Young Musicians Quotes & Sayings

The record company started as an adjunct to that, to give young composers their first recorded performances; to give young musicians their first debut on a recording. These are all things that big record companies would never touch because there is no money in it! — Gunther Schuller

Music is a spiritual thing, you don't play with music. If you play with music you will die young. You see, because when the higher forces give you the gift of music ... musicians hip, it must be well used for the gift of humanity. — Fela Kuti

After the war, once the bop revolution had taken hold, there were all kinds of young musicians, talented young musicians, who were ready for this fusion of classical and jazz. — Gunther Schuller

I was raised in Topanga Canyon. It's an eclectic community up in the Santa Monica mountains. A lot of musicians lived there - Joni Mitchell, Neil Young - as well as artists and craftspeople. — Inara George

I enjoy seeing other Indian musicians - old and young - coming to Europe and America and having some success. I'm happy to have contributed to that. — Ravi Shankar

We shared a piece of Poncho's apple pie, and I told Poncho about PureTone. Like all serious musicians, he is depressed by the quality of sound the people's music id delivered in today. That is the impression I have gotten from every Musician I have met. Everyone. After he heard PureTone, Ben Bourdon, one of Ben Young's caregivers asked me if I was making war on Apple. I said, No. I'm waging heavy peace. — Neil Young

A lot of young musicians get the money at the wrong time. They get it for something they don't feel great about, and it'll make you feel so bad it'll destroy you and kill you. — Iggy Pop

Personally, I think young musicians need to learn to play more than one style. Jazz can only enhance the classical side, and classical can only enhance the jazz. I started out playing classical, because you have to have that as a foundation. — Doc Severinsen

YouTube is an amazing platform for young musicians - although it's harder to get noticed now that everyone is on it. — Conor Maynard

A lot of young artists and musicians that we work with, you think they're gonna want to come in and buy the rock star-looking leather jacket - whatever it is that you think they're gonna want. They all want a suit. They want a tuxedo jacket, they want a suit. They don't want to look like their dad in it, but they want a suit. — Paul Weller

I like to play with people who can play simple and are not threatened by other musicians thinking they can't play. And that eliminates 99 percent of the musicians. — Neil Young

I think it's a shame when you come across young actors and musicians who haven't had the time to learn their craft. It doesn't matter if it's acting or music; you really have to learn how to do it from the bottom up because unless you have a great work ethic ... fame is a terrible thing to have. — Denis Leary

I was always moved by all of the music. As a young man, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and all these great musicians would come through our town of Memphis. There wasn't adequate hotels, so these musicians - the lady who ran the theater knew my mother, who had a large house, and many of them would stay with us. So that was another great blessing, so I'm always around these great geniuses, and to realize their humanity is such a touching thing. — Charles Lloyd

It's important for all worship musicians to pour into young people. — Mike Murray

We were brash young fellows'. I was always hanging with the older crowd anyway. The musicians were the Hip Cats, and I was hanging with them anyway. I Just started out real early. — Bootsy Collins

As long as there are young people, and old people, too, who can imagine realities beyond seeing and touching, and as long as there are poets, and artists, and musicians, there will be unicorns. — Jack Clifford Smith

The amazing thing about Sweets [Edison] was that he exactly spoke the way that he played! He was really unique, the one and only. He was one of the greatest Blues players that I ever heard and played with. Nobody can play like Sweets man, nobody! Most of us, musicians, frequently quote Sweets' phrases in our solos. Like Lester Young, Sweets had a big influence on us musicians, especially when we play some Blues. — Ray Brown

We didn't have lawyers and accountants. No one was watching out for our money. We'd go to the office and get money and go on our way. I was 19-20 years old then. I was stupid. I didn't know any better. We weren't getting our fair share of the money. That happens to young musicians all the time. It makes me mad when I think how stupid we were. — Steve Jones

There are only so many letters in the alphabet. When I talk to young musicians or authors and they ask for advice, I say, 'You gotta learn all the letters of your own personal alphabet. With music, you need to know all the different kinds of music and everything in and around your given instrument.' — David Lee Roth

I've always had money because of my early success with Cream, so I tell young musicians to aim to write their own material, because owning the composition rights makes a very big difference. — Jack Bruce

I've never even attempted to listen to Neil Young - everything I hear is pretty good. I know that one day, I'll be able to sit down and delve into this amazing back catalogue. Until then, there's always the ever-growing superfluous of new musicians. Sometimes I feel so much guilt when I find I absolutely love a new band or singer, as it means, 9 times out of 10, that nobody else will. That's good taste for you. The other side of the coin is - "Ah, James. You have to hear this guy, his name is Felix Maboabbie and he's better than Nick Drake and John Martyn combined - with a touch of John Lennon." And, you know what, they are always, always utterly shite. — James Yorkston

The musicians are good and their music is catchy - it pulls the kids in in droves. Mike Bickle admitted to me that the music was a big part of their success at attracting young people. — Roger Ross Williams

The problem is that the internet IS some kid in a basement with an opinion. The fact that David Bowie and Elton John told me that they were fans of Helmet - or Neil Young - that means something to me because I grew up on their music and they're great musicians ... That means more to me than some guy who hates the fact that my hair is short. — Page Hamilton

A lot of young musicians in Stockholm are about keeping tradition alive and moving it forward at the same time. — Neneh Cherry

I see no particular merit in the fact that I was an artist at the age of eleven. I was born with an ability, with music in me, that is all. No special credit was due me. The only credit we can claim is for the use we make of the talent we are given. That is why I urge young musicians: "Don't be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters. You must cherish this gift. Do not demean or waste what you have been given. Work - work constantly and nourish it."
Of course the gift to be cherished most of all is that of life itself. One's work should be a salute to life. — Pablo Casals

The wild notes of tuba and trumpet and trombone rattled and hummed through the trees. In the first group of musicians, there were kids as young as fourteen playing the tuba and one kid who probably couldn't drive banging a bass drum. They stomped together in rhythm to the music. Two ladies had dressed up in what looked like princess outfits. They wore white gloves and socks with tassels. — Hunter Murphy

You know as I started as a shy young conductor, I always wanted to cooperate. To build up the musicians. To help them to be better than without a conductor. And sometimes young talented musicians have to be encouraged. — Kurt Masur

I was starting a group of musicians and we had a group of young composers in Finland back in the '70s, and the real conductors, the professional conductors at the time were not interested in our stuff. — Esa-Pekka Salonen

Success breeds volume, and it's just amazing how many young writers, artists, and musicians there are in town. — Steven Curtis Chapman

They taught us because they wanted to pass the knowledge on and educate young musicians. It was not because they had to teach because they failed as musicians. There is a huge difference in the reasons why someone is teaching and what they can offer and what they cannot offer. — Miroslav Vitous

My guys studied music from a young age and I did not so I think, like, adding the idiot to the table of very talented musicians gave us a unique rub. — Anthony Kiedis

I feel quite sad for the young musicians coming up because they may never get to pay their rent properly. It doesn't matter what the genre; nowadays, it's so much harder than it ever was. — Bryan Adams

My songs speak for themselves. The musicians who play on them and the way they sound and where they were recorded and the way they were recorded is the old Nashville way ... they sound as country or more country than a lot of things that are on country radio ... — Neil Young

I was very young, and I kind of decided I wanted to do comedy. My parents were musicians, so we traveled on a tour bus. You're in a different town every night; as a kid, you're trying to make friends fast. You try to be funny. — Trevor Moore

Rappers, as a class, are not engaged in anything criminal. They're musicians. Some rappers and friends of rappers commit crimes. Some bus drivers commit crimes. Some accountants commit crimes. But there aren't task forces devoted to bus drivers or accountants. Bus drivers don't have to work under the preemptive suspicion of law enforcement. The difference is obvious, of course: Rappers are young black men telling stories that the police, among others, don't want to hear. Rappers tend to come from places where police are accustomed to treating everybody like a suspect. The general style of rappers is offensive to a lot of people. But being offensive is not acrime, at least not one that's on the books. The fact that law enforcement treats rap like organized crime tells you a lot about just how deeply rap offends some people
they'd love for rap itself to be a crime, but until they get that law passed, they come after us however they can. — Jay-Z

Mr. Graves was always using the word weirdo to describe himself and people he liked. He said that all the great writers were "weirdos," too - that our best artists, musicians, and thinkers were first labeled weird in high school or "when they were young." That was "the price of admission. — Matthew Quick

There have been many things that have set my soul on fire throughout my life. Mainly situated within the different phases I go through. In the past, community work did just that, but right now, since I am in a very self-reflective phase, black artists are setting my soul on fire; especially jazz musicians. Like never before, there is a rise of a young cohort who are blowing the jazz scene apart. My soul blazes because black artists are channels that keep us accountable, heal us and reveal different mysteries to us. — Malebo Sephodi

My gaze returns to earth and when it does, it's her eyes I see. Not the way I used to see them - around every corner, behind my own closed lids at the start of each day. Not in the way I used to imagine them in the eyes of every other girl I laid on top of. No, this time it really is her eyes. A photo of her, dressed in black, a cello leaning against one shoulder like a tired child. Her hair is up in one of those buns that seem to be a requisite for classical musicians. She used to wear it up like that for recitals and chamber music concerts, but with little pieces hanging down, to soften the severity of the look. There are no tendrils in this photo. I peer closer at the sign. YOUNG CONCERT SERIES PRESENTS MIA HALL. — Gayle Forman

I grew up in church. That's how most young African American musicians learn how to perform. You could be six years old and playing organ or drums in front of thousands or hundreds of people. — Robert Glasper

the old anti-'commercial' tendencies mocked throughout this book have been bulked up into a worldview by the runaway growth of what I call semipopular music." (Oh yeah, "semipopular music." Er, "music more popular in form than in market share." At least when it starts out. Under the rubric "alternative," now also an established image-making strategy that informs many of the "brands" ambitious young musicians concoct for themselves. — Robert Christgau

Too many young musicians today want to win polls before they learn their instruments. — Benny Goodman

Our task is to implement Jesus' unique achievement. We are like the musicians called to play and sing the unique and once-only-written musical score. We don't have to write it again, but we have to play it. Or, in the image Paul uses in I Corinthians 3, we are now in the position of young architects discovering a wonderful foundation already laid by a master architect and having to work out what sort of building was intended. — N. T. Wright

There's people that say "It's not fair You have all that stuff." I wasn't born with it. It was a horrible process to get to this. It took me my whole life. If you're new at this- and by "new at it." I mean 15 years in, or even 20- you're just starting to grow traction. Young musicians believe they should be able to throw a band together and be famous, and anything that's in their way is unfair and evil. What are you, in your 20s, you picked up a guitar? Give it a minute. — Louis C.K.

I know there are a lot of musicians and a lot of artists, and there are a lot of writers and other people who inspire young people, but I'd like to see somebody in political life be able to connect and make these choices that we need to make in Washington real in terms of people's lives. — John F. Kerry

She knew the intensity of adolescence, and knew no cure for it except growing up. And then one has age and experience, and mourns the loss of intensity. Maybe it's why musicians and mathmaticians are said to peak young-poetry needs the fire of an unbounded universe. — Sara Paretsky

One of the most encouraging things is to see that so many of these young musicians and worship leaders are really concerned with doing a good job representing the truth of Jesus in their songs, and not just concerned with creative and musical progression. — Matt Redman

I was able to work with the best musicians in Kansas City starting when I was really young. — Pat Metheny

Grigoryevich...Not that he had any real talent himself - but what a lot of deaths of talented people he had witnessed. Young physicists and historians, specialists in ancient languages, philosophers, musicians, young Russian Swifts and Erasmuses - how many of them he had seen put on their "wooden jackets." Prerevolutionary literature had often lamented the fate of serf actors, musicians, and painters. But who was there today to write about the young men and women who had never had the chance to write their books and paint their paintings? The Russian earth is indeed fertile and generous. She gives birth to her own Platos, to her own quick-witted Newtons - but how casually and terribly she devours these children of hers. — Vasily Grossman

I grew up with all these old jazz guys in the '70s in L.A., and they grew up idolizing Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Lester Young - all of these incredible musicians. — Flea

I do believe it's possible to play a lot without overplaying. It's when a musician becomes too self-centred that it becomes problematic. You need to be aware of how what you're doing is affecting everyone else, and that's something young musicians often forget. Playing in a band is a shared experience. It's about what everyone is doing together. — Robben Ford

Whenever an art form loses its fire, when it gets weakened by intellectual inbreeding and first principles fade into stale tradition, a radical fringe eventually appears to blow it up and rebuild from the rubble. Young Gun ultrarunners were like Lost Generation writers in the '20s, Beat poets in the '50s, and rock musicians in the '60s: they were poor and ignored and free from all expectations and inhibitions. They were body artists, playing with the palette of human endurance. — Christopher McDougall

The trouble with most musicians today is that they are copycats. Of course you have to start out playing like someone else. You have a model, or a teacher, and you learn all that he can show you. But then you start playing for yourself. Show them that you're an individual. And I can count those who are doing that today on the fingers of one hand. — Lester Young

We're not encouraging idols other than on the TV show, you know and that's the wrong way to do it. If we had become famous from a contest show we'd be embarrassed in my generation. But if that's the benchmark then I thought well young people who want to be filmmakers, or musicians, or whatever are screwed. But maybe they're not because what they're doing is they're creating their own thing. — Billy Bob Thornton

I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers. — Ronaldinho

I would advise all young musicians to not only experience and play chamber music, but to go to operas, speak to the singers, to explore and expand your horizons. — Wu Han

There is an apprenticeship system in jazz. You teach the young ones. So even if the musicians weren't personally that likable, they felt an obligation to help the younger musicians. — Dave Van Ronk

The Red Comyns had always done well behind the throne. The king was but an instrument, as his father used to say. They were the musicians. — Robyn Young

Even my family laughed at me because they thought this young guy who's always stuttering in front of other people should be in front of 100 musicians and talk to them and leading them. — Kurt Masur

He knew how the audition was going to affect their lives for the next ten weeks as she slowly lost her mind from nerves and the strain of trying to scrounge precious practice time from an already jam-packed life. No matter how much time poor Sam gave her, it would never be quite enough, because what she actually needed was for him and the kids to just temporarily not exist. She needed to slip into another dimension where she was a single, childless person. Just between now and the audition. She needed to go to a mountain chalet (somewhere with good acoustics) and live and breathe nothing but music. Go for walks. Meditate. Eat well. Do all those positive-visualization exercises young musicians did these days. She had an awful suspicion that if she were to do this in reality, she might not even miss Sam and the children that much, or if she did miss them, it would be quite bearable. — Liane Moriarty

A respectable-sized audience hasn't really been able to follow developments in jazz since the free jazz movement in the '60s. Some of them can't even get with John Coltrane. Audiences are diminishing more and more rapidly. Some of the top young musicians with something new to say can't get record companies to put out their stuff. — Harvey Pekar

The death of young musicians isn't something to romanticize — Frances Bean Cobain

Collaborative workshops and writers' peer groups hadn't been invented when I was young. They're a wonderful invention. They put the writer into a community of people all working at the same art, the kind of group musicians and painters and dancers have always had. — Ursula K. Le Guin

People are afraid to ask musicians to be involved in projects because they anticipate being turned down. Young artists hesitate before contacting me. People in my position don't get approached often enough. — David Sylvian

I have one message for young musicians around the world: Stay true to your heart, believe in yourself, and work hard. — Joe Cocker

School of Rock. The best music school anywhere. This whole idea of getting kids not just taking lessons and learning notes and chords, but learning songs and playing with other young musicians, and getting out on stage ... I was so impressed that my daughter Cheyenne goes to School of Rock on Long Island. — Dee Snider

I think that's really important, that kids get exposed to music as soon as they can - not necessarily to become musicians, but at least have an outlet. It's an art form that's easily accessible to young ears. — Joe Perry

It's playing with the idea of what musicians wear when they play live, especially focusing on the evolution of what a musician wears when they first start their career, when they are young and wild, to how they dress when they become famous and more polished. — Renzo Rosso

All of the musicians when I was young used to always say you had to tell a story when you're a musician. — Dave Holland

The story of Rod Stewart, the story of Carlos Santana is so inspiring to young musicians because it shows in this trendy business how long a career can last. It shows how you can soar back, regardless of age. — Clive Davis

My own duty as a teacher ... is not so much to interpret Beethoven, Wagner, or other masters of the past, but to give what encouragement I can to the young musicians of America. I ... hope that just as this nation has already surpassed so many others in marvelous inventions and feats of engineering and commerce, and has made an honorable place for itself in literature in one short century, so it must assert itself on the ... art of music ... To bring about this result, we must trust the very youthful enthusiasm and patriotism of this country. — Antonin Dvorak