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Music Quotes

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Music Quotes

“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”

“Composers are influenced by all the important music in their lives - and I suppose that since radio started playing popular music, that's as likely to be The Beatles or Aphex Twin as it is to be Verdi or Ravel.”

Important Music Radio Composer Twins Popular Music Verdi Ravel

Author:Jonny Greenwood

“The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes", And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be "No."”

“People whose sensibility is destroyed by music in trains, airports, lifts, cannot concentrate on a Beethoven Quartet.”

People Music Music Is Train Jazz Musical Destroyed Lifts Composer Sensibility Airports Quartets

Author:Witold Lutosławski

“This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.””

States Music Music Is Jazz Composer Jazz Musician Inspirational Music Art And Music Famous Musician Composing Music Literature And Music Today's Music

Author:Aaron Copland

“The challenge to the improvisor is to get permanence into his spontaneity. The challenge to the composer is to get spontaneity into his permanence.”

Challenges Music Jazz Composer Spontaneity Permanence

Author:Barry Finnerty

“I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.”

Wanted Music Jazz Composer Spontaneous

Author:Charles Mingus

“If we compel the composer to write in terms of what the listener is able to hear, we flirt with the danger of freezing the evolution of musical language, whose progressive development comes about through transgressions of a given era's perceptual habits."”

Ifs Writing Able Language Given Term Music Danger Development Evolution Habit Musical Eras Progressive Composer Listeners Flirting Transgression Freezing

Book:Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music

Source: Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides.”

Art Funny Silence Music Musician Notes Handle Piano Composer Pauses Playing Music Pianist Playing Piano Notes Music

Author:Artur Schnabel

“Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind.”

Inspirational Kind Funny Music Music Is Humorous Boring Bored Composer Sound Of Music

Author:Gioachino Rossini

“Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay buried in the memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me.”

Song Memories Music Cutting Let Me Lays Silent Flesh Melody Buried Composer Shut Up Discs

Book:Prisoner of Love

Source: Prisoner of Love

“A good composer is slowly discovered and a bad composer is slowly found out.”

Found Music Music Is Composer Funny Music Classic Music Composing Music Bad Music

Author:Ernest Newman

“If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then there's something wrong.”

Ifs Music Performances Musical Piano Composer Playing Music Composing Funny Music Classic Music Composing Music Musical Life Musical Performance

Author:Simon Rattle

“Music is enough for a lifetime - but a lifetime is not enough for music.”

Inspirational Enough Music Music Is Lifetime Musical Composer Playing Music Inspirational Music Music Life Music Is Life Composing Music Jazz And Life Modern Music Piano Keys

Author:Sergei Rachmaninoff

“I have never acknowledged the difference between serious music and light music. There is only good music and bad music.”

Light Differences Music Serious Acknowledge Songwriting Composer Bad Music

Author:Kurt Weill

“Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not. God knows.”

Knows Writing God Body Music Knowing Songwriting Composer God Knows Composing Only God Knows

Author:George Frideric Handel

“When I’m creating at the piano, I tend to feel happy; but - the eternal dilemma - how can we be happy amid the unhappiness of others? I'd do everything I could to give everyone a moment of happiness. That's what's at the heart of my music.”

Giving Feels Heart Moments Happiness Music Eternal Creating Piano Unhappiness Composer Being Happy Dilemma Caring For Others Unhappy People Moments Of Happiness

Author:Nino Rota

“One of the reasons I believe in jazz is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same anyplace in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born — or before you’re born — and it’s the last thing you hear.”

Men World Firsts Believe Heart Reason Lasts I Believe Born Music Jazz I Believe In Rhythm Oneness Composer Heartbeat Pianist

Author:Dave Brubeck

“Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music.”

Giving Music Give Me Lists Composer Laundry Funny Music Famous Musician Composing Music Music Teacher

Author:Gioachino Rossini

“I was meant to be a composer and will be I'm sure. Don't ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football - please.”

Trying Play Asks Forget Music Destiny Football Please Ask Me Piano Meant To Be Composer Were Meant To Be

Author:Samuel Barber

“Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.”