Too superficial. That attention is too much. For me to go home and be surrounded by that sounds like a fucking nightmare. But a musician or someone who's into music is different.

“The freedom of improvising over a bass line disappeared from music only in the 19th century, and we're still paying for it. There's a culture among classical musicians of being passive, and it stems from following the notes, rather than one's own instincts.”

Joanna MacGregor (1959) British musician

The Times, 15/12/1998
On Classical Music

“I know that people are interested, and I understand why, but I don't want that stuff to overshadow my life. It's just the way it is. I'm a singer, I'm in a band, I've been out with musicians, I've had children with two different musicians. To me, it's no big deal. I only get upset because I want people to listen to the songs. Listen to the LP or come and see my band. I don't like it when people write about my life and don't even mention the music.”

Lisa Moorish (1972) British singer

Source: " A life on the edge http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/aug/20/popandrock8" at The Guardian, 20 August 2004

“The only thing I'm interested in is the music and the musicians. I don't acknowledge applause 'cause I'm giving them something. They're not giving me anything with their applause. Can I write that down?”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

As quoted in Jazz-Rock Fusion: The People, The Music, p. 40
1970s

“The musicians who interest me most are people like Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh, Django Bates. They are not just writing music but performing it, recording it, putting tours together and running their own labels. That is what real musicians are, rather than over-publicised specialists.”

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Joanna MacGregor 38

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