Music Learning Quotes & Sayings

I come from the ocean with songs of the sea
No lesson for learning, just play upon me
Now go make your music in lands near and far
Orion protects you wherever you are — Jimmy Buffett

I'd love to be a saxophonist. I don't know why, but I pretend I'm the saxophonist when I listen to music. I have about as much chance playing the sax as I do learning how to fly. — Richard Price

A lot of my friends have been collectors, and I owe a lot to them. I'm always interested in sharing collections and learning that way. I used to trade tapes a lot. I still have a few friends who I trade music with, but it's hard to find the time. I miss that. — Michael Dumontier

Learning how to improvise really awakened my interest in music. — Carter Burwell

The most intelligent inspection of any number of fine paintings will not make the observer a painter, nor will listening to a number of operas make the hearer a musician, but good judges of music and painting may so be formed. Chess differs from these. The intelligent perusal of fine games cannot fail to make the reader a better player and a better judge of the play of others. — Emanuel Lasker

If I don't need the money, I don't work. I'm going to spend time with my family and friends, and I'm going to travel and read and listen to music and try to learn a little bit more about how to be a human being, as opposed to learning how to be somebody else. — James Spader

Learning from other people is what music is all about. — Neil Young

Learning" virtue - becoming virtuous - is more like practicing scales on the piano than learning music theory: the goal is, in a sense, for your fingers to learn the scales so they can then play "naturally," as it were. Learning here isn't just information acquisition; it's more like inscribing something into the very fiber of your being. Thus — James K.A. Smith

When children ask me what's my favorite [role], I say to them, "Imagine having ten beautiful new puppies in a basket and you had to say which one is your favorite, and you simply couldn't because you love them all for different reasons." POPPINS was such a learning experience, as was THE SOUND OF MUSIC. I tell you, every one of them just helped me grow in what I do and did and each one was such a phenomenal working experience. — Julie Andrews

I'm still learning about music. The best way to learn is to listen to the audience. When you listen to the audience, they will tell you what they like. I wish these big corporations, instead of telling the audience what they should have, would listen. — Tony Bennett

When I was young, I wanted to be a writer or painter. I was always writing stories, and I excelled at drawing. My teachers encouraged my art work. When I was 9 or 10, I began learning piano and started writing music. — Bat For Lashes

And I realise the only way to tell the others
is through the way my voice can take these broken words
and turn it into music.
Turn it into poetry.
And I sing to make myself come alive,
but also for you,
because I'd like this to mean something.
To not disappear with the dark I will enter one day
and so now I will tell.
If not for you, then for my own heart,
because it tells me to,
and I'm learning to listen. — Charlotte Eriksson

I consider the first 20 performances just learning the piece. Think about it this way: If you think about a pianist who plays a Schubert sonata through his whole lifetime - if you listen to Rubenstein or Horowitz playing their repertoire later in their life, you understand the richness with which they play that music, and how differently they must have played it when they were younger. — Philip Glass

When I got a little bit older I wanted to play piano - that's all I wanted to do. I remember learning how to play a blues progression on the xylophone in music class and thinking "This is the greatest thing I've ever learned." — Zooey Deschanel

As long as we keep learning new music and getting better musically, there's a good chance that the record deal won't change anything. — Mike Gordon

I'm learning about filming, and just conceptualizing as well. I think it's a good artistic inroad, even to music as well. — Stevie Jackson

I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning — Plato

Some of the guys I played with .. didn't go around learning more about their instruments from an intellectual point of view. All they wanted was to play hot jazz, and the instrument was just a means. I'd imagine that a lot of them criticized me-said my technique was too good. Something like that. But I've always wanted to know what made music. How you do it, and why it sounds good. I always practiced, worked like hell. — Benny Goodman

Years and years ago, I read a great interview with Jam and Lewis, the R&B producers, in which they described what it was like to be members of Prince's band. They'd sit down, and Prince would tell them what he wanted them to play, and they'd explain that they couldn't
they weren't quick enough, or good enough. And Prince would push them and push them until they mastered it, and then just when they were feeling pleased with themselves for accomplishing something they didn't know they had the capacity for, he'd tell them the dance steps he needed to accompany the music.
This story has stuck with me, I think, because it seems like an encapsulation of the very best and most exciting kind of creative process. — Nick Hornby

I can remember just learning to walk and trying to dance like Elvis and sing like Elvis, so I was very, very passionate about music at a very young age. — Drake Bell

Imitation is being rewarded. They're learning that if you fit right in the mold, you get rewarded. Music is no longer a form of expression - it's a means to a lifestyle. — Mike Watt

I'll always be a student, because I think of music as never ending. — Lenny Breau

The modified Mozart used by Tomatis, Paul, iLs, and others over time in an individualized therapy must be distinguished from claims made in the media in the 1990s that mothers could raise the IQ of their children by having them briefly listen to unfiltered Mozart. This claim was based on a study not of mothers and babies but of college students who listened to Mozart ten minutes a day and improved IQ scores on spatial reasoning tests - an effect that lasted only ten to fifteen minutes! Hype aside, different studies by Gottfried Schlaug, Christo Pantev, Laurel Trainor, Sylvain Moreno, and Glenn Schellenberg have shown that sustained music training, such as learning to play an instrument, can lead to brain change, enhance verbal and math skills, and even modestly increase IQ.] — Norman Doidge

Part of the joy of music is listening to lots of different kinds of music and learning from it. Specifically for me, I like writing songs that move me, and what moves me are beautiful songs on the piano or the guitar and really, really heavy music. — Ryan Adams

I don't like reading music. It's like learning a language. You can't read music proficiently overnight. It takes time, it's boring work. — William Eggleston

I didn't come to Nashville to put on a cowboy hat and pretend to be a country singer. My attraction to Nashville as Music City is the variety and flexibility: the fact that there's so many musicians at your disposal, so many amazing studios and talented people that you can draw from ... I try to be myself, but at the same time I'm learning a lot, and I'm pulling from not only from the well of inspiration that I'm getting from Nashville, but I'm pulling from my roots. — John Oates

I still have a lot to learn. I'm concentrating on learning a lot more about music. — Tony Bennett

For me, making music is a continuous learning experience, and I think that it feeds itself. — Atticus Ross

School of Rock. The best music school anywhere. This whole idea of getting kids not just taking lessons and learning notes and chords, but learning songs and playing with other young musicians, and getting out on stage ... I was so impressed that my daughter Cheyenne goes to School of Rock on Long Island. — Dee Snider

A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music's simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It's different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I'm mutating country and folk more than a few degrees. — Stone Gossard

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail. — Luciano Pavarotti

I attended the High School of Industrial Arts and studied with many great artists as painting is something that you never stop learning about. Actually, in high school there was a time that I was thinking about just concentrating on painting and I asked my music teacher, Mr. Sondberg, for advice and he encouraged me to stick with the music as well. So all my life I have been singing and painting. — Tony Bennett

..it is helpful to think of your
life not in terms of work but in terms of music - particularly a symphony. A symphony, traditionally, has
four parts to it - four movements, as they're called. So does Life. There is the first movement, infancy;
then the second movement, the time of learning; the long third movement follows, the time of working; and
finally, this fourth movement, traditionally called "retirement," though now that is an increasingly
complex concept. It is much better to think of it as the Fourth Movement, a triumphant, powerful ending to
the symphony of our life here on earth. — Richard N. Bolles

It's fun and super exciting to see how other people work, how other people write music, and how other people put things together. To me, it's an endless learning process, and I love doing it because everybody works so completely differently. — Alison Mosshart

I've translated two of Bae's novels, A Greater Music and Recitation, which are coming from Open Letter and Deep Vellum in October and January respectively. A Greater Music is a semi-autobiographical book centred on a Korean writer moving to Berlin, learning to live and even write in a foreign language. — Deborah Smith

I think this industry can be tough on everyone. You have to surround yourself with supportive people and know when to put your foot down and do what's best for you and your family. The first few years in the music industry can be a steep learning curve, and I've definitely developed a thicker skin! — Rebecca Ferguson

Corporations, in the name of efficiency, suppress variation by "getting all the ducks in line."To optimize productivity, they evolve highly refined and internally consistent operating systems. Payoff - results - as long as the music lasts. But ... all that streamlining and re-engineering limits diversity, suppresses self-organization ... and curtails a bottom up emergent response to disruptive change. — Richard Pascale

I don't want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music, and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine. — Rumi

There are different people who got me into music, but what I liked about Beethoven is that even when I didn't understand it or it was too long, there's still something about it that drove me to it. Then it got me excited about actually learning music, like a theory of it. — Albert Hammond Jr.

I get up, and boy, I can't wait to paint and study music and keep learning. I just love it. — Tony Bennett

...as a pianist, I can't say I was always a big fan of contemporary music. The challenge of late Beethoven, or Mozart, or Schubert seemed to me to be somehow greater or more worthwhile than that of learning difficult, ill-placed notes. To me, the kind of transcendence in the older pieces really was more interesting. That's not to say I didn't love the contemporary pieces I did play. I became very attached to the ones I learned, and I played them with pleasure and absolute commitment. It may be terrible to say this, but playing some of that music is like having a handicapped child. You love it all the more for the problems that it gives you. — Leon Fleisher

You learn from experiences, and I suppose that's where I color most of my music, from experiences. — Pharrell Williams

I didn't have a regular school experience and wanted a more abstract way of learning. I started exploring in lots of different creative ways. It gave me the opportunity to travel and play music, so it was good for me. — Brie Larson

I can't read music and I'm crap at learning lyrics. Especially since the accident I have memory problems. I can't remember words, names, places. — Marc Almond

I started off with violin, then I started learning guitar, then I went to piano. But I self-taught piano just because I enjoyed it. I've always really enjoyed music. — Jesse Spencer

Music is stored in our long-term memory. When we learn something through music, we tend to remember it longer and believe it more deeply. Dr. Joyce Brothers — Joyce Brothers

Okay... well... learning the two-step is like learning to ride a bull. It ain't easy. You gotta feel the bull's rhythm and move with it. Let the bull lead you. Alright... put your weight on your left foot." I do as he says, knowing without him needing to further illustrate, that I'm the bull rider and he's the bull. — Giorge Leedy

Let me put it this way. Love is like learning how to dance. When you first hear the music, you're full of passion and you don't care who's watching because you just want to fling yourself around like an idiot. It's clumsy and it's full of missteps and falls and sometimes you're not even dancing to the same tune, but you don't notice because you're so carried away by the music.
But then the music begins to wane, and you start stepping on each other's toes. Some think that's the truth of the relationship and run. But the truth is, that's where true love begins. That's when you start to learn each other's rhythm and how to move together. And if you stick with it long enough, you might even learn to be graceful. — Richard Paul Evans

Thus, if a composer wants to produce music that is relevant to his contemporaries, his chief problem is not really musical, though it may seem to him to be so; it is a problem of attitude to contemporary society and culture in relation to the basic human problem of learning to be human. — John Blacking

Playing live is about going for it .. it's about bringing it ... you should see a bunch of people trying out stuff, actually performing, instead of learning the record and recreating it note for note. I can't play the show the same way every night .. I really need to be in a creative environment, every night or I'll go nuts ... my manager accuses me of singing just long enough to get me to my next guitar solo - which is true ... — Brad Paisley

I view life as a learning experience. It is not so much all about music; it is about what happens when you are doing the music. — Michael Schenker

If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. — Mark Twain

I think my mom always wanted to play the guitar, and somehow she projected that to me. So I started learning to play guitar when I was five years old, but actually I'd never managed to get the academic side of it. So even up to today, I don't know how to read or write music. — Gustavo Santaolalla

Surveys of thousands of gamers have shown that they're more likely to play real music if they play a music videogame. So it's an interesting relationship where the games aren't replacing something we do in real life, they're serving as a springboard to a goal we might have in real life, like learning to play an instrument. — Jane McGonigal

Music is a continual learning process. One finds new insights all the time. For me, it began at a very early age; from the beginning, there was something besides the notes. — Joshua Bell

You never know what will spark a student's interest and feed the flame of learning. For me, all subjects are connected: writing, reading, science, art, music, math, social studies. By presenting myself as a writer with wide ranging passions - for astronomy, volcanology, art, music, history, and community service - I hope to inspire not only budding writers but also budding scientists, artists, activists... — Elizabeth Rusch

Learning and performing music have been rewarding, both physically and mentally. They helped me to mature and grow as a person. — George Li

It is in learning music that many youthful hearts learn to love. — Matthieu Ricard

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music. — Giuseppe Verdi

Kids on the Youtube, learning how to be cool. — Toby Keith

Learning improves in school environments where there are comprehensive music and arts programs. They increase the ability of young people to do math. They increase the ability of young people to read. And most important of all, they're a lot of fun. — William J. Clinton

We had a music teacher in sixth grade, and I saw her tune her guitar. I said, 'Whoa. There's a certain way to do this.' I bought a packet of strings - some of mine were broken - and had her tune it for me. For a while, I just kept it like that. But I got the Internet finally, when I was 14, and started learning. — Brittany Howard

I think I learned the most from Eminem because I spent the most time with him in the studio. Going to L.A. with Dre was a learning experience, just seeing how the dude works and being up-close and personal with a dude whose music I appreciated growing up. — Obie Trice

I think people who basically do one thing like Eric Clapton is great. But I've always enjoyed playing different kinds of music and playing with different kinds of musicians because I find that really interesting, like learning and working with Kip Hanrahan. There's a great conga player called Milton Cardona and he taught me a lot of the nuances, he's a Santeria Priest and so he knows his onions as it were. — Jack Bruce

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

It is possible I never learned the names of birds in order to discover the bird of peace, the bird of paradise, the bird of the soul, the bird of desire. It is possible I avoided learning the names of composers and their music the better to close my eyes and listen to the mystery of all music as an ocean. It may be I have not learned dates in history in order to reach the essence of timelessness. It may be I never learned geography the better to map my own routes and discover my own lands. The unknown was my compass. The unknown was my encyclopedia. The unnamed was my science and progress. — Anais Nin

Whether I'm being influenced by new music that I'm listening to, books I've read, my friends, or my faith, I'm learning all the time. — Hayley Williams

The music industry is something that I'm still trying to understand. With acting, I've been doing it for so long that I understand every aspect of it for the most part - there are obviously still more aspects that I need to learn - but I have a grasp on it. With music, I'm still learning. I'm still getting used to it. — Keke Palmer

There are a lot of people, especially the younger generation who don't feel that they need to support the artists by buying their music because they grew up learning that record companies are evil. — Bob Mould

I've always been fascinated by music and sounds. I was lucky to receive proper classical training as an orchestra player and I'm always learning as a composer, looking to create new flavors and colors. — Lior Ron

Music had always had the ability to help ease my suffering. I sang a great deal at home. I sang to myself and to Lord Imery. Sometimes, I played the harp to accompany myself. Learning such a graceful instrument had filled my heart with pride. I loved the feeling of adding something beautiful to a room.

I looked down at my shaking hands. There were no melodies left in those withered fingers. — Julie B. Campbell

Man, you'd be surprised how much I'm learning - not only about myself, but about the musicians who came before me. You don't realize at first when you listen to Armstrong's records how great this man was and how hard that Hot Five music was to play. After the experience of reading and playing those parts, I have an even greater respect for Louis Armstrong than before — Freddie Hubbard

I try and absorb all the things that I respect in the artist's I've worked with.When we work with someone on, Live From Daryl's House, we really get inside their music which gives me an even broader idea of the writing process. I think I'm always learning from everything in life. There are really songs everywhere. — Eliot Lewis

That folk music led to learning to play, and making things up led to what turns out to be the most lucrative part of the music business - writing, because you get paid every time that song gets played. — Jackson Browne

I've tried to get the angel to watch MTV so I can learn the vocabulary of your music, but even with the gift of tongues, I'm having trouble learning to speak hip-hop. Why is it that one can busta rhyme or busta move anywhere but you must busta cap in someone's ass? Is "ho" always feminine, and "muthafucka" always masculine, while "bitch" can be either? How many peeps in a posse, how much booty before baby got back, do you have to be all that to get all up in that, and do I need to be dope and phat to be da bomb or can I just be "stupid"? I'll not be singing over any dead mothers until I understand. — Christopher Moore

I started learning the piano at the age of 4 or 5, so I think I already liked music then. — Yoko Shimomura

You're always learning so much from people and how they work and what their processes are. Some people like to listen to music before they get into it, and some people can talk all the way up to, "Action!" Everybody is different. — Evan Peters

Unlike at the Academy or the Lyceum, women, some of them concubines and mistresses, as well as a few slaves, joined the conversation; further, many of the students here had arrived without academic credentials in mathematics or music, de rigueur for entry to the other Athenian schools of higher learning. Everyone in the Garden radiated earnestness and good cheer. The subject under discussion was happiness. — Epicurus

When I was in Utah there, first learning the kind of music I love, my favorite singer was T. Texas Tyler. So my friend, Norman Ritchie, the traveling teenage sage, started calling me U. Utah Phillips. — Utah Phillips

Especially girls, but any kids exposed to music programs and arts programs do much better on their tests. They have a better chance of going to college. They can focus better. You know, we're not just automatons learning how to work machines and do engineering and math and science. All of that's great, but you've got to build a whole person. — Bonnie Raitt

Did you learn?"
The face in the corner watched the flames. "I did." There was a considerable pause. "Until I was nine. At that age, my mother sold the music studio and stopped teaching. SHe kept only the one instrument but gave up on me not long after I resisted the learning. I was foolish."
"No," Papa said. "You were a boy. — Markus Zusak

I wanted to reexamine the idea of the album for generations of people who are not my age, who love music or learning about music or are finding this band called R.E.M. or have just previously heard "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts" as their elevator music. I wanted to present an idea of what an album could be in the age of YouTube and the Internet. — Christopher Bollen

I've been a full-time composer for many years, and I'm still learning all the time. There is always more than one musical "solution" to each movie scene, but my goal is to compose music that works perfectly for the director, and me! — John Keltonic

The resulting action is based on informed intuition, or as he calls it, "superthought." In jazz, superthought goes beyond determining the "right" answer: It allows one to see new possibliities where others see only more of the same, and to construct the rate "useful combination." Perhaps we can superthink our way through choice by learning the fundamentals of its composition, and then using the knowledge to create more music where there might otherwise by only noise. Insisting on more when one already has a great deal is usually considered a sign of greed. In the case of choice, it is also a sign of the failure of the imagination, which we must avoid or overcome if we wish to solve our multiple choice problem. — Sheena Iyengar

I would rather be on stage playing to 25 people with a band I love and the music I love than learning dance moves I don't want to do for 25,000 people. — Drake Bell

Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist. — Cameron Crowe

In the United States, we spend millions of dollars on sports because it promotes teamwork, discipline, and the experience of learning to make great progress in small increments. Learning to play music does all this and more. — Linda Ronstadt

I'm learning as I go. The music has drawn me out of my shell. It's made me open my door a little more and be able to look at people in the eye. — Daniel Powter

I work with a lot of music programs and there's a steep learning curve to a lot of them. You can really find yourself trying to figure out how to do things, instead of making music. Now I have another tool with the Surface music kit. — Joe

It's interesting to do other people's music - that's how I learned to play, by learning other people's songs. It's nice to delve into how other people got to where they are. — Meshell Ndegeocello

If your going to learn to play lead guitar, get an electric guitar .. it doesn't have to be an expensive one .. acoustic guitars aren't good for learning lead, because you can't play up very high on the neck and they take heavier-gauge strings which makes it hard to bend notes — Eddie Van Halen

You cannot go wrong by learning classical music because it trains the ear. — Kiesza

My mom had this romantic notion of her children playing classical music. The idea is you learn it when you're still learning language. It's using the same part of the brain. — Andrew Bird

Most beginners want to learn lead because they think it's cool .. consequently, they never really develop good rhythm skills .. since most of a rock guitarists time is spent playing rhythm, it's important to learn to do it well .. learning lead should come after you can play solid backup and have the sound of the chords in your head — Eddie Van Halen

You see, that is it with music, you never stop learning. — Dennis Brown

Most artists, you know, you spend their entire lives learning how to play music and write songs, and they don't really know how the music business works. — Moby

We love to learn because learning feels good. It both satisfies and stimulates curiosity. Reading a good book, having a meaningful conversation, listening to great music - just doing these things make us happy. They have no extrinsic purpose. To give them one takes away from their joy. — Zander Sherman

Form is what transforms the content of a work into its essence. Do you understand? The character of music arises out of its form like steam from water,' Yury Andreevich said. 'With solid understanding of the general laws of form, which encompass all that is amenable to formulation, one can, by groping further, perceive the individual, the particular. Then, subtracting the general, one can sense a residue where wonder lurks in its purest, most undiluted form. Herein lies the goal of theory: the more fully one grasps what is available for comprehension, the more intensely the ineffable shines. — Lyudmila Ulitskaya

I got to know Elton John's older music by learning to like his newer stuff. 'The Lion King?' That's what I like. — Aaron Schock

I actually think in music, learning technical stuff doesn't matter. You can be as technical as you like, but still sound awful. — Sean Lennon