“The most sensitive musical instrument is the human soul. The next is the human voice. One must purify the soul until it begins to sound. A composer is a musical instrument and at the same time, a performer on that instrument. The instrument has to be in order to produce sound. One must start with that, not with the music. Through the music the composer can check whether his instrument is tuned and to what key it is tuned.”

—  Arvo Pärt

Read from his musical diaries while speaking at St. Vladimir’s Seminary https://vimeo.com/221011528/

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

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The most sensitive musical instrument is the human soul. The next is the human voice. One must purify the soul until it…" by Arvo Pärt?
Arvo Pärt photo
Arvo Pärt 4
Estonian composer 1935

Related quotes

Vangelis photo

“On electronic music: "The source is electronic, but what you do with it is the same as with acoustic instruments. Sound is sound and vibration is vibration, whether from an electronic source or an acoustic instrument.”

Vangelis (1943) Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music

The way we use these sources is the key in order to define the required musical result. Without neglecting the acoustic conventional instruments, I spend a fair amount of time dealing with the electronic sources of sound. But please do not think computers! Computers are extremely helpful and amazing for a multitude of scientific areas, but for me, when it comes to creation, they are insufficient and slow. Therefore all of my efforts are to stay away from that beast".
2012

Dinu Lipatti photo

“You see, it is not enough to be a great composer. To write music like that you must be a chosen instrument of God.”

Dinu Lipatti (1917–1950) Pianist, Composer

Listening Beethoven's F minor Quartet; Quoted by Walter Legge, in Walter Legge: Words and Music (1998) edited by Alan Sanders

Johannes Tinctoris photo

“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)

John Cage photo

“I believe that the use of noise to make music will continue and increase until we reach a music produced through the use of electrical instruments which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard. Photoelectric, film and mechanical mediums for the synthetic production of music will be explored.”

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

Quote of John Cage, in: 'The Future of Music: Credo' (1937); SILENCE 3-4
1930s

Helen Keller photo

“If it is true that the violin is the most perfect of musical instruments, then Greek is the violin of human thought.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Part II: Letters (1887 - 1901) TO MRS. LAURENCE HUTTON Wrentham, February 20, 1898.
The Story of My Life (1903)

Johann Sebastian Bach photo

“It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

Variant: There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.

Prevale photo

“Music is the most ancient instrument in the world, the best medicine, harmony and the pure expression of every soul.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La musica è lo strumento più antico al mondo, la miglior medicina, l'armonia e la pura espressione di ogni anima.
Source: prevale.net

“As a teenager I had already arranged pieces for the school band in exchange for music lessons. I also played cello, clarinet, and some other instruments regularly. Thanks to that experience, as an arranger I was able to understand the specific sound and tuning of an instrument and to work intuitively.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

As quoted in "Clare Fischer: The Best Kept Secret in Jazz" http://www.artistinterviews.eu/?page_id=5&parent_id=22/ by Maarten De Haan, in Artist Interview (1998)

Pierre Schaeffer photo

“Music has to do with sounds, so we need to find them somewhere and it is preferred to find musical ones. You have two sources for sounds: noises, which always tell you something — a door cracking, a dog barking, the thunder, the storm; and then you have instruments. An instrument tells you, 'la-la-la-la.' Music has to find a passage between noises and instruments. It has to escape. It has to find a compromise and an evasion at the same time; something that would not be dramatic because that has no interest to us, but something that would be more interesting than sounds like Do-Re-Mi-Fa…”

Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995) French musicologist

Electronic Musician magazine, December 1986
Interviews

Hector Berlioz photo

“Instrumentation is to music precisely what color is to painting.”

Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) French Romantic composer

Cette face de l’instrumentation est exactement, en musique, ce que le coloris est en peinture.
A travers chants (1862), ch. 1 http://www.hberlioz.com/Writings/ATC01.htm; Elizabeth Csicsery-Rónay (trans.) The Art of Music and Other Essays (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) p. 5.

Related topics