
On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)
A collection of quotes on the topic of melody, music, likeness, song.
On listening to an early version of Billie Jean on an iPhone
Ebony interview (2007)
As spoken to Michael Kelly, from Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, of the King's Theatre, and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, including a period of nearly half a century; with Original Anecdotes of many distinguished Personnages, Political, Literary, and Musical (London, Henry Colburn, 1826; digitized 2006), 2nd ed., vol. I (p. 225) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC00439352&id=ph3XEMzGt5YC&pg=RA2-PA225&lpg=RA2-PA225&dq=%22Melody+is+the+essence+of+music%22&hl=en
As quoted in De Natura Deorum by Cicero, ii. 8.
“Once positioned on their(children's) lips,
even the scariest of words
come out as a melodious lisp.”
<span class="plainlinks"> Children http://www.occupypoetry.net/children_1/</span>
From Poetry
Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 59-60
Michael Kennedy The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, 3rd edn. (London: Oxford University Press, 1980) p. 516.
Criticism
Io…vorrei che il giovane quando si mette a scrivere, non pensasse mai ad essere né melodista, né realista, né idealista, né avvenirista, né tutti i diavoli che si portino queste pedanterie. La melodia e l’armonia non devono essere che mezzi nella mano dell'artista per fare della Musica, e se verrà un giorno in cui non si parlerà più né di melodia né di armonia né di scuole tedesche, italiane, né di passato né di avvenire ecc. ecc. ecc. allora forse comincierà il regno dell'arte.
Letter to Opprandino Arrivabene, July 14, 1875, cited from Julian Budden Le opere di Verdi (Torino: E.D.T., 1986) vol. 2, p. 60; translation from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997) p. 126
On his personal stylistic breakthrough, quoted in Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955) edited by Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, . p 354
Source: Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and the Poet (1983), p. 14
“It's as if they avoid melodies, for fear of having perhaps stolen them from someone else.”
21 June 1880
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (1978)
Context: Music has taken a bad turn; these young people have no idea how to write a melody, they just give us shavings, which they dress up to look like a lion's mane and shake at us... It's as if they avoid melodies, for fear of having perhaps stolen them from someone else.
“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”
“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter”
Stanza 2
Poems (1820), Ode on a Grecian Urn
Variant: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.
Source: Ode on a Grecian Urn and Other Poems
Context: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Context: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
“Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?”
“It’s just sex and violence, melody and silence.”
Bitter Sweet Symphony
Urban Hymns (1997)
[Sharma, S. D., Sarangi maestro calls present music soulless drudgery, The Tribune, 28 February 2008, http://www.webcitation.org/5pb5rvJkI]
“Simple melody and variety in rhythm.”
Melodia semplice e varietà nel ritmo.
His motto for Italian music, formulated in a letter to Filippo Filippi, August 26, 1868; Luca Somigli Legitimizing the Artist (2003) p. 103.
Often misquoted as "Simple melody – clear rhythm!"
As quoted in The Guitar Handbook (2002) by Ralph Denyer, p. 102
Confusion of Feelings or Confusion: The Private Papers of Privy Councillor R. Von D (1927)
"Israfel", st. 8 (1831).
“Ah, were men's voices like the wood-birds' melody— Each happy note distinct, but all in harmony!”
The Cherubinic Wanderer
Source: Shades of Milk and Honey (2010), Chapter 4 (p. 54)
37
Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912)
Reviewing "Arabesque Cookie" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJtWZ771OqA from Ellington's The Nutcracker Suite; as quoted in "Clare Fischer: Blindfold Test" http://www.mediafire.com/view/fix6ane8h54gx/Clare_Fischer#rjvay58eo774rhe by Leonard Feather, in Downbeat (October 25, 1962), p. 39
21 June 1880
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (1978)
Context: Music has taken a bad turn; these young people have no idea how to write a melody, they just give us shavings, which they dress up to look like a lion's mane and shake at us... It's as if they avoid melodies, for fear of having perhaps stolen them from someone else.
“Love is the most melodious of all harmonies and the sentiment of love is innate.”
Part I, Meditation V: Of the Predestined http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Physiology_of_Marriage/Part_1/Med_5.
Physiology of Marriage (1829)
Context: Love is the most melodious of all harmonies and the sentiment of love is innate. Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position of them, the timid keyboard, the fingering so changeful and capricious which befits it.
Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Travis Parker, Chapter 13, p. 166
Variant: conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.
Source: 2000s, The Choice (2007)
Context: Finding a woman with a sense of humor had been the one piece of advice his father had given him when he'd first begun to get serious about dating, and he finally understood why his dad had considered it important. If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.
Variant: The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.
Source: 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact
Source: A Wrinkle in Time
Source: The Dream Keeper and Other Poems
“Every heart has its own melody," he said. "You know mine.”
Variant: Every heart has its own melody.
Source: Clockwork Princess
“we're all freaks sometimes, Melody," he replied. "You're just… well, better at it than most.”
Source: The Rithmatist
A Defence of Poetry http://www.bartleby.com/27/23.html (1821)
“Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.”
Source: The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers
From Disc Two; The Music: The Score (00:00:17-00:00:38)
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie DVD (2002)
As quoted in: George Klir (2013), Facets of Systems Science, p. 25
"Gestalt Theory," 1924
What Is A Jazz Composer? (1971)
Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 2 : Fragments
“And now it was your purpose to weep Vesuvius' flames in pious melody and spend your tears on the losses of your native place, what time the Father took the mountain from earth and lifted it to the stars only to plunge it down upon the hapless cities far and wide.”
Jamque et flere pio Vesuvina incendia cantu
mens erat et gemitum patriis impendere damnis,
cum pater exemptum terris ad sidera montem
sustulit et late miseras deiecit in urbes.
iii, line 205
Silvae, Book V
The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/31/AR2007053101848.html (June 1, 2007)
Everything About It Is a Love Song
Song lyrics, Surprise (2006)
Source: Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences., 1983, p.104
"The Metaphysics of Youth," in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1 (1996), pp. 10-11
Source: The Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love, p. 124-5
As quoted in Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison (1997) by Brian Hinton, p. 106
A Health, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (unknown date), stanzas 1 and 2. Compare: "To shallow rivers, to whose falls / Melodious birds sings madrigals; / There will we make our peds of roses, / And a thousand fragrant posies", William Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, act iii. scene i. (Sung by Evans.)
“A lot of times I wonder what Adam would have written songs about. -Appalachian Melody.”
Liner Notes
Extract from Prison Diaries, published in The Guardian, 2006
Music and politics
quoted in Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music, ISBN 0028645812
Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 7 : Chopin: From the Miniature Genre to the Sublime Style
T were vain to tell, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Beatles The History of Rock Music http://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html
“A sonnet is a wave of melody
From heaving waters of the impassion'd soul.”
from The Sonnets Voice (A Meterical Lesson by the Seashore).
“In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.”
"The Ovidian Elegiac Metre" (translated from Schiller) (1799)
(27th September 1823) Extracts from my Pocket Book. Song
The London Literary Gazette, 1823
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet
From the liner notes for Cal Tjader Plays the Contemporary Music of Mexico and Brazil (September 1962)
As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview I" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)
“Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound.”
Canto 12, stanza 70
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book II
Letter to Robert Bridges (15 February 1879)
Letters, etc
By Still Waters (1906)
“Great ideas and great melodies have a lot in common”
CNN Larry King Weekend (2002)