Quotes on music

If you listen to a lot of music, it gradually seeps into your consciousness or your unconsciousness and comes out in your music.

Author: John Abercrombie

You're just sort of searching for this "thing" and sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't. All music is imperfect, but in jazz since you're improvising, at least the way I play, I'm trying to follow my train of thought in a solo.

Author: John Abercrombie

With Dick Smith there, and the words of Peter Shaffer... they've got to be the most beautiful descriptions in music ever written on film or in literature. And we could hear the music accompanying the words... What more can you ask for?

Author: F. Abraham

You know I want to sing for people, I want to jazz people up I want to make new music that they've never heard.

Author: Casey Abrams

I hope America sees I am a goofy guy andI'm kind a crazy, I hope they see that I am a musician aswell, that I have music all around my body - I'm just exfoliating music, and I just hope America sees that.

Author: Casey Abrams

I only write music for myself, I don't try and appeal to anyone else.

Author: Bryan Adams

I always knew I'd be in music in some sort of capacity. I didn't know if I'd be successful at it, but I knew I'd be doing something in it. Maybe get a job in a record store. Maybe even play in a band. I never got into this to be a star.

Author: Bryan Adams

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

Author: Joseph Addison

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

Author: Joseph Addison

In the dance of life, embrace the rhythm of change and let your heart lead the way.

Author: Maya Williams

Pop is actually my least favorite kind of music, because it lacks real depth.

Author: Christina Aguilera

I could have a degree in music and come on the show, and Simon could still say 'You stink'.

Author: Clay Aiken

Music I heard with you was more than music, and bread I broke with you was more than bread. Now that I am without you, all is desolate; all that was once so beautiful is dead.

Author: Conrad Aiken

Choreography is mentally draining, but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.

Author: Alvin Ailey

My favorite type of music to sing is a crossover between country and pop.

Author: Lauren Alaina

As a musician usually music is your way out.

Author: Damon Albarn

Being in Blur has allowed me to travel and hear the music that's being made all over the world.

Author: Damon Albarn

Find people who think like you and stick with them. Make only music you are passionate about. Work only with people you like and trust. Don't sign anything.

Author: Steve Albini

By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry scum.

Author: Steve Albini

As Governor, I could think of only one way to unify our State that was made up of so many different climates, political beliefs and people, and that was our music.

Author: Lamar Alexander

It is a rare American who does not have some story about how music has made our lives richer and more interesting, how it has changed our moods, brought out the best in our character and even sometimes helped us earn a living.

Author: Lamar Alexander

I look in music magazines now and see things on Luther Allison, and my name's getting out there more, thanks to all the good people at Alligator Records and at my management company.

Author: Luther Allison

What I want to do, is play music for somebody who believe in me.

Author: Luther Allison

I just try to do as good job with the material as I can and play some jazz as well, some improvised music, and do that every night. Just see where it goes.

Author: Mose Allison

I've heard some tunes in recent years that were pretty close to that same idea. The idea was you turn on the radio and you want to hear some music and up comes a commercial.

Author: Mose Allison

I'm playin' the music I like.

Author: Mose Allison

I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.

Author: Mose Allison

The role of Barbara, in Music for Millions, was literally a tonic for me.

Author: June Allyson

So, to prepare for the role, I had to take music lessons, talk to wives who had husbands overseas, and carefully study the reactions and mannerisms of a friend who was expecting.

Author: June Allyson

Because of the wealth of fine music spread through the film, working on it held all the fun and excitement of attending a great concert.

Author: June Allyson

Knowing what I knew about Russia, as much as I loved the music and was fascinated by the songs and the whole idea of it, I knew it would be a very lengthy and frustrating process.

Author: Marc Almond

We just kind saw the images and knew the cliches, so to have the opportunity to go there and learn something about Russian music and about Russian people and to see things apart from being a tourist.

Author: Marc Almond

I thinks it really interesting how they throw the world music samples in there. I often wonder what it would be like to do something like that, but use my lyrics and my kind of style.

Author: Marc Almond

I was taken in by the bravado and the sounds of Mexico... not so much the music, but the spirit.

Author: Herb Alpert

I like to listen to classical music... I like mainline jazz.

Author: Herb Alpert

Instrumental music can spread the international language.

Author: Herb Alpert

Selfishly, I make music for me. I like to make music. I like looking for songs. I like working with interesting musicians. I like producing records. It's something I will always do.

Author: Herb Alpert

This was during a period when I was producing Brazil '66 records and got infected by Brazilian music.

Author: Herb Alpert

He has a method that likens the musician to an athlete, so I do physical exercises designed to keep a musician in shape in order to perform the function, which is to play music.

Author: Herb Alpert

I confess that I listen to my own music for my own pleasure.

Author: Herb Alpert

Sometimes a piece of music in the score isn't effective. When a score is too well finished with too many elements, sometimes it's too much.

Author: Alejandro Amenabar

Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

Author: Henri Amiel

If we ask a vague question, such as, 'What is poetry?' we expect a vague answer, such as, 'Poetry is the music of words,' or 'Poetry is the linguistic correction of disorder.'

Author: A. Ammons

That is what I did with Jack, and that's why he liked to do the readings with me because he knew I was there for him, and for our ability to blend the poetry and the music.

Author: David Amram

That by listening to some music, by reading some books, by looking at paintings, and most important by hanging out with one another - by collaborating with one another and creating your own network - you can achieve something that is much better than what is out there.

Author: David Amram

I learned from my uncle that jazz, like symphony music, was built to last.

Author: David Amram

Where words fail, music speaks.

Author: Hans Andersen

We simply write the kind of music we enjoy most and hope that our audience will enjoy it too.

Author: Benny Anderson

Women's music is underrepresented.

Author: Beth Anderson

Like most kids growing up, I had a very wide interest. I was interested in everything. I tried to take advantage of everything, from the sciences to music to writing to literature.

Author: Michael Anderson

I was lucky enough to be the lady that was asked to be Maria in the Sound Of Music, and that film was fortunate enough to be huge hit. The same with Mary Poppins. I got terribly lucky in that respect.

Author: Julie Andrews

With Geoffrey, it was the first time we did music together, we understood that everything could be well, and without any problem. And we didn't need to rehearse too much.

Author: Victoria Angeles

This quality, I mean Geoffrey was with me, was very easy doing - he loved me very much, I loved him very much, and we understood each other so well that it was a pleasure to make music.

Author: Victoria Angeles

I like what it is to sing, or to be with the others singing, to make music, but the fuss and all the things that are the exterior part of a career, has never interested me.

Author: Victoria Angeles

And after I compose my programs, but it is very easy because I look to the music in a very natural way without fuss, and so I look always music, in my home, like books and books and books, choose books and you read the pages, so I do this with music, and I make programs.

Author: Victoria Angeles

Yes, it must be something that goes very well with my voice, let's say something that I understand that this would be good communication with the others, and I don't pretend for instance, to look for music that would be something that doesn't go with my personality.

Author: Victoria Angeles

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

Author: Maya Angelou

I can easily say I've done everything I've wanted in music.

Author: Phil Anselmo

To me, I'm for a band whose forefront is the music.

Author: Phil Anselmo

What's really good is African drum music.

Author: Fiona Apple

The way I feel about music is that there is no right and wrong. Only true and false.

Author: Fiona Apple

Music video directors, who conceive, write and direct these works, enjoy no creative rights, receive no ongoing financial benefit from the sale of our work, and many times are not even credited.

Author: Michael Apted

After that I didn't listen to music as much because '70s music just wasn't... I remember all the songs, but it wasn't because I was into them, you know what I mean?

Author: Tom Araya

As long as it's good music, that's what's important.

Author: Tom Araya

Writing music is just something that I was born to do.

Author: Joan Armatrading

Classical, Romantic, and Baroque music, that's what I really like.

Author: Joan Armatrading

There are a lot of bands who claim to be punk and they only play the music, they have no clue what it's all about. It's a lifestyle. It's not about popularity and all that crap.

Author: Billie Armstrong

What annoys the hell out of me is the arrogance of some people. They don't even listen to our music, they decided in advance that they don't like it.

Author: Billie Armstrong

Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a lifestyle.

Author: Billie Armstrong

I don't want to limit myself musically. It would be really limiting if we'd neglect something we really want to do, like explore other styles of music.

Author: Billie Armstrong

Music - that's been my education. There's not a day that goes by that I take it for granted.

Author: Billie Armstrong

I guess to just keep playing music; to just keep outdoing the last record.

Author: Brody Armstrong

All I've ever wanted to do was play music and go on the road and make records.

Author: Brody Armstrong

Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, expels diseases, softens every pain, subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.

Author: John Armstrong

There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind.

Author: Louis Armstrong

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

Author: Louis Armstrong

Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.

Author: Louis Armstrong

Music is the social act of communication among people, a gesture of friendship, the strongest there is.

Author: Malcolm Arnold

Since in music we deal with notes, not words, with chords, with transitions, with color and expression, the musical meaning always based on those notes as written and nothing else - has to be divined.

Author: Claude Arrau

Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.

Author: Mary Ash

The best music of any era lasts well, I think.

Author: Peter Asher

I am still working with music, but Gordon and I no longer perform together.

Author: Peter Asher

Do not rely on unplanned music; it comes out as though it were planned, but planned by someone you cross the street to avoid.

Author: Robert Ashley

Music is the best means we have of digesting time.

Author: W. Auden

Music can be made anywhere, is invisible and does not smell.

Author: W. Auden

Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.

Author: John Audubon

The sexual embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer.

Author: Marcus Aurelius

I think today's music absolutely stinks. I really do mean that.

Author: Frankie Avalon

Applause should be an emotional response to the music, rather than a regulated social duty.

Author: Emanuel Ax

The sheer force of the music calls for a wild audience reaction.

Author: Emanuel Ax

The stage is close to being in the middle of the hall, so that the performers are surrounded by the listeners. I feel that we are all experiencing the music together.

Author: Emanuel Ax

People in England were coming up to me, saying, My mother and father turned me on to your music. This happened to me 20 years ago. When I was 40 they were saying that.

Author: Roy Ayers

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

Author: Roy Ayers

Most artists have contracts directly with the record company, and when they do music, all of their music is owned by the record company. But I did mine through a production company.

Author: Roy Ayers

I think music all the time.

Author: Roy Ayers

A lot of the hip hop artists don't write music. They write words.

Author: Roy Ayers

I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media.

Author: Milton Babbitt

Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.

Author: Johannes Bach

My masters are strange folk with very little care for music in them.

Author: Johannes Bach

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

Author: Johannes Bach

I listen to music for emotion and I get zero emotion from rap.

Author: Sebastian Bach

Metal is still the biggest music now in America.

Author: Sebastian Bach

You have got to make new music, that is the way that I look at it anyway.

Author: Sebastian Bach

I write my lyrics into the computer and I hum my music into the dictaphone.

Author: Sebastian Bach

I started playing piano with a little band in high school. I was terrible. I thought I had absolutely no talent. I couldn't keep time. I only got into McGill, which was a lousy music school, because they were taking American music students.

Author: Burt Bacharach

The music is the last thing I'm thinking about right now, in order of what's important.

Author: Burt Bacharach

My love, growing up on the Prairies, was country music.

Author: Randy Bachman

The local music community here was dying for a place to record, so we started doing acoustic, folk and bluegrass and then did rock projects for other bands, as well as for my son Tal and my own work.

Author: Randy Bachman

Those albums are so important to me because, for the first time, I was making my own music, paying for it, finding strengths in it, and going through the process of finding the right music for the record.

Author: Randy Bachman

I've made three studio albums and one live one with my brother. It's melodic singer-songwriter acoustic-rock music.

Author: Kevin Bacon

Hopefully my music is medicine, some type of antidote for something or some kind of explanation or just to feel good.

Author: Erykah Badu

As Erykah Badu, it has nothing to do with me, the way I look, my hair wrap, my style, it's about you and what you feel for my music. If I can make you feel like the way that people who influenced me made me feel, that's completion.

Author: Erykah Badu

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

Author: Erykah Badu

I don't read music or anything, so when I produce, I go basically by ear.

Author: Erykah Badu

I wouldn't want to be ideological about it but I think of it as being the best way to approach this kind of playing. I don't think it works in other music, other kinds of playing.

Author: Derek Bailey

Younger players in this music often turn out to be middle aged; it is not a young music.

Author: Derek Bailey

Playing music is not really susceptible to theory much. Circumstances affect it so much.

Author: Derek Bailey

Music tells no truths.

Author: Philip Bailey

I'd like to consider myself a versatile skater and I like to skate to different kinds of music.

Author: Oksana Baiul

I can't re-define music every week!

Author: Arthur Baker

In retrospect I realize that the threat was about ego rather than the validity of the music.

Author: David Baker

If I am playing any music at all it is jazz music.

Author: Ginger Baker

The British may not know much about music, but they certainly loves the noise it makes.

Author: Richard Baker

It is my hope that during my brief passage through this universe, that I may share with you the joy of hearing the music of the stars... knowing that the composer was from a distant place and the songs were written eons ago, which now fall gently on this place for all to hear.

Author: Richard Baker

Most of the animated films I watched, the emotions are all prepackaged like canned music, the hand actions, the sighs.

Author: Ralph Bakshi

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.

Author: James Baldwin

How you act, walk, look and talk is all part of Hip Hop culture. And the music is colorless. Hip Hop music is made from Black, brown, yellow, red and white.

Author: Afrika Bambaataa

The thing that's good about Hip Hop is that it has experimented with a lot of different sounds and music.

Author: Afrika Bambaataa

I don't see that there are any particular changes in popular music.

Author: Lester Bangs

Jazz of the sort we play is a happy, extroverted music. You don't have to think about it too much.

Author: Chris Barber

We play happy music, and we make people happy. That's why they like us.

Author: Chris Barber

We all write the music, and then Mark and Tom write the lyrics.

Author: Travis Barker

And I was in another band called Flash In The Pan, which was soca, Latin music, down in Laguna Beach.

Author: Travis Barker

I want to do all types of music, music for all people. I want my music to be encouraging, to help people.

Author: Fantasia Barrino

Music is 10% exhilaration and 90% utter disappointment.

Author: John Barrow

I cannot conceive of music that expresses absolutely nothing.

Author: Bela Bartok

When you are accompanied by the instrument - on an instrument like the lute-the lute and voice - you have this sound, and you feel how the music can be so touching and yet so simple.

Author: Cecilia Bartoli

So I like to make music, and I like to share music. This is also a gift.

Author: Cecilia Bartoli

I went to the Conservatory of Music in school in Rome.

Author: Cecilia Bartoli

Actually, I feel music becoming more and more important. It's a big source of inspiration. With what's going on in the world, we feel almost desperate. Music also brings you peace.

Author: Cecilia Bartoli

It's a dream come true, and with this music, with this Rossini, it's unbelievable how to express the joy and express the joy of the situation and the joy to play this music, to sing this music, it's really fantastic.

Author: Cecilia Bartoli

Music is a way to dream together and go to another dimension.

Author: Cecilia Bartoli

Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions.

Author: Jacques Barzun

Music fathoms the sky.

Author: Charles Baudelaire

You know, they wanted to do a Broadway album and every show was kind of a bomb. There was no music at all.

Author: Les Baxter

Any good music must be an innovation.

Author: Les Baxter

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

Author: Les Baxter

I write emotional music.

Author: Les Baxter

Well, a few years ago I think I could have given you a more enthusiastic answer about that but in the last few years, for the first time in my life, I really haven't listened to much music. I used to work with music on and now I don't.

Author: Ann Beattie

When I lived in New York, not only did I have safety locks on the door but I had the music going, keeping the city at a distance, trying to find creative time and peace and so forth.

Author: Ann Beattie