Musician Quotes & Sayings

When talking about writing, I often use the analogy of archaeology. There are these great tunes all around. Your skill as a musician allows you to pick them out without breaking them. — Pat Metheny

I've always considered it a great privilege to be a musician, I've never lost sight of that. — Natalie Merchant

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear. — Ralph Ellison

Legendary rock musician. Poet laureate of the working class. Voice of America's conscience. — Harrison Howe

The work of the painter, the poet or the musician, like the myths and symbols of the savage, ought to be seen by us, if not as a superior form of knowledge, at least as the most fundamental and the only one really common to us all; scientific thought is merely the sharp point more penetrating because it has been whetted on the stone of fact, but at the cost of some loss of substance and its effectiveness is to be explained by its power to pierce sufficiently deeply for the main body of the tool to follow the head. — Claude Levi-Strauss

That's one of the things about being married to a couple of musicians, I have got great iPods. That's what I was left with
an iPod each. — Pamela Anderson

I wasn't really that good at being a musician. And then I tried being a standup. I was an actor. I was a photographer. I tried everything. Nothing was particularly working for me, but then, as a musician, I wrote jokes for comics. And they started to buy my jokes, and that's where I thought maybe that might work — Garry Marshall

Every time I see a musician - it doesn't matter what age - that inspires me, there's always a secret little wish that maybe we'll play together, because that's how I learn and grow and so forth, you know. But hopefully there's a lot more. — Chick Corea

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from the love of the thing he tells, to the love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him — C.S. Lewis

Why does a little girl lose her emotional equilibrium in a moment of parental discipline, or a megastar musician forget who she is because of one criticism? Or why, when a text message or the subject line of an e-mail says, "We need to talk" (or for us pastors, "About your sermon") are we struck with a sudden feeling of doom? Why do we spend hours in the gym or in front of the mirror or online meticulously editing our social media profiles? Why is the perfect "selfie" such a large part of how we present ourselves to the world? Why do we live in constant disequilibrium about what our real or imagined critics might say about us? — Scott Sauls

My old man was a musician - that's what he did for a living. And like most fathers, occasionally he'd let me visit where he worked. So I started going to his recording studio, and I really dug it. — Dimebag Darrell

I fear that I won't get better and that I won't have time to practice. To be called a "jazz musician" - it's a big responsibility. — Esperanza Spalding

Interestingly, I matured as a musician and as an artist before I matured as a man. What I mean by that is, I was ready to be completely vulnerable and honest with myself and unapologetic when it comes to how I express myself in my medium. But I wasn't as secure in doing that when it came to just being myself. — Miguel

Fate and your dreams can collide — Joe Brooks

Of course, I would be depressed sometimes, and my Mom would be worried about me because I would just sleep to escape. Cause I was so scared of being a musician or artist, or whatever you want to call it. — Chantal Kreviazuk

Every musician in the known universe has signed a bad piece of paper, myself included. But it's really very simple. You're the artist. It's your picture that's going on the CD cover, nobody else's. Protect yourself. Get a good lawyer. You'll kick yourself later if you don't. — Bun E. Carlos

Music is the soundtrack to every good and bad time we will ever have. — Alex Gaskarth

I only say this because a lot of people seem to think that if you're a musician you want to be a celebrity. But most musicians in the world aren't celebrities, and pretty much everything about the concept of 'celebrity' is a complete load of bollocks anyhow. — Brooke Fraser

Adam Berenson knows how to compose, organize an ensemble, do musical research, play solo and trio piano, write for musical journals, and enlist others to his cause. A very fine musician. — Paul Bley

Once the jazz musician learns all the fundamentals they can keep track of a lot of choices in an instant. — Sheena Iyengar

When you act, you've got to be like a poet or a musician. It's not about evidence before court. It's not a forensic subject. It's poetry; it's a completely different place. — Rhys Ifans

Actually, Wilson's art can't fit into these neat categories. My own take is that the best way to think of Wilson is as an outsider musician, but one who actually happens to have a huge amount of talent. Much like, say, Wesley Willis, Wilson is focussed on having huge commercial success, but has little to no idea what actually counts as commercial. He's very easily swayed by people around him, so if he's told he should be doing three-minute pop songs, he does three-minute pop songs, and if he's told he should do epic suites about the American Dream, he does those. But at all times there are two things that remain true about him: he has an unerring ability as an arranger, and a directness that makes his music more communicative than any other music I've ever heard. — Andrew Hickey

Any musician with a slight level of self-awareness can be taught to write a 'good' song. A great song is completely original. It feels as if the performer is the only person who could bring it to life. — Greta Salpeter

I wouldn't buy somebody's album on a dare if they called him a musician's musician. I don't write to be a writer's writer. I don't want to be like the little-magazine writer. — Barry Hannah

I grew up in a time when being a musician and learning to be a musician was actually very wonderful. — Bobby McFerrin

A musician's whole life is to listen. — Wynton Marsalis

Musicians are affected by the audience just as much as audiences are affected by the musicians. The only problem is that often times musicians won't allow themselves to admit to that fact. — Hamid Drake

I could never overstate the importance of a musician's need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good 'inner ear' - the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening - is the most important element in becoming a good musician. — Steve Vai

Well it was one of those days
Larger than life
When your friends came to dinner
And they stayed the night
And then they cleaned out the refrigerator
And ate everything in sight
And then they stayed up in the livingroom
And cried all night
Strange angels
Singing just for me
Old stories
Haunting me
This is nothing
Like I thought it would be ... — Laurie Anderson

Music chooses her musicians. — Patricia Barber

I've always wanted to do a cutesy little song with a guy and girl singing back and forth and thought that Regina Spektor would be kind of cool for that. I love her voice. She's an amazing musician. — Brendon Urie

As a musician, I look for certain things that stimulate me. And what I look for is something that's an evolution on a particular genre that I never heard before. — Steve Vai

The only reward the musician receives is music: The privilege of standing in the presence of music when it leans over and takes unto its confidence. As it is for the audience. In this moment everything else is irrelevant and without power. For those in music, this is the moment when life becomes unreal. — Robert Fripp

I can get a tune out of most things with strings, but I'm not really sure I'm what could be called a musician. I find it fascinating working with people who can play other instruments and sing. — Withered Hand

I don't think of myself as "a lesbian musician." It's not one and alone. I think of myself as a musician. — Michelle Chamuel

Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artists is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may be beautiful - as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony — James Whistler

I love being a drummer but I love being a musician in general and I love the Foo fighters. — Dave Grohl

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts
such is the duty of the artist. — Robert Schumann

I've always just adored music. It's my first love, really. I admire and respect people in the music business. You really have to work hard and diligently. Sometimes actors can be lazy and get away with it, but you can't do that if you're a musician. — Blythe Danner

Being a musician is a given for me-I didn't have much choice in the matter. — Tom Morello

I wanted to get my recording and become a musician again, work; with other people, do that kind of thing because I kind of got away from that for a while once we started happening, you know, selling records, sold out concerts. — Bootsy Collins

Remember this, son, if you forget everything else. A poet is a musician who can't sing. Words have to find a man's mind before they can touch his heart, and some men's minds are woeful small targets. Music touches their hearts directly no matter how small or stubborn the mind of the man who listens. — Patrick Rothfuss

Wehehehehell, if it isn't Ollie-Ollie-oxidant-free ... "
You can take ... all the tea in China ... put it in a big brown ... bag for me.
He's as sweet as tupelo honey; he's an angel of the first degree.
Men with insight ... men in granite ... knights in armor bent on ... chivalry.
He's as sweet as ... tupelo honey; just like honey, baby ... from the bee."
=> For those who read and liked "When Irish eyes are sparkling"
Can i have a musician here? — Tom Collins

The one mentality I've always tried to have is that no matter what stage in your career that you are in as a musician or a performer or a songwriter or whatever, there's always more to learn. — Nick Jonas

I'm a keen musician. Me and my mates have a great times jamming and recording stuff. We have a great band behind us and have turned my nursery-rhyme songs into quite credible pieces of music. — Tom Felton

I had been raised a musician, but I was surrounded by artists. — Kiera Cass

Music is nectar for the soul. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

Jazz musicians are the coolest people on the planet. Can I have some cool? — Jon Stewart

The theatre is not the place for the musician. When the curtain is up the music interrupts the actor, and when it is down the music interrupts the audience. — Sir Arthur Sullivan

Pulpits today are full of preachers telling one-legged people to jump higher and run faster. Musician Rich Mullins once wrote, "I have attended church regularly since I was less than a week old. I've listened to sermons about virtue, sermons against vice. I have heard about money, time management, tithing, abstinence, and generosity. I've listened to thousands of sermons. But I could count on one hand the number [of sermons] that were a simple proclamation of the Gospel of Christ."4 — Tullian Tchividjian

So many policy decisions that effect musicians are being made without any input from musicians at all. — Erin McKeown

I know that Dad was an idol to millions who grew up loving his music and his ideals. But to me he wasn't a musician or a peace icon, he was the father I loved and who let me down in so many ways. After the age of five, when my parents separated, I saw him only a handful of times, and when I did he was often remote and intimidating. I grew up longing for more contact with him but felt rejected and unimportant in his life.
... While Dad was fast becoming one of the wealthiest men in his field, Mum and I had very little and she was going out to work to support us. — Julian Lennon

The human genome will not help us to understand the spiritual side of humankind, or to know who God is or what love is. The well-heeled couple who decide they want to use genetics to have a child that is a gifted musician may end up with a sullen adolescent who smokes marijuana and doesn't talk to them. — Francis Collins

When I like a musician I want to see a picture or a video of them. — Erika M. Anderson

When I was younger, I always wanted to be a musician, a performer and an entertainer - but I never thought about becoming a poster or anything like that. It's pretty cool. — Ross Lynch

Armstrong was the key creator of the mature working language of jazz. Three decades after his death and more than three-quarters of a century since his influence first began to spread, not a single musician who has mastered that language fails to make daily use, knowingly or unknowingly, of something that was invented by Louis Armstrong. — Dan Morgenstern

Find what you're best at and exaggerate it. — Steve Vai

People call me a bedroom electronic musician, which I suppose I am. But I hate most electronic music; I find it really boring. — Max Tundra

Although I have guitars all around and I pick themm up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics amd I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me. — George Harrison

People of talent resemble a musical instrument more closely than they do a musician. Without outside help, they produce not a single sound, but given even the slightest touch, and a magnificent tune emanates from them. — Franz Grillparzer

I'm a mother, and that's really important. Today, the mother and the musician can sit next to each other. Even when the musician is out there in full swing, the mother doesn't get switched off. — Tori Amos

She felt like a world-class musician standing before a full auditorium and handed a kazoo. — James S.A. Corey

Playing the Beethoven symphonies, for example, is a consummate experience for a musician because Beethoven speaks so directly to who we are as people. — Joshua Bell

In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal. — Lee Konitz

I like acting and being a musician. It's like comparing apples and oranges. But I really like my day job. I've always played music since I was 12, and I guess I always will. — Dennis Quaid

The musician writes for the orchestra what his inner voice sings to him; the painter rarely relies without disadvantage solely upon the images which his inner eye presents to him; nature gives him his forms, study governs his combinations of them. — Hermann Ebbinghaus

A very tall bearded guy was standing in a doorway, smoking a cigarette. "Hey", he said.
"Hi," I said. "Excuse me, do you rehearse here?"
"Yeah," he said, extending his hand and saying, almost formally, "Gibby Haynes. I'm in the Butthole Surfers."
I shook his hand. "Moby," I said. "I just moved upstairs."
"Are you an artist?"
"No, a musician."
"Oh, cool. Welcome to the building."
"Do you know who else has spaces here?" I asked.
"Well, there's us and Iggy and Sonic Youth and Helmet and Sean Lennon and the Beastie Boys and some other people," he said as someone behind him started making a wall of feedback. — Moby

He [Benny Carter] is all that every jazz musician the world over wants to be. He's performed 20,000 nights. How many shoes have been shined? How much mascara put on? Rouge? How many of those impossible bowties have been tied? How many love songs have been sung? How many dances have been danced? How many have passed to the sound of his music? It's been said that a man should not be forced to live up to his art. Benny Carter is one of the rare instances when we wonder whether the great art that a man has created can live up to him. — Wynton Marsalis

When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?' — Wynton Marsalis

I don't want to spend all my time working as an activist. I don't get satisfaction out of it. I'd rather be doing something else. I'm a musician. — Serj Tankian

I think that virtuosity is the first sign of morality in a musician. It means you're serious enough to practice. — Wynton Marsalis

As a musician or a performer, you're meant to know what you're about, but it's ridiculous that someone 14 would have any idea of what they're about. — Ben Lee

An entrepreneur without funding is a musician without an instrument. — Robert A. Rice Jr.

There are no Jerry Garcias coming down the pike, anymore than there is a Jimi Hendrix or Bob Marley. They are all at the same level - the highest level that you strive to get to as a musician. Me and my friends - we'll all be long dead, people will still be trying to dig into what Jerry Garcia did. — Trey Anastasio

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

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

I knew a lot of my musicians used to take coke. I never saw them. They would hide it from me, so I wasn't really aware of it. Creatively, I don't think it was that great. — Giorgio Moroder

I didn't have that intense ambition to be a musician or an actress. I just enjoyed it. And by enjoying it, because I loved it, it enabled me to get better at what I was doing, because there was a love behind it. — Lauryn Hill

I'm as big as snob as they come, but money is a terrible barometer of a person's worth. The standard I used is what a person is choosing to do with his life. So for me a struggling musician (someone dedicated to their craft, not some slacker) is much better than some lame investment banker. And the fact that she lied seemed like she was ashamed. She dismissed my anger as if I were overreacting. — Harvey Pekar

I don't really like to call myself a brand, and I don't like to think of myself as a brand. I'm a singer, a songwriter, a musician and a performer. And an actress, and all the other things that I do. When you add it all together, some might call it a brand, but that's not my focus. — Beyonce Knowles

There's no feeling as a musician better than being on stage, sharing music with strangers. People you have never met, singing along, and making that connection with somebody is so awesome. — Mike Fontenot

The true musician is attuned to a fairer harmony than that of the lyre ... for he truly has in his own life a harmony of words and deeds arranged in the Dorian mode. Such a one makes me joyous with the sound of his voice, so eager am I in drinking in his words. — Plato

When I was a kid, I would impersonate anything that I would hear. It's - actually, I attribute that more to why I actually was able to become a musician and a singer. — Justin Timberlake

I never wanted to be a performer, that was not one of my goals. I wanted to be a musician and that was that. — Barry Manilow

No man sings as beautifully as when his song is accompanied by a woman's voice. — Roman Payne

'SNL' is probably one of the premiere outlets that a musician can perform on that isn't obviously a music outlet. — Miguel

I don't consider myself a musician. I'm an artist. — M.I.A.

A painter's got a canvas. The writer's got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence. — Keith Richards

I don't have any desire to do something that sounds explicitly rock. Like, I don't have a burning need to be a rock musician. I feel like I've taken that as far as I can take it, for me. — Kim Gordon

To be honest, I know this probably sounds corny or whatever because I'm a musician, but listening to music really helps me relax and calm down - listening to my favorite songs. Also, laughing and hanging out with my friends. — Austin Mahone

My daughter Meredith Moon from my second wife has a band that does Appalachian music, with five-strong banjo, clawhammer style. I may have to direct her somewhere. Meredith was my middle name. I would have to direct her because I am always directing something. She's in the musician's union and she is only 21. Your kids surprise you. — Gordon Lightfoot

At a certain point, I became a kind of musician that has tunnel vision about jazz. I only listened to jazz and classical music. — Herbie Hancock

I think a politician would be very, very cool to play. Or an American musician of some sort, or like an American pioneer like the Dohenys or the Rockefellers or something. — Jake Abel

I've had my bubblegum years and I did them well. Now it's time to come back as the woman, artist, and musician that I am without apologizing. — Irene Cara

I grew up around music. My father was a professional musician. We used to have a trailer house that we travelled in. I've always loved music. Started out loving to sing to the standards and songs of the early 50s, then that interest shifted to rock and roll, Motown, folk. — Timothy B. Schmit

I'm a musician first, a food-lover second, a dirty mouth with feet, and a girl last time I checked. — Tori Amos

And as I grew older, I then auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music in London, and they said, well, no, we won't accept you, because we haven't a clue - you know - of the future of a so-called 'deaf' musician. And I just couldn't quite accept that. — Evelyn Glennie

I didn't want to be a sideman. My own style was coming out and I was into my own writing. I wrote a whole album, I arranged it all with pencil and paper. I did eventually do a lot of work with my father, but that was different. I was living at home; I wasn't a starving musician. I wasn't spoiled, but I wasn't going to have some producer come in and tell me what to play. — Shuggie Otis

I have a lot of musician friends. I worked in radio as a music director, and I know everybody hears about the George Straits and the Garth Brooks and the Kenny Chesneys and all that, but for every major star, there are thousands who didn't quite make it. — Robert David Hall

I became a professional musician and played all kinds of music. I played bluegrass, I played classical music, and for many years, I played jazz. — Terry Teachout