Quotes & Sayings About Performing Music

The possibilities are endless now, with performing, getting your music online, getting your own website and getting your music out there. I think that's very cool and amazing. — Dave Gahan

Music is exciting and easy to enjoy, the rhythm and voice.
It does not need interpretation. That is why it is called the Universal Language. — Ellen J. Barrier

My life with the Beatles had become a trap ... I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn't said that the Beatles were 'bigger than Jesus' and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas! God bless America. Thank you, Jesus. — John Lennon

As a teenager I was obsessed with music and with writing and performing songs. — Anthony Minghella

I love composing and writing music and dancing and performing and conceptualizing creatively for visual mediums. I love to create. — Michael Jackson

Fact is that I played piano and performed, as a young kid, a Mozart piano concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra . Don't forget I was only eleven-years-old and to be on the stage at that age had tremendous impact on me. Basically love for classical music and performing as a kid on the big stage probably led toward this decision, which meant that music is going to be my big love but also my profession. — Herbie Hancock

I created this picture of this character who would play the guitar effortlessly, who had no limitations, performing beautiful music, and he moved around with great acrobatic skills, just capturing the audience and being a great entertainer. — Steve Vai

What's interesting is a lot of the older music when we start performing it, it acts a lot like muscle memory. It's kind of like riding a bike. For me as a singer, I just had to remember like what part of my face I sang that into. — Brandon Boyd

For a long time in the 1970s, I was experimenting to build musical instruments and use them. I did a lot of ethnic music studies and other things, like electronic music. Making homemade musical instruments and performing was my major activity from the time. — Yoshi Wada

Starting in music, where I get a chance to connect with the lyrics of a song, I learned so much about performing on stage and connecting to your audience and to what you're singing about. Singing is very emotional. Every song has its own purpose. — Naturi Naughton

The Nile Project is the performing side of an effort that also includes education in music and environmental issues, raising awareness of the entire Nile basin as an ecosystem. With such vibrant music, the good intentions were a bonus; the Nile Project was a superb example of what I call small-world music, of what happens to traditions in the information age. — Jon Pareles

It's all about going out there, performing live, making music. But, obviously, being a guy who has thousands of screaming female fans doesn't exactly make it less fun — Zac Hanson

People have these incredible expectations. So instead of being inspired by, say, Joni Mitchell's music, I look at it and say to myself, 'I'm going to quit - why would I think of writing or performing after listening to that?' — Idina Menzel

I have such happy memories of performing in a choir and I don't think I'd have got where I am today without all that experience. So my advice to young singers is to either join your school or church's choir or find one in your local area. Choral music at any level teaches you so much about musicianship and blending your voice. — Katherine Jenkins

I feel connected to a higher power when I'm making music or performing. There's a spiritual experience for me. — Laura Bell Bundy

I was working at a non-profit for five years. But I could always create music after work. All throughout those years, I was writing songs and recording music and performing around town. — Jussie Smollett

There are any number of models artists can use to profit off of their talent and artistry. It is not up to the state to protect them from competition. Musicians can obviously get paid for performing and having their music copied and "pirated" helps them in this respect by making them more well known, more popular. — Stephan Kinsella

They have difficulty when being observed (at work, say, or performing at a music recital) or judged for general worthiness (dating, job interviews). But there were also new insights. The highly sensitive tend to be philosophical or spiritual in their orientation, rather than materialistic or hedonistic. They dislike small talk. They often describe themselves as creative or intuitive (just as Aron's husband had described her). They dream vividly, and can often recall their dreams the next day. They love music, nature, art, physical beauty. They feel exceptionally strong emotions - sometimes acute bouts of joy, but also sorrow, melancholy, and fear. Highly sensitive people also process information about their environments - both physical and emotional - unusually deeply. They tend to notice subtleties that others miss - another — Susan Cain

I guess you could say the beginning of my career as an actress was when I started performing in music videos. — Sheri Moon Zombie

It is with great disappointment and regret that after having the privilege of writing and performing the music of The Black Crowes over the last 24 years, I find myself in the position of saying that the band has broken up. — Rich Robinson

But I just love that music scene so much, and I enjoy really being around those artists and watching them even more than I do performing, because they are a whole group of people that do it because they love music. — Lee Ann Womack

I started writing music when I was around twelve. My current record company saw a video of me performing at my school's talent show. — Lorde

Especially now, with 'Glee,' it's allowed a lot of kids to love music and performing at a young age. All ages watched 'American Idol,' but I think it was nice to be able to show kids, 'Hey, you can be here, too.' — David Archuleta

I enjoy touring. I enjoy recording the music, I enjoy dreaming it and I enjoy performing it. I also definitely enjoy selling it, because I like to eat. — Anthony Hamilton

Going from someone playing 15-people venues to performing at the Grammys, it was this giant leap and sort of showed me it was possible with what I wanted to do and the kind of music I wanted to write and artist I want to be to impact a lot of people. — Mary Lambert

I was a teenager doing teenager things, and now I have the honor of being on tour with musical giants Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull. I'm doing my music and performing in my own concerts! It just goes to show that anything is possible with hard work. — Prince Royce

I have no experience performing that music live in front of an audience. So that remains to be seen. I'm very excited to see what that's going to be like. — Tom Wopat

Actually, I would love to make a music video. Maybe it would finally put to rest those persistent rumours that have followed me throughout my career - particularly when I was on camera performing - that I had died. — Perry Como

I was always tinkering around with stuff but nothing serious at the time. I was doing animations and drawing like crazy, but I wasn't imagining that I'd be performing music for people, that's for sure. — Chad VanGaalen

I know if I wasn't making music and acting, I would be involved in the performing arts world in some way. I would be either writing and making music for other artists or producing movies. — Claudia Lee

Most of my career has been about standing on a stage performing music to an audience, and once the show is over, they go home and I go on to the next show. — Greg Lake

I want to continue to remain present and grateful each day that I get to be doing what I love. Making and performing music I believe in. — Rachel Platten

Music has been a huge passion of mine ever since I started playing the piano at age 3. Going to concerts, performing on my own, and listening to my favorite artists growing up confirmed that love for music and made me want to pursue it as a career. — Daya

Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists. — Lara St. John

It's a luxury to not have to just be performing with other people to have my music heard. — M. Ward

Today is hard because I'm thinking about tomorrow. And I'm thinking about what I've lost. But I had days like this even before Minnie died. Days I just checked out. Gran says it's just the blues. Everybody gets the blues. Maybe that's all they are. But they feel more like grays than blues, and more black than gray sometimes. It's always worse after I've been working too hard, singing night after night, pouring myself out all over the stage so people can lap me up. I love it, the singing, the performing, the people, the music, but sometimes I forget to save something . . . the something that is essentially me, and my light goes out. Sometimes it takes a while to get it burning again... But you have a key, Finn, and I give you permission to come on in," I said. "Even if it's dark, and you don't know what you'll find, you come on in, okay?" I felt an ache in my throat that grew as I spoke. "I want you in here with me, even if it isn't pretty, even if I don't invite you. — Amy Harmon

I think everything about it. Just the experience, but mainly performing live for people. I think if it wasn't for playing in front of audiences, I don't think that anyone would want to play music. That's where you get all your gratification. It's just something else to be up on stage, playing music that you wrote and having people enjoy it - and have it mean something to them also. — Chris Hesse

I went to the Brit School for the performing arts in Croydon at 14, picking music as my main subject, and I'm so glad I did. I knew lots of people who'd gone there, so I always had my mind set on it. — Katy B

I started performing music about the age of 16. I lived in Brooklyn, New York, and this thing called the Flatbush Fair comes once a year. That was my first time on stage. — Theophilus London

I resent performing for frisking idiots who don't know anything. — John Lennon

I'm pretty much living my dream job, but one day I would love to dedicate more time to writing and performing my own music. — Kendall Schmidt

I usually write my music on a piano, and I really enjoy performing that way, because that actually shows how the music was in my mind before it actually became an electronic song. — Zedd

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

Performing music is a way to do comedy, but without the obligation to do a solid hour, hour and half of a standup. I could intersperse it with music, so it became a really good format for me. — Steve Martin

Music, it requires more than brawn. It requires a lot of heart. You gotta put love in there. — James Brown

By the time we made "Abbey Road", John and I were openly critical of each other's music, and I felt John wasn't much interested in performing anything he hadn't written himself. — Paul McCartney

I would like all my friends, followers, fans and fellow travelers to know that I am fighting cancer and will therefore be taking a break from performing while getting the treatment and cure. I shall of course be continuing to write music - in my world it just has to be part of the therapy - and I fully expect to be back in good shape next year. — Jon Lord

When I use weed creatively, I'm much better at drawing or making something or playing music. But what I do for a living is mostly performing as an actor or writing, and for those things I need to have my faculties sharp. — Nick Offerman

Music has always been something I wanted to do. I think just the idea of performing and entertaining and being in the studio is really what I wanted to know how that felt. I started to get into it around the same time I got into acting, but it turned into a side project because my movies were taking up most of my time. — Hailee Steinfeld

Music is my passion, singing, performing. I play piano and musical theater is my background. — Janel Parrish

I've always been one for show business. I like performing, and I used to get criticized for having production value. But now it's all that! People need to get what they pay for! Otherwise, just listen to recorded music. — Barbara Mandrell

The music
the making of music and the performing of music
produced memories, many good, some bad, some difficult. But he knew for sure that he'd spent too much of that time living not in the present moment of creating or playing music but in the expectation or hope of some reward, some success. He had always been waiting for his life to start when that happened, when the recognition came. It had taken him twenty years to realize how utterly wrongheaded that was.
It was as if the twenty years didn't amount to much, that he hadn't actually been present for so much of his life. — Graham Joyce

Of course performing talent, that's clear. Maybe this is not so well-known among young people who are interested in music, who are talented in music, but they're trying to figure out how to go about it. — Esa-Pekka Salonen

We'll be reporting music news every week and have real bands coming and performing on 'MyMusic,' interacting with the fictional cast as though they were real. — Benny Fine

Music is a performing art, as any Native American will tell you. It isn't there in the score. — Michael Tippett

I was always drawn to performing. I took improv and acting classes during the summers and was involved in middle and high school plays. But when I discovered indie and punk music in high school, those things sort of took over. — Carrie Brownstein

When I dance I am really meditating rather then performing for an audience. I am completely absorbed by the music and the steps I choose to respond to the music. — Agnes De Mille

In musical performances one can sense that the person on stage is having a good time even if they're singing a song about breaking up or being in a bad way. For an actor this would be anathema, it would destroy the illusion, but with singing one can have it both ways. As a singer, you can be transparent and reveal yourself on stage, in that moment, and at the same time be the person whose story is being told in the song. Not too many kinds of performance allow that. — David Byrne

I don't care about the charts; I just want to make great music that I enjoy performing on stage and I'm proud of. — Cher Lloyd

I don't go to shows because I just want to listen to the music performed live. I want to get to know the person who's performing it. Or I want to, like, take away a sense that I had an experience that nobody else is going to have again, or a unique experience for that moment. — Sia Furler

I'll probably be 80 years old and still performing. Music is like fashion, it changes. But some things will always be the same. — Toni Braxton

Advice to rock gods: drugwise, stick to Ibuprofen, decaf lattes, and pale Pilsners ... If your stomach is not a flat slab, please leave your shirt on while performing ... If your girlfriend asks you to choose between her and your music, sell your instruments immediately - especially if you're a drummer ... Finally, go easy on the supermodels, don't forget to tune, and remember: a tiny bit of dry ice and lasers goes a long way. Ditto with tattoos. — Ian Shoales

I haven't been to many music events where somebody was performing and it actually made me cry. — Robbie Robertson

We suffered for our music. Now, it's your turn. — Sam Bush

When I started performing, I played acoustic music, partly because that way you don't have to worry about interacting too much with other people creatively. Asserting myself in that way was not really a strong point for me. — Patty Griffin

I've been working at performing for five years now. I've been working in Australia and Spain and England. When I was only 15 or 16, 1 was performing in bars; I could have had legal problems, but it's also the only way to get to know what music is all about. — Andy Gibb

I've got three sons, and two of them would absolutely hate being on the stage and never liked appearing in their school plays or musicals, but the middle one absolutely loves it and never shows any sign of nerves or pressure and really gets a kick out of performing. I think it depends entirely on the child. And that applies to anything whether it's sport or entertainment or music or film. — Piers Morgan

In the music business, I found it was much more about interviews, photo shoots and appearances rather than actual performing, which I do best. — Gareth Gates

Obviously I've always loved singing and performing, but I fell in love with songwriting and then I enjoyed doing that for other people and getting coached. But then I kind of stumbled into the right group of people that really started to create some unique music for me and what I wanted to say, so then it made me want to be an artist. — Kacey Musgraves

The bus ride to the arena ... I slipped on my Discman and listened to some of my favourite music, all the while imagining myself on the ice. Visualization and imagery are very important in figure skating, or any sport for that matter. This is where you see yourself in your mind performing in front of an audience and judges. I also imagine how I am going to feel during the performance. During the bus ride, I pictured myself skating a perfect program. — Josee Chouinard

I wanted to find something that would make Mom proud of me. Something I could excel at.' she told him. 'But some part of me thought that if I was out there performing, if everyone knew my name, I might reach my father or his family. They might recognize me. They'd hear my music and want to come find me. Know me.'
'I heard you, Etta,' he said softly. 'I heard you. — Alexandra Bracken

Regarding The Music Man, Jay Nordlinger wrote: The Music Man (for which Willson also wrote the lyrics) is an astonishing creation. It came in a spurt of brilliance. It is shot through with originality, verve, and-why not go all the way?-genius. People love it, can't get enough of it, can't stop performing it-and they are not wrong. For closing in on a half- century now, The Music Man has been performed continually, in every American city, town, and village, and in other parts of the world as well, not excluding Peking. — Meredith Willson

If they were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn't actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid, a mother-in-law who actually was fat, or an American businessman who actually did have a middle initial and smoked a cigar. You feel as if you are unwillingly performing in a music-hall sketch and wishing you could rewrite the script. If Helmut and Kurt had been Brazilian or Chinese or Latvian or anything else at all, they could then have behaved in exactly the same way and it would have been surprising and intriguing and, more to the point from my perspective, much easier to write about. Writers should not be in the business of propping up stereotypes. I wondered what to do about it, decided that they could simply be Latvians if I wanted, and then at last drifted off peacefully to worrying about my boots. — Douglas Adams

Music makes your soul feel amazing while you're performing it. — Bijou Phillips

When I grew up, the thing boys would do during the summer is work tobacco because it was a cheap product back then. I didn't want to do that. From an early, early, early age, I was like, 'I like music. This performing thing comes easy.' And perhaps that's how I ended up doing what I'm doing today. Being a musician. — Maceo Parker

It is not just bookstores and libraries that are disappearing but museums, theaters, performing arts centers, art and music schools - all those places where I felt at home have joined the list of endangered species. The San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and my own hometown paper, The Washington Post, have all closed their weekend book review sections, leaving books orphaned and stranded, poor cousins to television and the movies. In a sign of the times, the Bloomberg News website recently transferred its book coverage to the Luxury section, alongside yachts, sports clubs and wine, as if to signal that books are an idle indulgence of the super-rich. But if there is one thing that should not be denied to anyone rich or poor it is the opportunity to dream. — Azar Nafisi

There's the added element of adrenaline if you're performing. You're aware of spatial relationships and the music. — Kim Gordon

It's all about the mood I'm in and the scene I'm writing. 'Cause work controls my life, writing controls my life, performing controls my life. So I don't listen to any music that's not an influence on what I'm working on that day. Music is a big influence in my work and sometimes drives the energy of where I want to go. — Lemon Andersen

As I have said before, I had no illusions about my performing ability. But I did not know that my despair was brought about not because I had no talent but because I did not know how to develop it. — Shinichi Suzuki

For us, it is all about breaking the boundaries between different genres of music and combining different styles of music and performing what we are passionate about. We are so lucky that we can experience both worlds: the more intimate classical world and the wild and crazy world of rock n' roll. — Luka Sulic

Yes " Morrison said dryly. "I'm sure it would have helped with flying the car, if any of us had been calm and rational enough to think of taking a drum out and performing some theme music for your Jame's Bond meets Harry Potter special effects. But since we weren't, now I'm going to drum till you stop looking like something the cat dragged in. Don't argue with me. — C.E. Murphy

I'm a lover of all sorts of music, which makes me a chameleon when it comes to performing anything, whether it's opera or whatever. As long as it's good and it feels good, I'm going to cling to it. — R. Kelly

I love Mix Tape. It combines three great elements - magic, music and a natural way of performing. I know that every time you perform Mix Tape you will feel like you're presenting someone with a very special gift. I've never come across a routine so natural and so strong. Use this and you will be the wonder worker they talk about long after you have left. — Luke Jermay

With music, you're really showing someone a piece of your soul. You're saying, 'This is mine. I wrote this, I made this, I'm performing this. This is how I'm presenting it to you.' There's something really scary about that, but there's also something next-worldly about it, too. — Alexandra Shipp

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

I started performing very young as a salsa dancer, and every time I was on that stage dancing, all I knew was that I wanted to speak. I wanted the music to stop, and I wanted to speak. — Gina Rodriguez

A professional entertainer who allows himself to become known as a singer of folk songs is bound to have trouble with his conscience provided, of course, that he possesses one. As a performing artist, he will pride himself on timing and other techniques designed to keep the audience in his control [ ... ] his respect for genuine folklore reminds him that these changes, and these techniques, may give the audience a false picture of folk music. — Sam Hinton

When I act, I feel like I am a color in someone else's painting - I can be the best blue that there is, but I'm still only part of their entire picture - but, with music, when I am performing with Reserved For Rondee, I am the painter, you know? — Billy Magnussen

When you play, never mind who listens to you. — Robert Schumann

I've withdrawn many times. Part of me is a monk, and part a performing flea! The fear in the music business is that you don't exist if you're not at Xenon with Andy Warhol. — John Lennon

To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat - some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
This isn't the case with literature. Literature stimulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse. — Fernando Pessoa

Besides my son, music is the most important thing to me. I always have music on in my car and playing at house, and I'm in the studio or performing every night. I like Beats by Dre for headphones, and Bang & Olufsen soundsystems. — French Montana

In itself that music festival was nothing special, these music festivals in our country are all alike, performing a most useful function especially for all those people who are chained to their labors, year in and year out, so naturally everybody comes flocking to the two or three music festivals per year, with their actual and their so-called amusements and distractions, these affairs are called music festivals because unlike the usual so-called country fairs they feature a band, an enormous attraction to the populace, that's all it is, but the organizers know that they can draw a much larger crowd by calling it a music festival rather than a country fair, so it has become the custom to call these events music festivals even if they are nothing more than country fairs, everybody attends these music festivals which usually begin early on Saturday night and end late on Sunday morning. — Thomas Bernhard

I went to a high school for the performing arts and I lived and breathed music. It kept me focused; it kept me sane. — Beyonce Knowles

I think too many people look at the arts with a religious outlook. Arts, music, singing and performing, it's all make-believe. — Vince Vaughn

I love performing and having people hear my music more that anything ... — Britney Spears

I haven't always wanted to be an actor, no. I wasn't one of the little kids that was desperate to be an actor. I did a lot of drama and a lot of music, but it was just something for fun on the side. I was quite shy as a kid and I found a lot of freedom in performing. I never knew you could do it as a job. — Gemma Chan

Endeavour to play easy pieces well and with elegance; that is better than to play difficult pieces badly. — Robert Schumann

When I'm making my music, I'm writing it, I'm producing it, I'm playing all the instruments, I'm performing. It's my own world where I do what I feel, and nobody tells me anything. — Lenny Kravitz

When I look back at what musical theatre music and show music meant to me, first of all - more than anything - what it meant to me was work. As I was growing up, I realized that singing and performing was my strong suit. — Jason Mraz