Quotes & Sayings About Music

Look at you. You're young. You're scared. Why are you so scared? Stop being paralyzed. Stop swallowing your words. Stop caring what other people think. Wear what you want. Say what you want. Listen to the music you want to listen to. Play it loud as fuck and dance to it. Go out for a drive at midnight and forget you have work the next day. Stop waiting for Friday. Live now. Do it now. Take risks. This life is yours. — Anonymous

Times were changing in the world of id. They had finally fired Jason, narrowing the group to Carmack, Romero, Adrian, and Tom. But something else was in the air. The Reagan-Bush era was finally coming to a close and a new spirit rising. It began in Seattle, where a sloppily dressed grunge rock trio called Nirvana ousted Michael Jackson from the top of the pop charts with their album Nevermind. Soon grunge and hip-hop were dominating the world with more brutal and honest views. Id was braced to do for games what those artists had done for music: overthrow the status quo. Games until this point had been ruled by their own equivalent of pop, in the form of Mario and Pac-Man. Unlike music, the software industry had never experienced anything as rebellious as Wolfenstein 3-D. The — David Kushner

[On being asked how it felt to be the first female conductor of the Boston Symphony:] I've been a woman for a little more than fifty years, and I've gotten over my original astonishment. — Nadia Boulanger

I came late to the genre of folk music. — Tom Morello

Dance music will always be around. People around the world love to dance. — Kaskade

The older the violin, the sweeter the music. — Larry McMurtry

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy. In the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms, so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea. That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife. — Audre Lorde

In his Dialogue "Timaeus" Plato had a demiurge to create the globe-shaped world according to musical laws, including the human soul. Fifteen hundred years later, that still found an echo in the Renaissance. And in those days the architects realized that the musical harmonies had spatial expressions
namely, the relationships of the length of strings, and spatial relationships were precisely their only concerns. Because both the world and the body and soul were composed according to musical harmonies by the demiurge architect, both the macrocosm and the microcosm, they must therefore be guided in their own architectural designs by the laws of music. — Harry Mulisch

When we cannot see, we don't judge. Small wonder when we kiss, cry, laugh, make love, are in pain, pray and listen to music, we close our eyes. — Sabine Shah

I decided to start my own label because so many people with talent come to me wanting to know how they can get in the music business. — Mary J. Blige

It's time to write dangerous music. It's time to take risks. It's time to wear your heart on your sleeve, and sing about the things that actually matter to you. It's time to bury the shackles of religious expectation and stop trying to put new clothes on the dead. — John Mark McMillan

Sometimes the music just has to tell the story without you trying to tell the story. It depends on the type of music you want to make. If it makes you feel good and party then you go with that. If it makes you feel like speaking on something real and doing a story then it's the beat just has to have the story. — Tyga

I like to use my voice as an instrument and just play along with the music. That's really how I tend to my voice. The content usually comes after or during that process of just trying to be an instrument. — LeCrae

Southern girls are God's gift to the entire male population. There is absolutely no woman finer than one raised below the mason-dixon line and once you go southern may the good Lord help you - you never go back — Kenny Chesney

I've found that no matter what life throws at me, music softens the blow. — Bryce Anderson

When I hire musicians, I look for that first: every time they sit down do they go for it, you know? And do they try to learn the music and try to get inside the song whatever the tune is? Whether it's my originals or someone else's, it's just whether or not they're gonna play their hearts out, first and foremost. — Mike Stern

Your pain is your own until you put it to music, then it belongs to everyone. You'll find it lightens the load. — Beau North

Art, music, and philosophy are merely poignant examples of what we might have been had not the priests and traders gotten hold of us. — George Carlin

My mother had to explain that one couldnt compose a Liszt rhapsody because it was a piece of music that Liszt himself had composed. — Sergei Prokofiev

When I was on the ice, in the lights, with the music and the motion, there was a certain kind of flirtation that gave great energy and expressiveness to my performance. — Peggy Fleming

I think all groups who don't fit in clearly with Western music have to think, 'How can I expand my market? Where else can I perform?' — Kiran Ahluwalia

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

How do I transform pain. I guess the number one way in which I do that is by working on music, but also it can be anything from just talking about it with other people or doing kickboxing or meditating or running around with dogs. Or just simply trying to sit with it and be mindful and be aware of it. — Moby

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away. — Peter Tork

I don't need an award to inspire me to keep making music. — Jake Bugg

I think people are complacent about sound, because we're so limited by the textures and timbres we hear in music, but in our everyday life we hear the most incredible things. — Herbert

[On Werner Erhard, founder of est:] If I wanted a new belief system, I'd choose to believe in God - He's been in business longer than Werner, and He has better music. — Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

I think the Flecktones are a mixture of acoustic and electronic music with a lot of roots in folk and bluegrass as well as funk and jazz. — Bela Fleck

I don't ever use my name for anything in terms of getting the music heard. — Dhani Harrison

The African people and tribal chiefs are hospitable, and African music and dances are invigorating. — Li Keqiang

To me,music is oxygen & I know that someday even if I can't sing,I can always continue listening to it. — Shreya Ghoshal

Why don't you find out for yourself?
Then you'll see the glass, hidden in the grass. — Morrissey

A love song must respect the canons of music beauty, entering the fibers of those who are listening. It must make them dream and pleasantly introduce them to the universe of love. — Andrea Bocelli

Rock 'n' roll doesn't glorify God. You can't drink out of God's cup and the devil's cup at the same time. I was one of the pioneers of that music, one of the builders. I know what the blocks are made of because I built them. — Little Richard

I don't think our music has much to do with math rock. — Ian Williams

The beauty of the flute was in its simplicity, in its resemblance to the human voice. It always sounded clear. It sounded alone. The piano, on the other hand, was a network of parts - a ship, with its strings like rigging, its case a hull, its lifted lid a sail. Kestrel always thought that the piano didn't sound like a single instrument but a twinned one, with its low and high halves merging together or pulling apart. — Marie Rutkoski

Music lives within thy lips Like a nightingale in roses. — Philip James Bailey

I don't really listen to much music. — Richie Furay

I want to be a person crazy about music. — Minzy

Anything you are shows up in your music - jazz is whatever you are, playing yourself, being yourself, letting your thoughts come through. — Mary Lou Williams

Sometimes I observe with curiosity that uninterrupted activity which, independent of the subject of any conversation I may be carrying on, continues its course in that department of my brain that is devoted to music. — Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

I think the music I've created is quite odd, and people are going to start talking about that. — Ed Sheeran

I play the piano and write music. — Anwar Robinson

I hope to have a long career, and I don't want to be defined by things that aren't the music. — James Bay

Music is the most abstract of the arts; dance, the most concrete. — Marty Rubin

Violence existed before our music was even suggested. — Big Pun

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you're dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. — Alan Watts

You see all races in music, and in dance and theatre, so why can't we see it in fashion? — Naomi Campbell

For our ancestors music was something that you sat down to listen to, or which you made for yourself. It was a ceremonial event, in which you participated, either as a passive listener or as an active performer. Either way you were giving and receiving life, sharing in something of great social significance.
With the advent of the gramophone, the radio and now the iPod, music is no longer something that you must make for yourself, nor is it something that you sit down to listen to. It follows you about wherever you go, and you switch it on as a background. It is not so much listened to as overheard. — Roger Scruton

Often the inspiration to write music comes from the voices in your head. You're not crazy. Just be thankful they are not making you rescue people in 20-degree weather at 2:30 in the morning in the forest. — Shannon L. Alder

I don't think I'd get caught up in the crazy side of the music industry because it's just not in my nature. — Pixie Lott

Jazz is really 20th-century fusion music. You take West African harmony and rhythm, mix with European harmony, and boom! — Christian Scott

If Barbra Steisand wants to make a picture called 'My Pink Fingernail,' the studios will go, 'Gee, Barbra, what a wonderful idea! Money is no object! Take two years in preproduction and write the music, and you'll direct.' — Mickey Rooney

For the transcendental quintessence of good music can never be found or felt in the warring breast of the beast. And he who is incapable of gratitude and compassion is incapable of being good and doing good. — Mariano Ngan

The music is the imperative. It has the upper hand. I think all music, even though it's an abstraction, does motivate a particular meaning. Then it's the job of the musician to honor that meaning and to somehow implement lyrical material that can accommodate that emotional environment. — Sufjan Stevens

Even if it was a song I didn't particularly like, I needed to record it, listen to it and drink it in. I had caught the music bug. — Jamie Jones

People consume music in a very different way. It doesn't seem to be as all-important as it used to be for us. Kids have got computer games and a million other things to keep themselves entertained. We had music and our imaginations, and that was it. — Midge Ure

Even if I'm writing music, it's with a lyric in mind, to communicate some kind of feeling. — Cass McCombs

All music is nothing more than a succession of impulses that converge towards a definite point of repose. — Igor Stravinsky

Luna Sea's music moves quickly but intelligibly, with a darkly frenetic, creative energy. — Josephine Yun

The music defied classification. If I had been writing a
review of the show, I would have labeled it progressive,
guitar-driven rock 'n' roll. But the guitars made sounds guitars
didn't always make. Symphonic sounds. Sacred sounds.
The music dug in so deep you didn't hear it so much as feel
it, reminding me of a dream I used to have when I was a kid,
where I would be standing on a street corner, I would jump
into the air, flap my arms, and soar up into the sky.
That's the only way I could describe the music.
It was the sonic equivalent of flight. — Tiffanie DeBartolo

There is another peculiar satisfaction in really hearing someone: It is like listening to the music of the spheres, because beyond the immediate message of the person, no matter what that might be, there is the universal. Hidden in all of the personal communications which I really hear there seem to be orderly psychological laws, aspects of the same order we find in the universe as a whole. So there is both the satisfaction of hearing this person and also the satisfaction of feeling one's self in touch with what is universally true. — Carl Rogers

The invention of the iPod changes how you use music. Suddenly you have music everywhere. — Spike Jonze

When I grew up in Ireland in the seventies there was no such thing as therapy ... I mean we didn't even have cappuccinos until 1998! So for me music was therapy, it was also the place where one could speak about himself, where he was allowed to speak about his traumatic experiences. — Sinead O'Connor

When I'm in America, I like to be near the sea, listen to music, watch films, read and write. — Michael Sheen

There is a lot of music in the world that I love that does not always get the appropriate exposure. — Moby

I don't really have a style icon but I really admire the way people dress like Gaga, Rihanna and Gwen Stefani. It's good to be inspired by singers who write music and dress incredibly - rather than models and people in the fashion industry who dress immaculately anyway because it's their style. — Ellie Goulding

I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back here telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it. — John Darnielle

Punk [rock] seemed like rock 'n' roll music utterly without the music. — Steve Winwood

Who speaks of art speaks of poetry. There is not art without a poetic aim. There is a species of emotion particular to painting. There is an effect that results from a certain arrangement of colors, of lights, of shadows. It is this that one calls the music of painting — Edouard Vuillard

But music, don't you know, is a dream from which the veils have been lifted. It's not even the expression of a feeling, it's the feeling itself. — Claude Debussy

Human beings were made for music. Its thrill and rapture are picked up almost immediately by little children — Edward O. Wilson

One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards will be at one's throat all the sooner. — David Mitchell

Nothing fortified me, and simple loneliness all but destroyed me, yet I felt swamped by the belief that life must mean something- otherwise why was it there? Why was anything anything? — Morrissey

There ain't no devil, only God when he's drunk. — Tom Waits

The aim and final reason of all music should be none else but the glory of God and refreshing the soul. Where this is not observed there will be no music, but only a devilish hubbub. — Johann Sebastian Bach

Music is the most absorbing of all the arts. It absorbs the mind of the artist, whether creator or executant, to the exclusion of every other consideration outside his own immediate necessities or desires. — Baroness Orczy

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

Broadway musicals, where you sing the whole time, I really don't like; I like alternating dialogue and music. — Pedro Almodovar

There's a whole gamut of things to do with film music that don't apply when you're making a record or if you're writing a concert piece or something. — Henry Jackman

Love was the greatest of enchantments; if Echidna and her children succeeded in killing Kypris, Thelxiepeia would no doubt, would doubtless ... Become the goddess of love in a century or less, said the Outsider, standing not behind Silk as he had in the ball court, but before him - standing on the still water of the pool, tall and wise and kind, with a face that nearly came into focus. I would claim her in that case, long before the end. As I have so many others. As I am claiming Kypris even now because love always proceeds from me, real love, true love. First romance. The Outsider was the dancing man on a toy, and the water the polished toy-top on which he danced with Kypris, who was Hyacinth and Mother, too. First romance, sang the Outsider with the music box. First romance. It was why he was called the Outsider. He was outside - — Gene Wolfe

He sort of breathes music. — Gayle Forman

I'm not just influenced by the '60s - it's who I am. I grew up with Allen Ginsberg and Che Guevara. I flirted with various forms of communism when it was way out of style. It was this really strange and creative time in music and culture, and it was fabulous. — Thom Mayne

It definitely seems like we are connecting with people, which is nice, because I've had a lot of music do the same for me. It's not like I don't I understand why we get the reactions we do. — Jon Crosby

I have always loved music and singing, and I am open to listen to any type of music. Regardless of my mood, my heart is always set racing when I listen to opera. When I decide which music I want to hear, my choice is almost invariably an opera recording. — Andrea Bocelli

In symphonic music, when you are conducting, you do the same thing. You are feeling the whole orchestra, thinking ahead so you can prepare for a change. — David Amram

I'm living the dream. I've got a big tour bus, an incredible band, a big house, and a family that are all taken care of through my music. I've got a beautiful wife and three beautiful kids. — Aaron Watson

When I lived in New York, there wasn't as much TV or film around. I got asked to do a couple of indie films, just based on me being from The Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle. I did a couple of indie movies from Japan and one from Canada, and I thought it was an exciting, fun thing to do. I had a great time doing it, it was just that, in New York, there really wasn't as much. My studio in New York closed, so I moved out to L.A. and just started looking into composing as another thing to do, as a musician. I like it a lot. It's fun and it's a different way of thinking about music. — James Iha

A dense undergrowth of extension cords sustains my upper world of lights, music, and machines of comfort. — Mason Cooley

Everybody was in tears. You turned on the radio or the television, and it was nothing but Gainsbourg. With typical British music journalist disdain, I just figured it was a testament to how poor French pop was if there was this much fuss about a guy who had one hit record, 'Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus)'. — Sylvie Simmons

The way I choose to show my feelings is through my songs. — Marianne Faithfull

But this music. This music has limbs that can hold me into morning. — Aimee Herman

Music is an important part of my writing process. — Peter James

The water in music the oar forsakes. The air in music the wing forsakes. All things in move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars. — John Muir

Capoeira is a game, it is dance, it is fight, it is of war and it is of peace, it is of culture, of music, it is a portion of things. — Reinaldo Ramos Suassuna

There's been times when I've been standing in a line at a movie and someone's hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful. — Eddie Vedder

The art of the colorist has in some ways elements of mathematics and music. — Paul Signac

It is possible to enjoy the Mozart concerto without being able to play the clarinet. In fact, you can learn to be an expert connoisseur of music without being able to play a note on any instrument. Of course, music would come to a halt if nobody ever learned to play it. But if everybody grew up thinking that music was synonymous with playing it, think how relatively impoverished many lives would be. Couldn't we learn to think of science in the same way? — Richard Dawkins

There's also something happening in television similar to what happened in the '80s, when people stopped taking so many drugs and wanted to hear real instruments in music again. I think people want plot, story and characters. Those are more important than having a big star. — Jessica Pare

My son is the reason why I write music. He's the reason why everything is different for me. Because when he came into the picture, my priorities changed. I can risk possibly being incarcerated because the only person pays for it is me. I know that if I'm not physically available to take care of him, nobody else will. I want to have the relationship with him that me and my father never had. — Curtis Jackson