The National Music Quotes & Sayings

Poetry, like jazz, is one of those dazzling diamonds of creative industry that help human beings make sense out of the comedies and tragedies that contextualize our lives. — Aberjhani

Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us - no walking around National Trust properties or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful: dying in mines and slums without literacy or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor - that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better later. We live now - for our own instant hot, fast treats, to pep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio. — Caitlin Moran

I was asked to do a test commercial shoot for an Apple product which didn't mean much to me at the time. Some music player that holds all your songs. Sounded cool to me and I never gave up an opportunity to work, especially with the possibility of it turning into a national commercial. Coolest job I did in that time. — Harry Shum Jr.

There's an institution here called the National Sound Archive, and there's a character who works there, Paul Wilson. He takes a very special interest in the history of the music and advised Martin Davidson of the existence of these tapes. — Evan Parker

I learned that the Canadian government is very supportive of their native artists. As a rule, at least half of the play list played on Canadian radio stations must be of national origin and any non-Canadian headlining artists must include at least one national act on their bill. This kind of support has established Canada as a creatively fertile ground for some of music's greatest artists. The — Rudy Sarzo

I had brought from Paris the national prejudice against Italian music; but I had also received from nature that acute sensibility against which prejudices are powerless. I soon contracted the passion it inspires in all those born to understand it. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

It's hard to find an emblem of cultural, national pride that burns as bright as Israel's success in classical music. — Zubin Mehta

If all our political and intellectual elite offers by way of a national culture is "pop music, gambling, fashionable clothes or television," then we can neither mount a convincing intellectual defense against our enemies, nor hope to integrate intelligent, inquiring, and unfulfilled Muslim youths young men principally, of course to our way of life. — Anthony Daniels

The consolidation of the music business has made it difficult to encourage styles like the blues, all of which deserve to be celebrated as part of our most treasured national resources. — Bonnie Raitt

I think record stores play a huge part in discovering new music. When I was growing up I would spend hours going through all the bins looking for something new that seemed interesting to me and that could relate to what I was listening to at the time. This is why I want to support National Record Store Day. — Joe Principe

Queen Victoria did not regard art, letters, or music as in any way springing from national character: they were something quite apart, elegant decorations resembling a scarf or a bracelet, and in no way expressive of the soul of the country. — E.F. Benson

Folk music isn't owned by anybody. It is owned by everybody, like the national parks, the postal system, and the school system. It's our common property. There is nobody's name on it. Nobody can make money on it. It's not copywritten. — Utah Phillips

Purcell is a composer who had a formative influence on British music - even The Who now cite him as an influence. There's an intense, dirty harmony, but there's a Louis XIV kind of elan and style, too. He had the melancholy DNA of our national folk heritage. — Charles Hazlewood

Elementary and high school students will still be tested under the new law. There just won't be so much riding on the scores. Also the arts didn't disappear under the old law, No Child Left Behind. But, Christopher Woodside of the National Association for Music Education says with so much time spent testing math and reading, the arts suffered. — Elizabeth Blair Lee

I just love performing so much, and I threw myself into every musical theater production that was going in my home town and at school. And then, I went to the National Youth Music Theatre, which was really a galvanizing experience for me when I was 17. — Gugu Mbatha-Raw

American movies and music deliver themes of freedom, innocence, and power that appeal to others - partly because America itself was put together out of a multiplicity of national traditions. — Todd Gitlin

'Paradise Lost' was printed in an edition of no more than 1,500 copies and transformed the English language. Took a while. Wordsworth had new ideas about nature: Thoreau read Wordsworth, Muir read Thoreau, Teddy Roosevelt read Muir, and we got a lot of national parks. Took a century. What poetry gives us is an archive, the fullest existent archive of what human beings have thought and felt by the kind of artists who loved language in a way that allowed them to labor over how you make a music of words to render experience exactly and fully. — Robert Hass

In India, religious life forms the centre, the keynote of the whole music of national life. — Swami Vivekananda

The tango is really a combination of many cultures, though it eventually became the national music of Argentina. — Yo-Yo Ma

Certainly, jazz has become more of a niche, which is surprising, because it's our music. It's the national music of America. — Renee Fleming

I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater. — Chiwetel Ejiofor

I think the iPod is the true face of Republican politics, and I'm in favor of the music industry ... standing up proud and saying it out loud: We in the Chiclet-manufacturing business are not about social justice, ... we're not about a coherent set of national ideals, we're not about wisdom. We're about choosing what WE want to listen to and ignoring everything else ... . We're about giving ourselves a mindless feel-good treat every five minutes. ... We're about persuading ten-year-old children to spend twenty-five dollars on a cool little silicone iPod case that costs a licensed Apple Computer subsidiary thirty-nine cents to manufacture. — Jonathan Franzen

The man who disparages music as a luxury and non-essential is doing the nation an injury. Music now, more than ever before, is a national need. — Woodrow Wilson

Believe it or not, there are places in the world where music is important. There are places in the world where all the arts are a matter of national pride. — Frank Zappa

The music scene in the '70s was like the United Kingdom in the '70s - we had a lot of unemployment, we had inflation, we had a lot of strikes going on, on a national scale, and a lot of discontent. That was reflected in the music. — Annie Lennox

My parents say it all began with my role of Percy the Polar Bear back in nursery school! I began dance classes at the age of five (you would never guess though) and then I went on to join my local theatre group, Glantawe Players, at the age of eight and then Swansea Amateur Dramatics Society. I then joined the National Youth Music Theatre, so I really can't remember a time when I wasn't interested in Musical Theatre! — Francesca Jackson

I am a very simple man. I am a man first, an artist second. My first obligation is to the welfare of my fellow man. I will endeavour to meet this obligation through music, since it transcends language, politics and national boundaries. — Pablo Casals

At a national political convention, you have hundreds of people who consider themselves at least as important as the Secretary of Commerce. If it's a Democratic convention, you also have dozens of A-list Hollywood and music celebrities. (If it's a Republican convention, you have Bo Derek.) Also you have swarms of lower-ranking Washington minions with titles like Deputy Assistant to the Associate Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff who are trying to move up the ladder to Deputy Associate to the Assistant Acting Deputy Assistant Understudy. — Dave Barry

At the edge of madness you howl diamonds and pearls. — Aberjhani

Christine Bass was my high school music teacher. She took a program on its last legs and within a few years turned into one of the best programs in the country. Our high school dominated national choir competitions all through her 20-plus year tenure. — Aaron Lazar

Musical expression is never primarily national, but is personal and individual rather. It is so deep, so profound, that it goes beyond and below nationality and gives voice to the most private feeling. In music there is never exact heredity. Each man is an individual. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

If you were a country," I said, "what would your national anthem be?"
I meant a pre-existing song
"What a Wonderful World" or "Que Sera, Sera" or something to make it a joke, like "Hey Ya!" ("I would like, more than anything else, for my nation to be shaken like a Polaroid picture.") — David Levithan