Free Music Quotes & Sayings

You have an entire generation of kids who grew up with the idea that music is something that you can download for free. — G-Eazy

When the music hits, you feel no pain, to quote Bob Marley. But it's true. It's like all art and creation: You're completely in the moment, and you just feel free. — Cory Monteith

I think what's happenin' is that, with the overflow of music, it's been diluted. There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio. — Ice-T

MUSIC IS THE ULTIMATE POWER
LOVE IS SIMPLY THE MESSAGE
AND THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE !!! — Prince

If the student truly absorbs the concept of free inquiry in the field of music, unimpeded by blind adherence to doctrine and tradition, he will bring something of this approach not only to other fields of knowledge but to the conduct of his daily life, — William Howard Schuman

Chess is my profession. I am my own boss; I am free. I like literature and music, classical especially. I am in fact quite normal; I have a Bohemian profession without being myself a Bohemian. I am neither a conformist nor a great revolutionary. — Bent Larsen

I hate this life of the fashionable world, always ordered, measured, ruled, like our music-paper. What I have always wished for, desired, and coveted, is the life of an artist, free and independent, relying only on my own resources, and accountable only to myself. — Alexandre Dumas

I think in America there's this free flow between fashion, art, architecture, music and design. In Europe, it's more segregated between those different disciplines, I think. — Marco Brambilla

All of the arts, poetry, music, ritual, the visible arts, the theater, must singly and together create the most comprehensive art of all, a humanized society, and its masterpiece, free man — Bernard Berenson

When you see the same familiar faces, it's nice when you get a chance to play with the same musicians. You start to develop this shorthand so everybody knows where you're at and where you're going, but then again, there are always surprises. But the more people are comfortable with the material, the more free you can be with the music. — David Sanborn

But how reassuring it was for us, you remember, every now and then ("Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"), to vibrate to the music of the very heartstrings of the Leader of the Free World who, to qualify convincingly as such, had after all to feel a total commitment to the Free World. — William F. Buckley Jr.

We started playing music from an early age and so we wasn't really aware of that side of it, the weird thing is the more successful you get the more free booze and drugs you get, they should be given to the bands who don't have the money. — Ville Valo

The song of thrush and blackbird, joy that falls so gently on the ears to celebrate another day of life and living, flying free. — John McLeod

It's odd to spend your vacation with someone else's music especially when you're alone. You're free to let loose, unobserved, but someone else has chosen the words you belt out in private, the rythms you can dance to like a fool. — Julia Glass

The music filled the room, making the windows shake. I'd forgotten how much I loved to dance. It didn't take long before I was letting go of Princess Catherine and dancing like Cathy-and it felt good. Free and fun. I bumped butts with Patricia, wrapped a boa around Chadwick, and laughed as Daniel did the YMCA. — Nichole Chase

Rhyson's words set my heart free like a stampede of wild notes across a music staff, falling off the lines, running off the page. I'm a composition out of control, without form. Freestyled. Improvised. Unsure of where we're going, but certain that it's right. Sure that in the end, it will be a thing of beauty. "You — Kennedy Ryan

The music and the dance themselves are the 'drug'. Once the three portals of the human's being are in synch; once the music fills the heart and the mind and the soul of the individual, the body automatically takes over in a free form expression of the self. It's an incredible feeling that permeates every fiber of your being. — Dennis DeRoche

I feel like Harriet Tubman, except I am trying to free people through underground music, to free themselves creatively and inspirationally. — Janelle Monae

It was then that we connected. His sound bounced through my head and out my eyes, painting my world with new shades of color. I still remember the smile that unnoticeably took my face as I inched for another touch. — Charles Lee

Stop saying drug use makes people lazy. Jimi Hendrix did a lot of drugs, even though he's been dead for forty years, he's still making new records. Suck on that, Partnership for a Drug-Free America! — Bill Maher

Zhou," Biyu said, when Sabaa paused, "before the Jade Emperor, humans were just like the beasts in the field. We ate, lived and reproduced, but we were going nowhere. The universe is order in all its perfection, stagnant and unchanging. The wars set us free. Free to change, to learn, to adapt, to become more than we were. To do that, we sacrificed order for a measure of chaos, of challenge. It let some people, men and women, do evil, but even that inspired many more to do good. Medicines, writing, music, architecture, all the accomplishments of your Empire came at a high price, but it was worth paying. Tonight we reaffirm that fact. Without the power we grant the Jade Emperor from the realms we represent, we would lose all that we have gained. The universe would reassert its control. Over the years, order would take charge once more and progress would end. Given time, our race would slide back into the beasts we were once. It is something we could not survive. — G.R. Matthews

Music is the one thing on this earth that allows us to be truly free.
Music has no boundaries or rules and never asks for anything in return, only that you listen to it.
It can make you cry tears that you thought you never had.
It can also inspire you to fight on, when all hope is lost.
For that, I am forever in your debt — Harry

I wish I could free myself from making music that has a dancefloor-function, or at least try to focus more on all the other elements in music. — Hans-Peter Lindstrom

In a certain sense, these were lessons I learned by playing with Indian musicians. The rhythmic forms that they use are very complex, and very challenging. In order to play in fifteen, or eleven, or seven or even five, you have to have mastered that time in order to be able to be free with the music. — John McLaughlin

I'm going to keep on finding out the kind of man I am through my music. That's the one place I can be free. But the reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time. — Charles Mingus

Q. Which is my favorite country?
A. The United States of America. Not because I'm chauvinistic or xenophobic, but because I believe that we alone have it all, even if not to perfection. The U.S. has the widest possible diversity of spectacular scenery and depth of natural resources; relatively clean air and water; a fascinatingly heterogeneous population living in relative harmony; safe streets; few deadly communicable diseases; a functioning democracy; a superlative Constitution; equal opportunity in most spheres of life; an increasing tolerance of different races, religions, and sexual preferences; equal justice under the law; a free and vibrant press; a world-class culture in books,films, theater, museums, dance, and popular music; the cuisines of every nation; an increasing attention to health and good diet; an abiding entrepreneurial spirit; and peace at home. — Albert Podell

Jazz exemplifies artistic activity that is at once individual and communal, performance that is both repetitive and innovative, each participant sometimes providing background support and sometimes flying free. — Mary Catherine Bateson

I haven't a single friend; I must live alone. But well I know that God is nearer to me than to the others of my art; I associate with Him without fear, I have always recognized and understood Him, and I have no fear for my music,-it can meet no evil fate. Those who understand it must become free from all the miseries that the others drag with them. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

But none speaks with a single voice. None with a voice free from the old vibrations. Always I hear corrupt murmurs; the chink of gold and metal. Mad music ... — Virginia Woolf

Whenever you play dance music, it serves a function. It becomes a utility; you have to worry about the tempos and what you're going to play for people. But when you're playing for listening, you're free. — Stan Kenton

People should be free to take whatever they want from music and I think that over time I realized that different people always find different things in my songs, which is really good. — Courtney Barnett

In my teenage years I was as addicted to great pop as I was to free jazz, electronic music, and hardcore blues. — Scott Walker

You can kill people with sound. And if you can kill, then maybe there is also the sound that is opposite of killing. And the distance between these two points is very big. And you are free
you can choose. In art everything is possible, but everything is not necessary. — Arvo Part

I tend to gravitate to the darkest or most obscure part of any venue in an effort to have my own space to experience the music on my own, free from unwanted conversations and other distractions. — Henry Rollins

When I dream about music, or think about music, by myself, I try to be as free as possible and allow my creative mind full reign. — John Dieterich

With some people, that love of music is just buried in them. It's so deep in them that they would play for free because they have to. — Kim Basinger

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find love love love love
Listen to the music of the moment people dance and sing, we're just one big family
It's our God-forsaken right to be loved loved loved loved loved
((I'm Yours)) — Jason Mraz

Music has been already devalued by the consumer. There's an expectation that it should be free so the race to the bottom has already been won. — Colin Meloy

Kids are taking music for free all the time. They have Spotify, Pandora ... The record companies aren't making the kind of music that they used to make. Artists make their money on tours, not from album sales. — Malcolm D. Lee

I write music when I'm free and for no particular project in mind. — Serj Tankian

Dancing inspires my music. Having your girlfriends all together and just being free and happy. — Bella Thorne

Laughter is a holy thing. It is as sacred as music and silence
and solemnity, maybe more sacred. Laughter is like a prayer, like
a bridge over which creatures tiptoe to meet each other. Laughter
is like mercy; it heals. When you can laugh at yourself, you are
free. — Ted Loder

Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom ... In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved, and the music is so free that many people say it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country. — Duke Ellington

I don't worry so much about whether people are buying my music or getting it for free. — Corey Smith

When radio stations started playing music the record companies started suing radio stations. They thought now that people could listen to music for free, who would want to buy a record in a record shop? But I think we all agree that radio stations are good stuff. — Niklas Zennstrom

I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad's quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free. — Nat Wolff

Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean? ... Did you ever hear music up there? ... It's the music a man's spirit sings to his heart, when the earth's far away and there isn't any more fear. It's the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world. — Dalton Trumbo

Music, the most abstract and uncanny art, is an eternal river of sound moving through time. We can free ourselves from whatever may be holding us back, and join that flowing river. — William Westney

Also, because people like to multitask, in a way if you've got a bit of music on in the background and the lyrical content is making you want to listen to it, then that would probably put you off the texting you wanted to do. I think people like things that just make that right kind of noise, but leave your brain free to do something else. — Jarvis Cocker

Street skating, which is what I grew up with, is completely free of rules. You can do anything. When I see a skater go by, I think, What is this person going to do here? It's the same with people who write, who make music, who draw, who make movies. Creative people tend to have all of those different avenues in them. — Jeffrey Deitch

rhythmic drums were pumping waves of emotion into both of them. Her lusty eyes looked at him with a penetrating stare. Fionna's naked breasts pressed against Dick as they came together to dance. Dick faced Fionna and he held her tight. His naked rippling muscles pushed against her firm aroused female flesh. Dick danced with his wife Fionna. Then he grabbed the guitar to stroke a few chords of ecstasy. Another man was pounding the drums while Fionna danced naked in front of the live audience. Fionna made harmony with Dick as the throbbing beat made her explode with excitement and pleasure. He touched her deep inside with his music. He made love to her with his instrument. Each stroke of the guitar was like a motion of erotic love. Dick made her feel as if her body was quivering inside. — Fionna Free Man

She didn't mind the sacrifice. It seemed enough for a life, to give yourself to music the way nuns give themselves to God. To vow. To surrender. Only music, after all, made life bearable. Only with music did she feel--what was it? Free? Happy? No, it was something else. Awake. — Carolina De Robertis

I first came to Brazil in the Sixties. Then I started coming back every year since touring most of the country. I grew to love it, the people, the music. I thought this is where I belong. I've been living in Brazil for the past 23 years. I call it my stress-free country. — Dionne Warwick

In music, sometimes a man will feel that he comes to the edge of breaking out from prison bars of existence, breaking out from the universe altogether. There is a sense that the goal is at hand; that the boundary wall of the universe is crumbling and will be breached at the next moment, when the soul will pass out free into the infinite. — Walter Terence Stace

Free improvisation, in addition to being a highly skilled musical craft, is open to use by almost anyone-beginners, children, and non-musicians. The skill and intellect required is whatever is available. Its accessibility to the performer is, in fact, something which appears to offend both its supporters and detractors ... And as regards method, the improvisor employs the oldest in music-making ... Mankind's first musical performance couldn't have been anything other than a free improvisation. — Derek Bailey

Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest...
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves' voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must seen him torn. — Luci Shaw

Hacker with Bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"
Prospective Station Wagon Buyer: "I know what you say is true ... but ... er ... I don't know how to maintain a tank!"
Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"
Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."
Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks, we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"
Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak! — Neal Stephenson

No one likes to work for free. To copy an artist's work and download it free is stealing. It's hard work writing and recording music, and it's morally wrong to steal it. — Gary Wright

For the music business, social networking is brilliant. Just when you think it's doom and gloom and you have to spend millions of pounds on marketing and this and that, you have this amazing thing now called fan power. The whole world is linked through a laptop. It's amazing. And it's free. I love it. It's absolutely brilliant. — Simon Cowell

I think there's just been this "thing" that's developed, this way that we have of talking about our music that alienates people. And I fall into that too! I learned that in graduate school. You just talk about your music in a specific way, and that separates people from you. But some composers like that. Schoenberg liked that. He wanted to feel that he was making music for an elite few. That's fine for him, but I want to set myself free from that sort of attitude. — Missy Mazzoli

My idea is that artists should make their music available for free, and fans should only pay for it if they really like it. — Kim Dotcom

Here's how I learned to improvise: I played some music in the studio and I started to move. It sounds obvious, but I wonder how many people, whatever their medium, appreciate the gift of improvisation. It's your one opportunity in life to be completely free, with no responsibilities and no consequences. You don't have to be good or even interesting. It's you alone, with no one watching or judging. If anything comes of it, you decide whether the world gets to see it. In essence, you are giving yourself permission to daydream during working hours. — Twyla Tharp

I have a new nickname. A few of the guys have noticed that I am reading the bible on my free time. I am now 'preacher.' Not very fitting, if you ask me. Don't preachers have to stand up and teach people? I guess it could be worse. Some of the guys were talking about their favorite kind of music. Nobody said classical. I wasn't surprised, and I didn't volunteer my preference. Later on, I was talking to Tyler Young, and he asked me what I liked to listen to, so I told him about Beethoven. He asked me what songs I liked. I told him I especially liked Air on a G String - big mistake!! He thought I was talking about women's underwear. He's calling me 'G' now. I think I prefer Preacher. Tyler has a big mouth, especially when he thinks he's going to get laughs, and before I knew it, he'd told everyone about Air on a G String. Now I'm 'Preacher G. — Amy Harmon

I like to believe a true fan of music or an artist has a genuine respect for what the artist does and has a distinct understanding of their actions. In that buying an album they are helping the artist to continue making music. It's hard because everyone wants something to be free. — Ben Howard

In the home of this music, alas, religious fanatics have lately started killing the musicians. They think the music is an insult to god, who gave us voices but does not wish us to sing, who gave us free will, rai, but prefers us not to be free. — Salman Rushdie

For mile after mile the same melodic phrase rose up in my memory. I simply couldn't get free of it. Each time it had a new fascination for me. Initially imprecise in outline, it seemed to become more and more intricately woven, as if to conceal from the listener how eventually it would end. This weaving and re-weaving became so complicated that one wondered how it could possibly be unravelled; and then suddenly one note would resolve the whole problem, and the solution would seem yet more audacious than the procedures which had preceded, called for, and made possible its arrival; when it was heard, all that had gone before took on a new meaning, and the quest, which had seemed arbitrary, was seen to have prepared the way for this undreamed-of solution. — Claude Levi-Strauss

Very few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization. We call these millions men; but they are not yet men. Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disengage him. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

After you free yourself from the incredible expectations of love through the media from the time you were so high, you realise that it's the spaces between the notes that make music. — Hector Elizondo

And so all great music,
great prose,
everything beautiful
must depend upon the sure,
free measure with which it is gardened
and put into language for the people,
for each lovely thing
has its intrinsic value
and belongs in its own position
for the world to study,
understand and thrive upon. — Robert Henri

Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it - even if we so desired. — Boethius

Mix-tapes are something that have been going on for a while. They've been pretty important to hip-hop for the past 10 years. It's the way we advertise our music to the public for free. — Wale

Having your beautiful woman free and uncovered, for all to see, with everyone knowing that she's with who she chooses - you - and that no one else, no matter how much they want her or lust for her, can lay a finger on her." He focussed on Mae. "Tell Hansen what you studied in school."
She wasn't expecting the question and presumed he wasn't talking about her military training. "Music," she said.
Hansen, however, was one step behind. "You went to school?"
"All our women do," said Justin. "They can learn what they want, take on what professions they want, and be with the men they want. We don't cover them up either. We let them show off their beauty. And we don't let men who are full of themselves crush others who've done the work. A man who serves gets his rewards. They aren't snatched up by others. — Richelle Mead

Think of music as being a great snarl of a city [ ... ]. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning an clever.
Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You'd think she'd be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone. But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn't know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn't. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free. — Patrick Rothfuss

Besides language and music, it [mathematics] is one of the primary manifestations of the free creative power of the human mind, and it is the universal organ for world understanding through theoretical construction. Mathematics must therefore remain an essential element of the knowledge and abilities which we have to teach, of the culture we have to transmit, to the next generation. — Hermann Weyl

I can remember dancing around living room with my two sisters to the music of Paganini and Mozart. I can still remember my dad combing the newspaper, circling all the free concerts in town, and on the weekends, we would go as a family. — Lindsey Stirling

In a society of increasingly mass-produced, assembly-line entertainment, where every individual is treated like an empty pitcher to be filled from above, jazz retains something of the spirit of the handicrafts of yesteryear. The print of the human spirit warms it. Deep down, jazz expresses the enforced & compassionate attitudes of a minority group and may well appeal to us because we all have blue moods and, in a fundamental sense, none of us is wholly free. — Marshall W. Stearns

Music was transmitted over the airwaves in the '60s - for free, even - astonishingly enough without Bit Torrent. — Andrew Rosenthal

In so far as I listen with interest to a record, it's usually to figure out how it was arrived at. The musical end product is where interest starts to flag. It's a bit like jigsaw puzzles. Emptied out of the box, there's a heap of pieces, all shapes, sizes and colours, in themselves attractive and could add up to anything
intriguing. Figuring out how to put them together can be interesting, but what you finish up with as often as not is a picture of unsurpassed banality. Music's like that."
From "Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation" by Ben Watson, Verso, London, 2004, p. 440. — Derek Bailey

Music has the potential and the capability to create something much bigger ... it has the capability to be completely free, to do anything. And I think you limit that idea when you put yourself in front of it, in a way. — Karin Dreijer Andersson

My mom is a painter and an artist. She would play music, and she always had very good taste in music, fashion, and art. She was also a young single mom, so I think she had really good style; she was really free ... just really inspiring in her own way and allowed me to find the direction I wanted to take in my life. — Ruby Rose

Music is how I get free. It's a way to shut the rest of the world down and create your own world within it. I'm not thinking about what's going on around me. It's definitely an energy thing, and I'm in a zone. — Gift Of Gab

I sing God's music because it makes me feel free. It gives me hope. With the blues, when you finish, you still have the blues. — Mahalia Jackson

I mean, the way I see it is, every penny I've ever made through music is free money. — Melissa Auf Der Maur

I'm especially interested in the music of John Cage ... I would like to do some experimenting with the relationship between his freeform sound and free-form art. — Jasper Johns

A way to make new music is to imagine looking back at the past from a future and imagine music that could have existed but didn't. Like East African free jazz, which as far as I know does not exist. — Brian Eno

Public radio is the last oasis of free and independent music. For satellite radio channels, you have to subscribe; commercial stations are as corporate as basic cable. — Nellie McKay

The power and magic of music lie in its intangibility and its limitlessness. It suggests images, but leaves us free to choose them and to accommodate them to our pleasure. — Wanda Landowska

I just got in music because it was a hobby. I got into clubs for free, got to drink for free and left with the hottest girl from the night. I never dreamed it would be for me to go on this kind of ride at all. — Shaggy

Children do not need half a dozen sports, music, art, or theater activities. Kids actually need more free playtime without adult instruction. — Laura Schlessinger

I've been very lucky, man. Like you say, though, the writing is what kicked all that in and made it possible. It's something that I have always been very thankful of, that that kicked in, and that I could be free with the music. — Tony Joe White

Music critics get their records for free so their opinions usually don't matter. — Marilyn Manson

Nd I smile
and know
why people write music and paint and dance, lifted as if they can fly,
because this ache
crashing inside
needs to be free.
sometimes, love
becomes a melody
others hum for years. — Pat Mora

I got started when I was 3 years old because my father was a music teacher and my lessons were free. Instead of learning to walk, you learn to play the piano. — Carla Bley

If you haven't got a gun, you can't shoot anyone. We need to look at how these guns are getting into our communities. It's about replacing the negativity with good stuff. Give kids music studios in the community they can use for free and see how they learn to work together. Football and music unify kids. — Ashley Walters

Lord, send Your life throughout the entire church. Visit Your church; restore sound doctrine and holy, earnest living. Take away from professing Christians their love of frivolities, their attempts to meet the world on it's own ground, and give back the old love of the doctrines of the Cross and Christ. May free grace and dying love again be the music that refreshes the church and makes her heart exceeding glad. — Charles Spurgeon

I do want for people instead of downloading music for free, to start purchasing, that's how everyone makes their living, that's how I make my living too. So, it would be nice for people to start actually paying for it. — Shanice

Would you like to see where I will build your house, m'lady?"
She grinned. "You mean our house?"
He mirrored her smile. "Aye."
Taking her hand, he led her along the path to the mouth of the River Coe. They stood on a curved peninsula high above the river where it would be free from floods. Hugh spread his arms wide and looked across Loch Leven. "The hills of Glencoe will be our backdrop, the river of the Coe will be our music, and our galleys will sail through the water of the Leven to Loch Linnhe and out to sea. Mark me, my love, Clan Iain Abrach will rebuild, and will once again rule these lands."
He looked into her eyes and saw joy there. "And you will be my queen. — Amy Jarecki

They keep you doped with religion, and sex, and T.V.
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see — John Lennon

In order for music to free itself, it will have to pass over to the other side - there where territories tremble, where the structures collapse, where the ethoses get mixed up, where a powerful song of the earth is unleashed, the great ritornelles that transmutes all the airs it carries away and makes return. — Gilles Deleuze

In theater and dance, I was trying to win someone's approval, trying to get in, trying to be good. It felt out of my control, whereas music suddenly felt like this free expression. It was fun. — Susanna Hoffs