Quotes By John Philip Sousa

The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of music for the pageantry of it, there came a deeper realization of the effect of that office on the man.

I had found English audiences highly satisfactory. They are the best listeners in the world. Perhaps the music-lovers of some of our larger cities equal the English, but I do not believe they can be surpassed in that respect.

To the average mind popular music would mean compositions vulgarly conceived and commonplace in their treatment. That is absolutely false.

No nation as young as America can be expected to become immediately a power in the arts.

American teachers have one indisputable advantage over foreign ones; they understand the American temperament and can judge its unevenness, its lights and its shadows.

Composers are the only people who can hear good music above bad sounds.

I have always believed that 98% of a student's progress is due to his own efforts, and 2% to his teacher.

From childhood I was passionately fond of music and wanted to be a musician. I have no recollection of any real desire ever to be anything else.

I am happy now, to recall that I was not only his son but his companion, and whenever there was a hunting expedition or any other pleasure, I was always with him.

Governmental aid is a drawback rather than an assistance, as, although it may facilitate in the routine of artistic production, it is an impediment to the development of true artistic genius.

Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.

I still feel the impulse to give young writers a hearing, and I believe I have played more unpublished compositions than any other band leader in the country.

Is it not the business of the conductor to convey to the public in its dramatic form the central idea of a composition; and how can he convey that idea successfully if he does not enter heart and soul into the life of the music and the tale it unfolds?

Any composer who is gloriously conscious that he is a composer must believe that he receives his inspiration from a source higher than himself.

I firmly believe that we have more latent musical talent in America than there is in any other country. But to dig it out there must be good music throughout the land, a lot of it. Everyone must hear it, and such a process takes time.

My religion lies in my composition.

The movements which I make I cannot possibly repress because, at the time, I am actually the idea I am interpreting, and naturally I picture my players and auditors as in accord with me. I know, of course, that my mannerisms have been widely discussed.

I can almost always write music; at any hour of the twenty-four, if I put pencil to paper, music comes.

America can well expect to develop a goodly amount of composers for she has a goodly number of people.

Grand opera is the most powerful of stage appeals and that almost entirely through the beauty of music.

There is one thing that freezes a musician more than the deadliest physical cold, and that is the spiritual chill of an unresponsive audience!

I think that the quality of all bands is steadily improving and it is a pleasant thought to me that perhaps the efforts of Sousa's Band have quickened that interest and improved that quality.

Anybody can write music of a sort. But touching the public heart is quite another thing.

My success is not due to any personal superiority over other people.

There is much modern music that is better adapted to a wind combination than to a string, although for obvious reasons originally scored for an orchestra. If in such cases the interpretation is equal to the composition the balance of a wind combination is more satisfying.

The average music-lover hears only the production under prevailing conditions.

Sincere composers believe in God.

Remember always that the composer's pen is still mightier than the bow of the violinist; in you lie all the possibilities of the creation of beauty.