Quotes & Sayings About Western Music

Going back and forth between Western Arabic and African countries clearly created the various musical backgrounds I could have and obviously influenced my professional attitude, my way of approaching both music composition and singing, particularly phrasing. — Rokia Traore

I made music on Seven the same way as on the other albums. I only used acoustic instruments ... I'm looking for instruments that have vocal sounds, forgotten instruments like the guimbri ... The first and second albums were about the voice, what came before. This album is about introducing those sounds into modern, Western life, — Marie Daulne

For the most basic assumption that dictated my early attempts to respond to creative music commentary was the mistaken belief that western journalists had some fundamental understanding of black creativity - or even western creativity - but this assumption was seriously in error. — Anthony Braxton

I'm very interested in music and where these sounds of Western music come from. — Ben Katchor

Well, if I use Hispanic culture I get corruption and really good salsa music. If I use Chinese culture I get rigid thinking and decent Szechwan. If I use Islamic culture I get ... not damned much of anything. And ditto for Africa although at least the rhythm is good and you can dance to it. But if I use Western European Culture I get industry, higher standards of living, longer lifespans and a generally happier society. Damn, I think I'll just have to go with WesternCiv even if I do have to put up with the Lutherans. — John Ringo

Certainly, blame for all this [turmoil in the Middle East] doesn't rest solely with the terrible decisions that were made at the end of World War I, but it was then that one particularly toxic seed was planted. Ever since, Arab society has tended to define itself less by what it aspires to become than by what it is opposed to: colonialism, Zionism, Western imperialism in its many forms. This culture of opposition has been manipulated - indeed, feverishly nurtured - by generations of Arab dictators intent on channeling their people's anger away from their own misrule in favor of the external threat, whether it is "the great Satan" or the "illegitimate Zionist entity" or Western music playing on the streets of Cairo. — Scott Anderson

I find a difference between what gets called world music - a fusion of western music and music from different cultures in more of a modernized version - and Explorer Series stuff, which is completely undiluted indigenous folk music. That's a lot more powerful than a lot of the super-processed stuff that comes out now. — Glenn Kotche

Even more so in nonindustrialized cultures than in modern Western societies, music is and was part of the fabric of everyday life. — Daniel J. Levitin

I've got great joy from rediscovering Western music. I love Schumann and Chopin, and those amazing symphonies of Bruckner. — John Tavener

My brother had a house in Paris. To it came many Western classical musicians. These musicians all made the same point: 'Indian music,' they said, 'is beautiful when we hear it with the dancers. On its own, it is repetitious and monotonous.' — Ravi Shankar

As a trumpet joined the organ in Jeremiah Clark's triumphant march, John was glad Pamela had chosen the piece over the more traditional "Bridal Chorus" from Lohengrin. Even though he had familiarity with the music because Mrs. Norton had played the piece by Wagner at every wedding he'd attended.
The music sent goosebumps down John's arms, bringing him into stark awareness of the sanctity of this ceremony, the weight of the commitment he was about to make, the new life journey he and Pamela were about to embark upon... together.
Goosebumps shivered over his skin, and his legs trembled. He didn't chide himself for the unmanly reactions, just took some deep breaths to steady himself. — Debra Holland

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

Hildegard von Bingen conveys spiritual ecstasy, if we're talking of Western music. What bothers me about Western music is that it doesn't have an esoteric dimension in the way the music of the East has, whether it be Byzantine chant, the music of the Sufis, or Hindu music. — John Tavener

Mori made an unwilling sound. 'I don't like Western art.'

'No look at this.' He lifted it from its package. It wasn't heavy. 'It's clever, it looks like busy Mozart.'

'What?'

'I . . .' Thaniel sighed. 'I see sound. Mozart looks like this. You know. Fast strings.'

'See? In front of you?'

'Yes. I'm not mad.'

'I didn't think so. All sounds?'

'Yes. — Natasha Pulley

The musical instuments may be western but my voice never wavers away from my own ragas. it is good to make experiments and I do a lot of them but my thoughts always round the centre and that centre is the tradition of my elders and it is classical music.. — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

He was swaying back and forth with their daughter gazing adoringly into his face from the cradle of his arms. "I'm going to do my best to make sure your life is awesome, but it won't always be. Those are the times you need to dance in the kitchen the most. It's good for your soul."
Beth sighed and leaned her head against the corner of the wall, as enchanted as Lily by the soft, tender timbre of his voice.
"You don't even need music," he told Lily. "You can dance to the music in your head. Hopefully not to that country-and-western shit your mother listens to, though. Oh ... damn. Don't say shit, Lily-bean. Or if you do and Mommy hears you, don't tell her you heard it from me, okay? Tell her Uncle Mike said it. — Shannon Stacey

When the truth is that there would be no great Western music, and certainly no decent choral repertoire, without the Catholic faith. — Richard Morris

It began as most thing begin. Not on a dark and stormy night. Not foreshadowed by ominous here comes the villain music, dire warning at the bottom of a teacup, or dread portents in the sky.
It began small and innocuously, as most catastrophes do. A butterfly flaps its wings somewhere and the wind changes, and a warm front hits a cold front off the coast of western Africa and before you know it you've got an hurricane closing in. By the time anyone figured out the storm was coming, it was too late to do anything but batten down the hatches and exercise damage control. — Karen Marie Moning

But the Oriental musician has a rough notation which he uses only as a reminder of a melody. He learns music, not by reading notes, but by listening to the performance of a teacher, getting the "feel" of it, and copying him, and this enables him to acquire rhythmic and tonal sophistications matched only by those Western jazz artists who use the same approach. — Alan W. Watts

In the homes of many Western Christians, hours are sometimes spent listening to worldly music. In our homes loud music can also be heard, but it is only to cover the talk about the gospel and the underground work so that neighbors may not overhear it and inform the secret police. How underground Christians rejoice on those rare occasions when they meet a serious Christian from the West! — Richard Wurmbrand

In Bombay, we have a fine concert hall. I think it is high time we built venues in Delhi and Calcutta, not only for western music, but also Indian music. It doesn't matter which party is in power; don't you think the capital of India should have a concert hall? — Zubin Mehta

Both the nationalists and the communists disapproved of jazz and feared it. They thought it would weaken people's resolve to fight off the invasion. And most Americans know, China did ban all Western music for about 30 years, starting in 1949. This is where it started. — Nicole Mones

As if it were the equal of Western classical or art music. The recordings were given respect, thoughtful presentation, and technical attention that was all too rare for non-Western music. I had grown up on Folkways's Nonesuch field recordings and the stuff Lomax had done for the Library of Congress, but the production values on the Ocora releases were on a whole other level. Eno and I realized that music from elsewhere didn't need to sound distant, scratchy, or "primitive." These recordings were as well produced as any contemporary recording in any genre. You were made to feel, for example, that this music wasn't a ghostly remnant from some lost culture, soon — David Byrne

I took a lot of long summer road trips with my dad, and the mix of music we listened to on the road skipped around from classical to Western to new age to hyper-cinematic. — Alex Ebert

She now represents the Western United States, thus proving politics is even more accepting of the strange, unusual, and mostly useless than the music industry. — John Zakour

Western cathedrals and abbeys ... through soaring Gothic architecture, [give] us at floor level a sense of belonging within (but unable at the moment to inhabit more than a little of) great spaces of light and beauty, into which, significantly, only our music can penetrate. — N. T. Wright

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we've forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We've separated music from life. — Ornette Coleman

Careful listening to current country and western and rock music with the help of an interpreter for coded phrases shows that young people are hearing a constant stream of messages about getting high, feeling good, going on trips, and using drugs of all kinds with all methods. — Virgil Miller Newton

Music is monophonic in the Eastern world, especially if we're talking about Indian music, Persian music. What we have in classical and Western world is harmony. So I think it's a great idea to be able to bring the best of two together and create something new. — Hafez Nazeri

I decided that I wanted to explore all kinds of music with my cello, not just the Western classical tradition. I just wanted to try and expand my vocabulary and bring that different kind of music to my audience. — Maya Beiser

I was interested in both Western and Indian classical music. — Satyajit Ray

It's amazing, it's pumping, it's furious, it's anxious, it's happy and it's far more real than anything you'll ever experience in a Western city. Morocco is a living, pulsating entity which is rapidly changing all the time but there are parts of Marrakesh that carry on as they have done for a thousands years. The music is a reflection of that, of all times and all religions and of all the natural expectations and conditions of the people who live there. — Robert Plant

I listen to a lot of really old western and country music. There's a lot of cool stuff in there ... all the heartbreak of the country darkness. — Theophilus London

I tend to lean more towards the Westerns of the 40s and 50s as opposed to the 60s and 70s. They get a little too drab for me when you get into the Spaghetti Western era. I love the John Ford movies. I love the music. I love the scope. — Seth MacFarlane

The art music of the West has developed through out its history by means of individual geniuses, and out of the soil supporting them; non-Western musicians were born, and grew like the grasses of the field. — Toru Takemitsu

The origins of Indian classical music, not unlike their western counterparts, lie in the Vedas, the ancient Hindu scriptures of 2,000 years ago. — Tariq Ali

I'm a big fan of gospel music, and you cannot be a fan of rock and roll, you cannot be a fan of country western music, and you can't really be a fan of jazz without listening to a lot of music that's religious. — Penn Jillette

It is not simply as release or play, in other words, that popular music saves society from its routine murders; it is not just relief from the long day's work or the joy that comes from cutting loose or the affirmation of community that makes it attractive, although all of these play their parts. In the Americas, popular music is a mission and strategy to recover the deep theoretical roots that extend far into the past and constitutes nothing less an alternative history of Western civilization. — Timothy Brennan

Reese sucked in a breath and played faster, hurling the anger through his fingers until it spun all his
fear, all his rage, into the gentle voice of music. — Willowy Whisper

Western music in the Middle Ages was performed in these stone-walled gothic cathedrals, and in architecturally similar monasteries and cloisters. — David Byrne

I'm not crazy about country-western music. But the lyrics are good. — Alice Cooper

People never heard bells in Western music sounding really cataclysmic. You hear that more in Russian music or in Asian, Indonesian traditions. — Charlemagne Palestine

Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about that little red-haired girl ... I don't ever want to forget her face, but if I don't forget her face, I'll go crazy ... How can I remember the face I can't forget? Suddenly I'm writing country western music! — Charles M. Schulz

I loved Western Swing and Hank Williams' music, and I now know that it's a 6th tuning that gives you all of those classic licks. — John Fogerty

I'm not a one-stop music shop with jazz improv in aisle 3 and country and western in aisle 4. I have a fairly focused and established kind of melody and approach, so people know what they're getting into when they go into business with me. — Charlie Clouser

We've always told stories through music and rhythm and movement, and what we know as western opera has only been around for a few hundred years and in different forms before that. There is great passion regardless of the fact that it's expensive and people who invest in it are giving money because they believe in it. They're not getting anything back other than satisfaction and enjoyment of hopefully many people having a human, deep, reflective and meditative experience that at its core is incredibly emotional. — Jake Heggie

I basically love classical music. I love a lot of musicians playing together and the whole culture of that, whether it's Indian or it's Western. — A.R. Rahman

I think the only music I didn't listen to was country and western, and that holds to this day. — David Bowie

Elvis Presley is the main founding father of rock music. He was an unheralded genius behind a new music that changed western civilization for all time. — Peter Noone

I also like Western classical music and jazz. — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Of course, western is my native music, — Ken Curtis

It was all here for me, just as it has all been here for you, the best and the worst of Western Civilization, if you cared to pay attention: music, finance, government, architecture, law and sculpture and painting, history and medicine and athletics and every sort of science, and books, books, books, and teachers and role models.
People so smart you can't believe it, and people so dumb you can't believe it. People so nice you can't believe it, and people so mean you can't believe it. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

There's only two kinds of music I don't like ... Country and Western. — Bobby Heenan

A lot of artists are scared to do that, they are scared to step out on their own. What am I the super villain of western Canada is that what I am? Is Classified the clean cut, staying true to his roots, hip hop guy from the East coast that stays in his lane and he made it big staying true to what he did and didn't make corny music? Then that is what he is and I am proud of him for that. — Shane Bunting

Take Tom Jones and mix him with Enrico Caruso, the Italian tenor-cum-castrato singer. Then add tons of pathetic love songs, faked sex appeal and musical kleptomania focusing on Western hits from the 1970s. Spice it up with a political flexibility rare even for Central European standards and a personal status close to that of the Pope. What do you get? Karel Gott, Czech pop music's most mega-super, long-lasting and brightest star. — Terje B. Englund

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes. — Ornette Coleman

Trance had become a dirty word. Thanks to Ian Van Dahl, Lasgo, Flip 'N' Fill and DJ Sammy, a generation of kids has grown up thinking trance is the shittiest music since country and western. — Paul Van Dyk

As people's lifestyles have improved, they've become more and more sensitive toward animals. It's becoming a universal value, like Western classical music. — Wang Shi

People are going to wake up to this great reservoir of music we've created in America - cakewalks, one-steps, boogie-woogie, country and western. I had a bit to do with one of those traditions. — Johnny Otis

I tend to score with songs from Western pop music. — Danny Boyle

I do remember with great pleasure, if not terribly clearly, a play by Richard Foreman with music by Stanley Silverman called Hotel For Criminals, which I saw in a sinisterly suitable mansion in the cultured wilds of western Massachusetts in the summer of 1974, and which could be described as based loosely on Fantomas. — Edward Gorey

Western man has tried for too many centuries to fool himself that he lives in a rational world. No. There's a story about a man who, while walking along the street, was almost hit on the head and killed by an enormous falling beam. This was his moment of realization that he did not live in a rational world but a world in which men's lives can be cut off by a random blow on the head, and the discovery shook him so deeply that he was impelled to leave his wife and children, who were the major part of his old, rational world. My own response to the wild unpredictability of the universe has been to write stories, to play the piano, to read, listen to music, look at paintings - not that the world may become explainable and reasonable but that I may rejoice in the freedom which unaccountability gives us. — Madeleine L'Engle

In the olden days, I believe Mozart also improvised on piano, but somehow in the last 200 years, the whole training of Western classical music - they don't read between the lines, they just read the lines. — Ravi Shankar

I've been informed by both sides, jazz, western music, Asian music, African music, all sides, because I've been interested in the sound of the universe, and that sound is without limit. — Joseph Jarman

[Europe has] this tradition of self revelation in popular music. We have it here - it's called Country Western Music ... I think that's where the deeper and more complex subjects are treated. — Leonard Cohen

It looks like you'll be dying in Hellfire after all, Captain!" Slaughter shouted. "Just like your family in that Georgia shack did. Ha! Oh yes, I heard their screams inside! It was music to my ears!"
Tom shouted back across the flames. "Whether you die by my hands today or not, you'll be the one in Hell, with your twin Lucifer, you MURDERING BASTARD! — C.G. Faulkner

I think that Sufism fits all over the world. The concept is not anything that fits standard Western ideas - it's always related to culture, to music, to religion. It is a dominant religion in Senegal. — Youssou N'Dour

I had abandoned Catholicism, but even during my short militant atheist period I maintained an interest in western religious art and music. — Tim Crane

For in Western culture, music itself is always in danger of being regarded as the feminine Other that circumvents reason and arouses desire. — Susan McClary

Yes, the Bible should be taught in our schools because it is necessary to understand the Bible if we are to truly understand our own culture and how it came to be. The Bible has influenced every part of western culture from our art, music, and history, to our sense of fairness, charity, and business. — Joel Osteen

The healing power of music is vast. Music therapy is in its infancy in Western psychology. If we knew more, we'd be able to do amazing things, and maybe even make permanent changes in the brain's mysterious workings. With a simple song and four chords, you might be able to do something useful, even life-changing. With all the songs you know, you might be a virtual, veritable medicine chest for the right person. — Gary Talley

I'm just trying to unite the western crowd and the bluegrass crowd a little more ... I get to do that again on my new album, Tall Grass and Cool Water ... This is the first time I've had every song on an album be a Bluegrass and Cowboy Song at the same time. — Michael Martin Murphey

Essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns. — Terry Riley

Country and western is the music of the devil. That's the real truth of the matter. My late Mother, bless her, loved country and western. God, I couldn't handle it. — Rick Wakeman

Within the context of Western music, jazz has always contained certain radical or revolutionary aspects. These are: improvisation, collective composition and individuality or the personal sound (based on amazing variations in sonority, timbre and pitch). — Michael Snow

Skiffle was blues featuring a washboard and acoustic instruments. It encompassed blues, with elements of folk, jazz, and, at times, American country-and-western music. — Van Morrison

Has it struck you that the music which is regarded as the most sublime in western civilization, which is the music of Bach, is called baroque? — Pierre Schaeffer

I will argue that five features are present in a wide range of genres, Western and non-Western, past and present, and that they jointly contribute to a sense of tonality: 1. Conjunct melodic motion. Melodies tend to move by short distances from note to note. 2. Acoustic consonance. Consonant harmonies are preferred to dissonant harmonies, and tend to be used at points of musical stability. 3. Harmonic consistency. The harmonies in a passage of music, whatever they may be, tend to be structurally similar to one another. 4. Limited macroharmony. I use the term "macroharmony" to refer to the total collection of notes heard over moderate spans of musical time. Tonal music tends to use relatively small — Dmitri Tymoczko

In New York, I was excited about the music in New York because the only music that I was more or less involved with in the South was either country and western or hillbilly music as we used to call it when I was a kid and, ah, gospel. There was no, there was no in between. And when I got to New York all the other musics that's in the world just came into my head whether it was the classics, jazz, I never knew what jazz was about all, had heard anything about jazz. — Ben E. King

Since its beginnings, Western music is bound, by an insurmountable convention, to the need to express subjectivity. It stands against the harsh sound of the outside world just as the sensitive soul stands against the insensibility of the universe. — Milan Kundera