Quotes about melody
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“Every man who becomes heartily and understandingly a channel of the Divine beneficence, is enriched through every league of his life. Perennial satisfaction springs around and within him with perennial verdure. Flowers of gratitude and gladness bloom all along his pathway, and the melodious gurgle of the blessings he bears is echoed back by the melodious waves of the recipient stream.”

Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–1881) Novelist, poet, editor

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 26.

Life, Spring, Flowers, Gratitude

“I think a producer should be like water, and whatever the shape of the glass is, he or she should fill that. If they need you to be the engineer guy--typically I have an engineer--I work at that stuff. If they need you to be a songwriting help guy, I work on that. If they need you to be a vocal melody guy, I work at that, etc. I kind of look at whatever a band needs out of me then I try to give it to them.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

When asked "Are you very hands on when it comes to production or do you focus more on the larger vision of the song/album - the vibe/etc? "
AbsolutePunk.net, Patrick Stump, Part 2 - 10.13.08

Guy, Thinking, Water, Help

“It is only in the case of musical instruments that I find any commendable diligence in the [Irish] people. They seem to me to be incomparably more skilled in these than any other people that I have seen. The movement is not, as in the British instrument to which we are accustomed, slow and easy, but rather quick and lively, while at the same time the melody is sweet and pleasant. It is remarkable how, in spite of the great speed of the fingers, the musical proportion is maintained. The melody is kept perfect and full with unimpaired art through everything – through quivering measures and the involved use of several instruments – with a rapidity that charms, a rhythmic pattern that is varied and a concord achieved through elements discordant.”
In musicis solum instrumentis commendabilem invenio gentis istius diligentiam. In quibus, prae omni natione quam vidimus, incomparabiliter instructa est. Non enim in his, sicut in Britannicis quibus assueti sumus instrumentis, tarda et morosa est modulatio, verum velox et praeceps, suavis tamen et jocunda sonoritas. Mirum quod, in tanta tam praecipiti digitorum rapacitate, musica servatur proportio; et arte per omnia indemni inter crispatos modulos, organaque multipliciter intricata, tam suavi velocitate, tam dispari paritate, tam discordi concordia, consona redditur et completur melodia.

Gerald of Wales (1146) Medieval clergyman and historian

Topographia Hibernica (The Topography of Ireland) Part 3, chapter 11 (94); translation from Gerald of Wales (trans. John J. O'Meara) The History and Topography of Ireland ([1951] 1982) p. 103.

People, Art, Music, Time

“Sing us a song you're the piano man
Sing us a song tonight.
Well we're all in the mood for a melody
And you've got us feeling alright.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Piano Man.
Song lyrics, Piano Man (1973)

Feeling, Mood, Singing

“Roger: New bands.. old bands - whatever. It's kind of weird. I guess I stay out of the loop on new bands, younger bands an who's getting signed or how many records this band is making. Persoanlly I don't care about things like that. I like melodies and lyrics and songs and energy. Isn't that what's it all about?”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

“Constitution,—the apex of all its intelligences and mighty instincts and dumb longings: it is I? William Conqueror's big gifts, and Edward's and Elizabeth's; Oliver's lightning soul, noble as Sinai and the thunders of the Lord: these are mine, I begin to perceive,—to a certain extent. These heroisms have I,—though rather shy of exhibiting them. These; and something withal of the huge beaver-faculty of our Arkwrights, Brindleys; touches too of the phoenix-melodies and sunny heroisms of our Shakspeares, of our Singers, Sages and inspired Thinkers all this is in me, I will hope,—though rather shy of exhibiting it on common occasions.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Downing Street (April 1, 1850)

Hope, Soul, Intelligence

“I write all my own songs and they are just simple melodies with a lot of lyrics. They usually have to do with current events and what is going on in the news. You can call them topical songs, songs about the news, and then developing into more philosophical songs later.”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

Testimony http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/ochs.html at the Chicago Seven trial (11 December 1969)

“I think seeds for doubt can be sown when a Christian is taught a narrow perspective in certain areas, and later, when that teaching is challenged by alternatives, the person panics. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

Thinking, Personality

“Enya is more than just me. It's also Nicky, who arranges my melodies, and his wife Roma, who writes the lyrics. They believed in my music from day one”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

You interview (2006)

Music

“The coming together of rhythm and melody bridges our cerebellum and our cerebral cortex.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

“A summer isle, one over which the wind
Hath ever pass'd in melody,— such airs
As are born in the rose's breast, and die
Like singing on the waters.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Water, Singing, Summer

“The song was finished. His lyre and his celestial voice had ceased together. Yet even so there was no change in the company; the heads of all were still bent forward, their ears intent on the enchanting melody. Such was his charm – the music lingered in their hearts.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book I. Preparation and Departure, Lines 512–515; of Orpheus.

Music, Change, Heart

“I don't believe God wants every Christian who plays an instrument to try and form a ministry from it. After all, you don't expect a tire salesman to form a ministry with his expertise on tread design as the basis. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

God

“In the progress of the work he founded a Collegium Biblieum, or Bible club, consisting of his colleagues Melanchthon, Bugenhagen (Pommer), Cruciger, Justus Jonas, and Aurogallus. They met once a week in his house, several hours before supper. Deacon Georg Rörer (Rorarius), the first clergyman ordained by Luther, and his proof-reader, was also present; occasionally foreign scholars were admitted; and Jewish rabbis were freely consulted. Each member of the company contributed to the work from his special knowledge and preparation. Melanchthon brought with him the Greek Bible, Cruciger the Hebrew and Chaldee, Bugenhagen the Vulgate, others the old commentators; Luther had always with him the Latin and the German versions besides the Hebrew. Sometimes they scarcely mastered three lines of the Book of Job in four days, and hunted two, three, and four weeks for a single word. No record exists of the discussions of this remarkable company, but Mathesius says that "wonderfully beautiful and instructive speeches were made."
At last the whole Bible, including the Apocrypha as "books not equal to the Holy Scriptures, yet useful and good to read," was completed in 1534, and printed with numerous woodcuts.
In the mean time the New Testament had appeared in sixteen or seventeen editions, and in over fifty reprints.
Luther complained of the many errors in these irresponsible editions.
He never ceased to amend his translation. Besides correcting errors, he improved the uncouth and confused orthography, fixed the inflections, purged the vocabulary of obscure and ignoble words, and made the whole more symmetrical and melodious.
He prepared five original editions, or recensions, of his whole Bible, the last in 1545, a year before his death.
The edition of 1546 was prepared by his friend Rörer, and contains a large number of alterations, which he traced to Luther himself. Some of them are real improvements, e. g., Die Liebe höret nimmer auf, for, Die Liebe wird nicht müde (1 Cor. 13:8). The charge that he made the changes in the interest of Philippism (Melanchthonianism), seems to be unfounded.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's Bible club

Death, Books, Beauty, Error

“So is the song of life being sung/ By us and by all the living beings/ A melodious and harmonious song,/ Where the singer loses her own self/ And absorbs in the wonderful harmony of the song!/ An almost ecstatic experience.”

Kuruvilla Pandikattu (1957) Indian philosopher

Life: Relish It!
Life: Relish It! (2012)

Life

“Inaudible melodies
Serve narrational strategies
Unobtrusive tones
Help to notice nothing but the zone
Of visual relevancy
Frame-lines tell me what to see
Chopping like an axe
Or maybe Eisenstein should just relax”

Jack Johnson (musician) (1975) American musician

Inaudible Melodies.
Song lyrics, Brushfire Fairytales (2001)

Help

“A sensitive personality is like a great organ. Press the keys of discord and harshness comes forth. Play the keys of beauty and melody delight are given.”

Natacha Rambova (1897–1966) American film personality and fashion designer

On personality, p. 118
Photoplay: "Wedded and Parted" (December 1922)

Beauty, Personality

“And oft with holy hymns he charm'd their ears, And music more melodious than the spheres.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Music

“Meanwhile Medea, though she was singing and dancing with her maids, could think of one thing only. There was no melody, however gay, that did not quickly cease to please. Time and again she faltered and came to a halt. To keep her eyes fixed on her choir was more than she could do. She was for ever turning them aside to search the distant paths, and more than once she well-nigh fainted when she mistook the noise of the wind for the footfall of a passer-by. But it was not so very long before the sight of Jason rewarded her impatient watch. Like Sirius rising from Ocean, brilliant and beautiful but full of menace for the flocks, he sprang into view, splendid to look at but fraught with trouble for the lovesick girl. Her heart stood still, a mist descended on her eyes, and a warm flush spread across her cheeks. She could neither move towards him nor retreat; her feet were rooted to the ground. And now her servants disappeared, and the pair of them stood face to face without a word or sound, like oaks or tall pines that stand in the mountains side by side in silence when the air is still, but when the wind has stirred them chatter without end. So these two, stirred by the breath of Love, were soon to pour out all their tale.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea, Lines 948–972

Love, Beauty, Search, Girl

“From the blood of Medusa
Pegasus sprang.
His hoof of heaven
Like melody rang.”

Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) English children's writer

Pegasus, St. 1, p. 181
The New Book of Days (1961)

“For the moment, the jazz is playing; there is no melody, just notes, a myriad of tiny tremors. The notes know no rest, an inflexible order gives birth to them then destroys them, without ever leaving them the chance to recuperate and exist for themselves…. I would like to hold them back, but I know that, if I succeeded in stopping one, there would only remain in my hand a corrupt and languishing sound. I must accept their death; I must even want that death: I know of few more bitter or intense impressions.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Nausea (1938)

Death, Birth, Chance

“I will build you a castle with a tower so high
It reaches the moon.
I'll gather melodies from birdies that fly
And compose you a tune.
Give you lovin' warm as Mama's oven.
And if that don't do,
Then I'll try something new.”

Smokey Robinson (1940) American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer

I'll Try Something New (1962)
Song lyrics, With The Miracles

Flying

“Luther's Qualifications. Luther had a rare combination of gifts for a Bible translator: familiarity with the original languages, perfect mastery over the vernacular, faith in the revealed word of God, enthusiasm for the gospel, unction of the Holy Spirit. A good translation must be both true and free, faithful and idiomatic, so as to read like an original work. This is the case with Luther's version. Besides, he had already acquired such fame and authority that his version at once commanded universal attention.
His knowledge of Greek and Hebrew was only moderate, but sufficient to enable him to form an independent judgment. What he lacked in scholarship was supplied by his intuitive genius and the help of Melanchthon. In the German tongue he had no rival. He created, as it were, or gave shape and form to the modern High German. He combined the official language of the government with that of the common people. He listened, as he says, to the speech of the mother at home, the children in the street, the men and women in the market, the butcher and various tradesmen in their shops, and, "looked them on the mouth," in pursuit of the most intelligible terms. His genius for poetry and music enabled him to reproduce the rhythm and melody, the parallelism and symmetry, of Hebrew poetry and prose. His crowning qualification was his intuitive insight and spiritual sympathy with the contents of the Bible.
A good translation, he says, requires "a truly devout, faithful, diligent, Christian, learned, experienced, and practiced heart."”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Luther's competence as a Bible translator

Women, Men, God, Children

“I don't know much about the score for GODZILLA 1985. However, my impression of GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE is a negative one, both in terms of the direction and the music. For example, the music that is heard while the scenes that take place in Saradia are shown is just ridiculous. The composer used European music instead of some modern Arabic music. By the way, during the production of GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE, Toho asked for permission to use some of my music in the film. I said that I would allow its use as long as it was not turned into popular music. Toho agreed to that, but just before GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE was completed, a Toho representative came to me and said, "Well, your music was turned into popular music." By that time, it was too late to do anything about the situation. After GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE was released, my daughter came to me and said, "No matter how much you try to escape from Godzilla movies, Toho always uses your name and your melodies, so why don't you just score the next Godzilla film yourself?"”

Akira Ifukube (1914–2006) Japanese composer

That is why I agreed to work on GODZILLA VS. GHIDRAH. <br class="br">As quoted by David Milner, "Akira Ifukube Interview I" http://www.davmil.org/www.kaijuconversations.com/ifukub.htm, Kaiju Conversations (December 1992)

Music, Way, Time, Daughters

“Good melody is never out of fashion”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

A Practical Discourse on some Priciples of Hymn-singing Collected Essays no 22.
Essays

Fashion

“I am not one to compose long melodies as did Mozart. I can’t get beyond short themes. But what I can do, is utilize such a theme, paraphrase it and extract everything that is in it, and I don’t think there’s anybody today who can match me in that.”

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

Quotes from Stefan Zweigs's posthumous memoire, The World of Yesterday. Zweig worked with Strauss closely on the opera The Silent Woman in the period 1931-1934 and got to know him well.
Other sources

Thinking

“Emilio and I like projects to breathe and grow. We started with a concept -- write songs, make demos, then let the guest stars listen to them and then afffect the writing process. For Jose Feliciano, I had written a chorus and a bit of a melody. He started playing the chorus and ad-libbing. I went, "This is the [stuff]! Forget my melody!" Carlos Santana worked just the other way. He wanted me to record a plished take singing first, so his playing could recreate my emotion. I got goose bumps [writing "90 Millas"]. Like in "Esperando," which is addressed to Cubans on the island. Those of us in America, we're like the bogeyman, but I wanted Cubans at home to know: Whatever happened doesn't matter. The future is for us to heal. Adn also: because we're here, we latched onto any part of our culture. Yes and no [this is a political record]. Politics is life, so yes. but it's not specific. Saying that 90 miles haven't divided us sends a message about freedom for Cuba -- and for everyone.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

www.huffingtonpost.com (September 7, 2007)
2007, 2008

Life, Way, Home, Star

“But where was it when I first heard that sweet sound of humility?
It came to my ears in the goddamn loveliest melody!
How grateful I was, then, to be part of the mystery,
To love, and to be loved!
Let’s just hope that is enough.”

Conor Oberst (1980) American musician

Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and to Be Loved)
Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Love, Hope, Parting

“It's that mysterious thing called hype. I've looked under every rock, and I couldn't find out what it means. Certain people hear a certain melody, and they're attracted to it. I'm in love with that feeling. We're looking for fun and adventure and a bit of redemption and somewhere to live. Everything else is a blind venture into the unknown.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

Definitions and objects

Love, People, Feeling

“I'm constantly thinking melodies. Now, to add interest to those melodies, obviously you have to know what things can be superimposed over a chord, and I will think of extended arpeggios and the upper estensions. If I'm playing very vertically, I will invariably start to include certaing passing notes which imply certain scales -- like a melodic minor scale against a C minor chord, or diminished scales, something like that. But I'm not thinking of a scale at that specific moment. I'm thinking of the notes as surrounding that chord -- because I know how each of the twelve notes in music sound against a C minor seventh, for instance.”

Lee Ritenour (1952) American jazz guitarist, session musician, and composer

[Denyer, Ralph, The Guitar Handbook, 2002, 114, 0-679-74275-1]

Music, Thinking

“In heaven, all ordinary thought is higher and more melodious than Milton's song. Then, would he add another verse to any strain that he had left unfinished here?”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"The Artist of the Beautiful" (1844)

“Melody as revealed in the greatest works of our classics is one of the most noble gifts which an invisible deity has bestowed on mankind.”

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

Recollections and Reflections

“The fun thing is something people always miss out on with us. It's been brilliant making this album, but even as far back as Faith or Pornography we were still having a good crack. People would see me and Simon laughing and drinking ourselves unconscious together and they couldn't understand how we could be like that and still be in this angst-ridden band. But it's easy to be like that -- it's what being little, being a child, is all about. When you're grown up, you can't do it cos' you think about it too much. (Melody Maker, March 7, 1992)”

Robert Smith (musician) (1959) English singer, songwriter and musician

People, Faith, Drink, Understanding

“Mathematics is the fruitful Parent of, I had almost said all, Arts, the unshaken Foundation of Sciences, and the plentiful Fountain of Advantage to Human Affairs. In which last Respect, we may be said to receive from the Mathematics, the principal Delights of Life, Securities of Health, Increase of Fortune, and Conveniences of Labour: That we dwell elegantly and commodiously, build decent Houses for ourselves, erect stately Temples to God, and leave wonderful Monuments to Posterity: That we are protected by those Rampires from the Incursions of the Enemy; rightly use Arms, skillfully range an Army, and manage War by Art, and not by the Madness of wild Beasts: That we have safe Traffick through the deceitful Billows, pass in a direct Road through the tractless Ways of the Sea, and come to the designed Ports by the uncertain Impulse of the Winds: That we rightly cast up our Accounts, do Business expeditiously, dispose, tabulate, and calculate scattered 248 Ranks of Numbers, and easily compute them, though expressive of huge Heaps of Sand, nay immense Hills of Atoms: That we make pacifick Separations of the Bounds of Lands, examine the Moments of Weights in an equal Balance, and distribute every one his own by a just Measure: That with a light Touch we thrust forward vast Bodies which way we will, and stop a huge Resistance with a very small Force: That we accurately delineate the Face of this Earthly Orb, and subject the Oeconomy of the Universe to our Sight: That we aptly digest the flowing Series of Time, distinguish what is acted by due Intervals, rightly account and discern the various Returns of the Seasons, the stated Periods of Years and Months, the alternate Increments of Days and Nights, the doubtful Limits of Light and Shadow, and the exact Differences of Hours and Minutes: That we derive the subtle Virtue of the Solar Rays to our Uses, infinitely extend the Sphere of Sight, enlarge the near Appearances of Things, bring to Hand Things remote, discover Things hidden, search Nature out of her Concealments, and unfold her dark Mysteries: That we delight our Eyes with beautiful Images, cunningly imitate the Devices and portray the Works of Nature; imitate did I say? nay excel, while we form to ourselves Things not in being, exhibit Things absent, and represent Things past: That we recreate our Minds and delight our Ears with melodious Sounds, attemperate the inconstant Undulations of the Air to musical Tunes, add a pleasant Voice to a sapless Log and draw a sweet Eloquence from a rigid Metal; celebrate our Maker with an harmonious Praise, and not unaptly imitate the blessed Choirs of Heaven: That we approach and examine the inaccessible Seats of the Clouds, the distant Tracts of Land, unfrequented Paths of the Sea; lofty Tops of the Mountains, low Bottoms of the Valleys, and deep Gulphs of the Ocean: That in Heart we advance to the Saints themselves above, yea draw them to us, scale the etherial Towers, freely range through the celestial Fields, measure the Magnitudes, and determine the Interstices of the Stars, prescribe inviolable Laws to the Heavens themselves, and confine the wandering Circuits of the Stars within fixed Bounds: Lastly, that we comprehend the vast Fabrick of the Universe, admire and contemplate the wonderful Beauty of the Divine 249 Workmanship, and to learn the incredible Force and Sagacity of our own Minds, by certain Experiments, and to acknowledge the Blessings of Heaven with pious Affection.”

Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) English Christian theologian, and mathematician

Source: Mathematical Lectures (1734), p. 27-30

Life, God, War, Health

“In my skeptical days, people who wanted to appear very spiritual were always telling me to forget my questions, to shove them under the rug and go on in "faith." In fact, some of my friends thought my questions were my own devices to dodge the "real issues." They thought I must be morally decadent to voice such questions. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

People, Faith, Question, Appearance

“Roger: Umm.. I don't know! It's kind of um.. a little more.. it's more in the darks of being really singy songy. It's nothing super blazing fast. There's not any super slow reggae kind of thing that we've done before. It's not like that. It's sort of in the tempo and sort of really poppy and really catchy. There's some really good stuff. There are some songs I'm really excited about. It's always been melody based I think. When we did our last record, we wrote like 32 songs and they ended coming out on two separate CDs. And this time we didn't really do that! We kind of just took 15 ideas and used those as the focal point and then we wrote around those and just improved on those 14 and kept bringing things in and out of those songs as opposed to having a whole bunch of songs. Whether that's better or not, I don't know. It definitely seems a bit more focused. We don't have a bunch of extra songs or anything like that. When is was time to actually record, we have everything pretty well sorted and that was cool. There's definitely some good stuff on there.”

Roger Manganelli (1973) American musician

Idea, Thinking, Time

“You think they are crusaders sent
From some infernal clime,
To pluck the eyes of sentiment
And dock the tail of Rhyme,
To crack the voice of Melody
And break the legs of Time.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Music Grinders; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Thinking, Time

“Sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Personal Talk, Stanza 2.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Nudity in a picture is such a delicate thing, and it is so rarely right. But it can be right if it's done by people with beautiful vision and if it becomes part of the melody of the situation. The body, after all, is a beautiful and secret thing.”

Nastassja Kinski (1961) German actress

As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits.

People, Secret, Beauty, Parting

“Men have a lot less to write about, unless you're somebody like Tom Waits or John Lennon. And the female voice is much more suited to melody. Men have this barky thing-we're domesticated apes with a microphone.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

More on why his favorite singers are mostly women

Men, Waiting

“His range is so Handelian that he can give the people a universal melody or march with as sure a hand as he can give the Philharmonic Society a symphonic adagio, such as has not been given since Beethoven died.”

Edward Elgar (1857–1934) English composer

George Bernard Shaw, in Music and Letters, January 1920.
Criticism

People, Universe

“Through the long ward the gramophone
Grinds out its nasal melodies:
"Where did you get that girl?" it shrills.
The patients listen at their ease,
Through clouds of strong tobacco smoke:
The gramophone can always please.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, In A Soldiers' Hospital II: Gramophone Tunes

Girl, Strong

“We," he said, not without complacency, "are different. We attest the divine paradox. We are barren only to be fertile. We proclaim the primary reality of the world of the spirit which has an infinitude of mansions for an infinitude of human souls. And you too are different. Your destiny is of the rarest kind. You will live to proclaim the love of Christ for man and man for Christ in a figure of earthly love." Preacher's rhetoric; it would have been better in Italian, which thrives on melodious meaninglessness.
I said, with the same weariness as before, "My destiny is to live in a state of desire both church and state condemn and to grow sourly rich in the purveying of a debased commodity. I've just finished a novel which, when I'd read it through in typescript, made me feel sick to my stomach. And yet it's what people want -- the evocation of a past golden time when there was no Mussolini or Hitler or Franco, when gods were paid for with sovereigns, Elgar's Symphony Number One in A flat trumpeted noblimente a massive hope in the future, and the romantic love of a shopgirl and a younger son of the aristocracy portended a healthful inflection but not destruction of the inherited social pattern. Comic servants and imperious duchesses. Hansom cabs and racing at Ascot. Fascists and democrats alike will love it. My destiny is to create a kind of underliterature that lacks all whiff of the subversive.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

"Don't," Carlo said, "underestimate yourself."
Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

Love, God, People, Health

“Solos I kind of [couldn't] care less about. I know most people probably think that's what I care most about, but it's really the melody playing that is the cornerstone of what I'm working on.”

Joe Satriani (1956) American guitar player

As quoted in Guitar Magazine (August 1997).

People, Thinking

“All old Poems, Homer's and the rest, are authentically Songs. I would say, in strictness, that all right Poems are; that whatsoever is not sung is properly no Poem, but a piece of Prose cramped into jingling lines,—to the great injury of the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most part! What we wants to get at is the thought the man had, if he had any: why should he twist it into jingle, if he could speak it out plainly? It is only when the heart of him is rapt into true passion of melody, and the very tones of him, according to Coleridge's remark, become musical by the greatness, depth and music of his thoughts, that we can give him right to rhyme and sing; that we call him a Poet, and listen to him as the Heroic of Speakers,—whose speech is Song.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Music, Passion, Singing, Heart

“Music allows a person to express their deepest thoughts, thoughts that cannot be expressed with just words. I am often asked how I begin a song or develop a melody from nothing. That is the spiritual aspect of creating. Finding something deep within yourself that can only be created by you.”

Bradley Joseph (1965) Composer, pianist, keyboardist, arranger, producer, recording artist

Interview with Bradley Joseph, The Spiritual Significance Of Music, World Edition http://www.xtrememusic.org/world/joseph_bradley.pdf http://www.xtrememusic.org/new.html (from extrememusic.org) http://xtrememusic.org/world.html

Music, Personality

“Mozart's melodies, Beethoven's symphonies, Schubert's songs, acts two and three of Tristan are symbols in which are revealed the most profound spiritual truths. They are not "invented", but are "given in their dreams"to those privileged to receive them. Whence they come no one knows, not even their creator, the unconscious mouthpiece of the demiurge.”

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

Recollections and Reflections

Truth, Dreams

“The Bhṛṅgadūtam should be read, melodiously sung and contemplated upon day in and day out by the devotees of Lord Rāma.”

Rāmabhadrācārya (1950) Hindu religious leader

citation needed
Paṭhyatāṃ bhṛṅgadūtaṃ ca bhṛṅgadūtaṃ pragīyatām ।
cintyatāṃ bhṛṅgadūtaṃ ca rāmabhaktairdivāniśam ॥

Reading

“Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud —
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Dejection: An Ode

St. 5
Dejection: An Ode (1802)

Light, Joy

“Every note leaves in each of us a memory, but it is the melody as a whole that tells a story, the story of someone wanting to get closer to another person and who keeps on trying, despite repeated rejections.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Memory, Personality

“Calm on the listening ear of night
Come Heaven’s melodious strains,
Where wild Judea stretches far
Her silver-mantled plains.”

Edmund Sears (1810–1876) American minister

Christmas Song, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Night

“Until we learn the language of those outside the Church, the language of their hearts and the language of their minds, we will never be able to communicate properly. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

Communication, Learning, Heart

“As the screams in the water multiplied, another sound was heard, strong and clear at first, then fainter in the distance. It was the melody of the hymn “Nearer, My God, To Thee,” played by the string orchestra in the dining saloon.”

Steve Turner (1949) British writer

Source: The Band That Played On (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 10

God, Strong, Water

“I have gone through different phases in my music writing. There was a time when I used a little exercise — incorporating all of the twelve notes in the chromatic scale — to get me going. I used this technique for a while, but I don't any longer because I am going back to simpler melodies. Originally I moved away from the simple songs because I thought they were too simple.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

"Songwriting" in Making Music (1983) edited by George Martin, p. 70

Music, Exercises, Time

“Oh, my Luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my Luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly played in tune.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

A Red, Red Rose, st. 1
Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1796)

“It seems to me I've heard that song before.
It's from an old familiar score.
I know it well, that melody.”

Sammy Cahn (1913–1993) American lyricist, songwriter, musician

I've Heard that Song Before (1942)
Song lyrics

“Mine understanding was lifted up into Heaven where I saw our Lord as a lord in his own house, which hath called all his dearworthy servants and friends to a stately feast. Then I saw the Lord take no place in His own house, but I saw Him royally reign in His house, fulfilling it with joy and mirth, Himself endlessly to gladden and to solace His dearworthy friends, full homely and full courteously, with marvellous melody of endless love, in His own fair blessed Countenance. Which glorious Countenance of the Godhead fulfilleth the Heavens with joy and bliss.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixth Revelation, Chapter 14

Love, Home, Understanding, Joy

“If anything I probably gravitate to things with great melodies/harmonies, and interesting/syncopated beats.”

Andrew Sega (1975) musician from America

Connexion Bizarre interview with Iris, 2009

“Here, in the last pages of the "Abegg" Variations, Schumann plays the motto theme A-B-E-G-G (B in German notation is the English Bb) not by sounding the last four notes but by taking them away, one by one, from, the chord of Bb-E-G. This is the first time in history that a melody is signified not by the attack but by the release of a series of notes. The motto, however, ends with a repeated final G. If the motto is played by releasing each successive note, we are faced with a paradox: when the G is released once on the piano, it is no longer there to be released again-the motto is not only unplayable as conceived but unimaginable. Schumann signifies as much by another paradox: he adds accents to the sustained notes.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 1 : Music and Sound

History, Time, Success

“It is really a kind of a slap in [God's] face to refuse to use the abilities He gave us just because there is danger involved. Just because adultery exists is no reason to avoid marriage. Just because gluttony exists is no reason to quit eating. We shouldn't be anhedonics under the guise of spirituality. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

God, Marriage

“The flaw of target marketing is that it assumes people are indifferent to variety. Suburban white boys won't listen to Rap because supposedly they can't relate to urban black youths hopping around to all beat and no melody. What we get is music segregation on the airwaves and the record racks.”

Richard Menta American journalist

Source Three Lawsuits and a Funeral http://web.archive.org/web/20031217142538/www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2001/funeral.html - 11/30/2001 <br class="br">Quotes from the MP3 Newswire

People, Youth, Music, Boy

“The term "chorus form" is often used to denote a type of performance - typically in jazz or rhythm 'n' blues, but also sometimes in country music and rock 'n' roll - where a given structural unit is repeated an indefinite number of times. The unit itself may be sectionally elaborate, as in the case of most Tin Pan Alley ballads. It may be twelve-bar blues, or something similar, as in the case of many R&B and rock 'n' roll numbers: here, a three-line AAB lyric, set to a three-phrase melody, is underpinned by a single gestural sweep in the harmony. Occasionally - as in some funk, dub reggae, and hip-hop, for example - it may approach the status of open-ended process.”

Richard Middleton British musicologist

[Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture, ISBN 0631212639, Middleton, Richard, 1999]

Music, Time, Country

“For the Norse people, the Man now named Odin, and Chief Norse God, we fancy, was such a man. A Teacher, and Captain of soul and of body; a Hero, of worth immeasurable; admiration for whom, transcending the known bounds, became adoration. Has he not the power of articulate Thinking; and many other powers, as yet miraculous? So, with boundless gratitude, would the rude Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them the sphinx-enigma of this Universe; given assurance to them of their own destiny there? By him they know now what they have to do here, what to look for hereafter. Existence has become articulate, melodious by him; he first has made Life alive!—We may call this Odin, the origin of Norse Mythology: Odin, or whatever name the First Norse Thinker bore while he was a man among men. His view of the Universe once promulgated, a like view starts into being in all minds; grows, keeps ever growing, while it continues credible there. In all minds it lay written, but invisibly, as in sympathetic ink; at his word it starts into visibility in all. Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world—!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity

Life, Men, God, People

“If every Christian would treat just one other person with real love, I'm sure more would come to faith than do at present, with all our mass harvesting techniques. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

Love, Faith, Personality

“I'm not one for walking the beaches humming a melody … I love the discipline of sitting in the studio, writing and listening. That is my domain.”

Enya (1961) Irish singer, songwriter, and musician

The Telegraph interview (2005)

Love

“Anno 1670, not far from Cyrencester, was an Apparition: Being demanded, whether a good Spirit, or a bad? returned no answer, but disappeared with a curious Perfume and most melodious Twang. Mr. W. Lilly believes it was a Farie.”

John Aubrey book Brief Lives

"Nicholas Towes"
Brief Lives

“A state of princes; a skulk of friars; a skulk of thieves; an observance of hermits; a lying of pardoners; a subtiltie of serjeants; an untruth of sompners; a multiplying of husbands; an incredibility of cuckolds; a safeguard of porters; a stalk of foresters; a blast of hunters; a draught of butlers; a temperance of cooks; a melody of harpers; a poverty of pipers; a drunkenship of coblers; a disguising of taylors; a wandering of tinkers; a malepertness of pedlars; a fighting of beggars; a rayful, (that is, a netful) of knaves; a blush of boys; a bevy of ladies; a nonpatience of wives; a gagle of women; a gagle of geese; a superfluity of nuns; and a herd of harlots. Similar terms were applied to inanimate things, as a caste of bread, a cluster of grapes, a cluster of nuts, &c.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 22
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Collective nouns

Women, Boy, Lying, Fight

“My purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called 'spirit resonance' in melody and sound.”

Alan Hovhaness (1911–2000) Armenian-American composer

Alan Hovhaness, Hovhaness.com biography http://www.hovhaness.com/hovhaness-biography.html

People, Beauty, Music

“Joy can come alive like that, when random pieces of history and rhythm, pause and expectation, melody and lyric, suddenly rearrange themselves into a pattern that leaps up, back against the wall, and catches your heart.”

Andrea Lewis (writer) Microsoft employee

"Forty Years" Slow Trains Vol.7, Issue 3 (2008)
2000-09

History, Heart, Joy

“I have not played the cello in front of an audience since long years but I think I must do it this time. I am going to play a melody from the Catalonian folklore: The singing of the Birds. Birds, when in the sky, go singing: Peace, peace, peace. And this is a melody that Bach, Beethoven and all great people would have admired and loved. And, in addition, it springs up from the soul of my country: Catalonia.”

Pablo Casals (1876–1973) Catalan cellist and conductor

Medal of Peace acceptance

Love, People, Peace, Soul

“THE fountain's low singing is heard on the wind,
Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind;
Some to grieve, some to gladden: around them they cast
The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past.
Away in the distance is heard the vast sound,
From the streets of the city that compass it round,
Like the echo of mountains, or ocean's deep call;
Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Middle Temple Gardens
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Dreams, Hope, Mountain, Singing

“With thy coming Melody was come.
This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow,
And that immeasurable life to know
From which the fleshly self falls shrivelled, dead,
A seed primeval that has forests bred.”

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

The Legend of Jubal (1869)

Life, Feeling, Dead

“Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything.”

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) German composer, aesthete and influential music critic

Early Letters of Robert Schumann (1888), p. 82

Music

“Refusing to grow up is like refusing to accept your limitations. That's why I don't think we'll ever grow up. (Melody Maker magazine 1992)”

Robert Smith (musician) (1959) English singer, songwriter and musician

Thinking

“I've always believed that any instrumentalist is basically just an accompanist to the singer and the words. That's born out of being a fan of records before I was a fan of guitar players -- I'm interested in melody, lyrics, and the overall song. I don't like to waste notes, not even one. Who was it that said, "The reason why all those guitar players play so many notes is because they can't find the right one"? I like to put the right note in the right place, and my influences have always been those kinds of players. Keith Richards comes to mind, and I really like Nils Lofgren's soloing, because he's so melodic. I love John Lennon's rhythm playing, and George Harrison was an incredible guitarist.
There's a lot of guitar culture that I don't like at all. I find the traditional idea of the guitar hero to be really irrelevant to the 1990s. I don't think that young people are that impressed with some guy brandishing Spandex trousers and a hideously shaped guitar, playing that kind of masturbatory, egotistical noise. Being a soloist who wants to just display virtuosity is a dated philosophy, and I don't think there's any room for it in pop music. It's the last stand of late-'60s/early-'70s rockism, and it should have gone a long time ago.”

Johnny Marr (1963) musician

from an interview by Joe Gore, Guitar Player(January 1990).

Love, People, Music, Guy

“By the way, our nightingale language ranks second in the world in its melodiousness.”

Yurii Andrukhovych book The Moscoviad

The Moscoviad
Source: The Moscoviad. Yuri Andrukhovych. Spuyten Duyvil, New York City. ISBN1933132523, p. 83

World, Way

“the 29th/Because of a very long fart, really a very long, and let us be frank, melodious fart, that I produced when I woke up, I was reminded of Michel de Montaigne.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

DG p. 60
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964)

“The film concludes with … the most nauseatingly luscious, the most penetratingly vulgar mammy song that it has ever been my lot to hear. My flesh crept as the loud speaker poured out those sodden words, the greasy, sagging melody. I felt ashamed of myself for listening to such things, for even being a member of the species to which such things are addressed.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

“Silence is Golden,” p. 62
Do What You Will (1928)

“Most Christians would say that the music should in some way glorify God. Obviously, one assortment of notes on the scale can't glorify God more than another. Neither can certain assortments of words. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

God, Music, Way

“May 21, 1994, Melody Maker.”

Eddie Vedder (1964) musician, songwriter, member of Pearl Jam

“I've rediscovered the part of my brain that can't decode anything, that can't add, that can't work from a verbalized concept, that doesn't care about stylish notation, that makes melodies that have pitch and rhythm, that doesn't know anything about zen eternity and gets bored and changes, that isn't worried about being commercial or avant-garde or serial or any other little category. Beauty is enough.”

Beth Anderson (1950) American neo-romantic composer

Variant quotes:
I've rediscovered the part of my brain that can't decode anything, that can't add, that can't work from a verbalized concept, that doesn't know anything about Zen eternity and gets bored and changes, that isn't worried about being commercial or avant-garde or serial or any other little category. Beauty is enough.
Beauty is Revolution (1980)
Source: Jane Weiner LePage (1983) Women composers, conductors, and musicians of the twentieth century: selected biographies. p. 14

Beauty, Change, Parting

“Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Source: Jamesh A. Leit, George Whalley Symboles Dans la Vie Et Dans L'art http://books.google.co.in/books?id=pRZEKhofl_gC&pg=PA29, McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1987, p. 29

Music

“Contour refers to the pattern of musical pitch in a melody—the sequence of ups or downs that the melody takes—regardless of the size of the interval.”

Daniel Levitin (1957) American psychologist

This is Your Brain on Music (2006)

Music

“More evidently still astronomy attains through arithmetic the investigations that pertain to it, not alone because it is later than geometry in origin—for motion naturally comes after rest—nor because the motions of the stars have a perfectly melodious harmony, but also because risings, settings, progressions, retrogressions, increases, and all sorts of phases are governed by numerical cycles and quantities. So then we have rightly undertaken first the systematic treatment of this, as the science naturally prior, more honorable, and more venerable, and, as it were, mother and nurse of the rest; and here we will take our start for the sake of clearness.”

Nicomachus (60–120) Ancient Greek mathematician

Book I, Chapter V
Nicomachus of Gerasa: Introduction to Arithmetic (1926)

Star, Nature, Science

“We can set our deeds to the music of a grateful heart, and seek to round our lives into a hymn — the melody of which will be recognized by all who come in contact with us, and the power of which shall not be evanescent, like the voice of the singer, but perenninal, like the music of the spheres.”

William Mackergo Taylor (1829–1895) American theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 290.

Music, Heart

“In Calcutta, when the organizers saw me, they insisted that I first sing in a private sitting a night before my concert was scheduled. I couldn't understand why they couldn't wait till the next day. Nisar Husain Khan Saheb took me aside and explained that the organizers had doubts about what I, a frail girl at that time, was capable of! I sang and was greatly appreciated. In fact, I was awarded a gold medal by the Maharaja of Tripura. At the same concert, I kept remembering my mother who was no more, and just then felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, I saw K. L. Saigal, who said, 'bahut surila' (very melodious). I was happy but then very upset that a strange man should touch me!”

Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) Indian singer

On her actual technique of training, in "On Gangubai Hangal by Sabina Sehgal Computer Science & Engineering - University of Washington".

Happiness, Girl, Understanding, Singing

“Horror has many iterations, many shades. Landing the perfect balance of melody, texture and sonics is the key to a great score. Some horror films require a huge, aggressive palette. Others are the complete opposite. Finding that musical happy place is what will make the movie from a score perspective.”

Michael Wandmacher (1967) composer

Interview with Underworld: Blood Wars Composer, Michael Wandmacher http://www.thesoundarchitect.co.uk/interview-underworld-blood-wars-composer-michael-wandmacher/ (February 15, 2018)

Happiness, Music, Perfection

“The absolutely inaudible is rejected from music during the period of Viennese Classicism in which every musical line is potentially or imaginatively audible, but it makes a dramatic reappearance in the music of Schumann. The most striking of many examples is one of the episodes in the Humoresk, the last of the great piano works of Schumann's early years. … There are three staves: the uppermost for the right hand; the lowest for the left; the middle, which contains the melody, is not to be played. Note that the melody is no more to be imagined as a specific sound than it is to be played: nothing tells us that the melody is to be heard as vocal or instrumental. This melody, however, is embodied in the upper and lower parts as a kind of after-resonance-out of phase, delicate, and shadowy.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 1 : Music and Sound

Music, Imagination, Parting

“Poor captive bird! Who, from thy narrow cage,
Pourest such music, that it might assuage
The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee,
Were they not deaf to all sweet melody.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Epipsychidion

Source: Epipsychidion (1821), l. 9

Music, Bird, Heart

“I guess it will always be that way until the Church learns how to take lessons from culture and from history, and stops… putting labels of "spiritual" and "unspiritual" on things which God never labeled. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

God, Way, History, Learning

“Sometimes she felt sweet smells with her nose; it was sweeter, she thought, than ever was any sweet earthly thing that she smelled before…Sometimes she heard with her bodily ears such sounds and melodies that she might not well hear what a man said to her in that time unless he spoke the louder. These sounds and melodies had she heard nearly every day for the term of twenty-five years…She saw with her bodily eye many white things flying all about her on every side, as thick in a manner as motes in the sun; they were right delicate and comfortable, and the brighter that the sun shone …Also our Lord gave her another token, which endured about sixteen years, and it increased ever more and more, and that was a flame of fire wonderfully hot and delectable and right comfortable, not wasting but ever increasing of flame, for, though the weather was never so cold, she felt the heat burning in her breast and at her heart, and verily as a man should feel the material fire if he put his hand or his finger therein”

Margery Kempe (1373) English saint

(Staley, 2001: 64-5).
The Book of Margery Kempe

Feeling, Time, Sun, Heart

“Nature hav no music; nor would ther be for thee
any better melody in the April woods at dawn
than what an old stone-deaf labourer, lying awake
o'night in his comfortless attic, might perchance
be aware of, when the rats run amok in his thatch?”

Robert Seymour Bridges (1844–1930) British writer

Book I, lines 83-87.
The Testament of Beauty (1929-1930)

Music, Lying, Nature

“In a time of sickness with the pleurisy, a little upward of two years and a half ago, I was brought so near the gates of death that I forgot my name. Being then desirous to know who I was, I saw a mass of matter of a dull, gloomy color, between the south and the east; and was informed that this mass was human beings in as great misery as they could be and live; and that I was mixed in with them, and that henceforth I might not consider myself as a distinct or separate being. In this state I remained several hours. I then heard a soft, melodious voice, more pure and harmonious than any I had heard with my ears before; I believed it was the voice of an angel, who spake to the other angels. The words were: “John Woolman is dead.””

John Woolman (1720–1772) American Quaker preacher

I soon remembered that I once was John Woolman, and being assured that I was alive in the body, I greatly wondered what that heavenly voice could mean. <br class="br">Source: The Journal of John Woolman (1774), p. 164 ( online http://books.google.nl/books?id=qPspAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA164)

Death, Angels, Color, Time

“One thing you must know: Just as there is no comparison between actually hearing the sound of harp-strings sweetly plucked and listening to someone talking about it, so too there is no comparison between words which are received in pure grace, issuing from a living heart, spoken by living lips, and those self-same words committed to dry parchment — especially words in German. For these somehow grow chill, losing their vitality like roses cut. For the enchanting melody which, more than anything else, moves human hearts, then fades away, so that the words are received now into the dryness of dry hearts. No harp-strings were ever so sweet but, when stretched across dry timber, they fall silent. An unloving heart can no more understand a love-filled speaker than a German an Italian. Therefore, an eager enquirer should hasten to the out-flowing streams of these sweet teachings so that she may see and observe them at their source in all its living and wondrous beauty – that is, the in-flowing of present grace which is able to restore dead hearts to life.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

The Exemplar, The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom

Love, Life, Beauty, Understanding

“Musically I try to connect a common bridge between such exhilarating feelings as performing at the Acropolis, to the emotions each and every one of us feel everyday. In the end, a good melody will always stand the test of time.”

Bradley Joseph (1965) Composer, pianist, keyboardist, arranger, producer, recording artist

Indie Journal Interview http://web.archive.org/web/20041101084648/http://www.indiejournal.com/indiejournal/interviews/bradleyjoseph.htm

Music, Feeling, Time

“Oh all the times I've listened, and all the times I've heard
All the melodies I'm missing, and all the magic words,
And all those potent voices, and the choices we had then,
How I'd love to find we had that kind of choice again.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

Remember When the Music
Song lyrics, Sequel (1981)

Love, Time

“I wrote a little song for you
With a melody I'd borrowed put to words that didn't rhyme
To repeat what you already knew;
As the stones thrown at your window tapped in syncopation,
You kept a distance out of fear you'd break,
But what good's a single windchime, hanging quiet all alone?”

Aaron Weiss

In a Market Dimly Lit.
Brother, Sister (2006)

Fear

“Mournfully, oh, mournfully,
The midnight wind doth sigh,
Like some sweet plaintive melody
Of ages long gone by.”

William Motherwell (1797–1835) British writer

The Midnight Wind.

Age

“Examining the musical language of Prokofiev in a more detailed way, we must acknowledge that for him melody was always the most important element of music, one that determined the quality of the composition”

Boris Berman (1948) Russian/American musician

Prokofiev’s piano sonatas : a guide for the listener and the performer (2008), Prokofiev: His Life and the Evolution of His Musical Language

Music, Way

“Oh, could you view the melody
Of every grace
And music of her face,
You'd drop a tear;
Seeing more harmony
In her bright eye
Than now you hear.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

Orpheus to Beasts. Compare: "There is music in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument; for there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres", Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, Part ii, Section ix; "The mind, the music breathing from her face", Lord Byron, Bride of Abydos (1813), canto i, stanza 6.
Lucasta (1649)

Music, Tear

Quotes about melody page 2

Quotes about melody
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