Music Quotes

Elvis deserves a lot of credit for bringing the blues to middle America, not the Vegas stuff. The early stuff, The Sun records, and the first few RCA records. He was wonderful, he had the power, the drive, and he was so dedicated to his music.

Music is wonderful. Especially if there's some kind of content to it.

I want to reach as many people as possible with the message of music, of wonderful opera.

Ry Cooder for me is a master, a great master that has a wonderful feel for Cuban music. He's also paid tribute my talent a bit, even though I don't know half of what he knows.

It was so wonderful outside that even the wild senselessness of this enormous death, whose music I hear again and again, could not disturb me from my great enjoyment!

I mean, you go to the internet and you can see all these conversations and arguments that our fans have about our music and that's wonderful to know, that people would take the time to be that involved.

It's so wonderful... if your whole day is rotten, once they start the music, it seems to melt away.

Of course, there are many, many musicians whose music gives me pleasure, but until I make contact with them, musically or personally, I never assume that anything wonderful will happen.

For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever.

I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe?

You know when you throw a party, you think people will show up and no one will like each other. It's like that with music - parts of your musical psyche have never met other parts. You wonder if you should get them together.

The ballet makes us look at those bodies, it makes us listen to that music, it makes us wonder at the geometry, of the way they come together. The way that extraordinary space is controlled and given such emotional force.

And as I grew older, I then auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music in London, and they said, well, no, we won't accept you, because we haven't a clue - you know - of the future of a so-called 'deaf' musician. And I just couldn't quite accept that.

I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it.

I tend to not want to put labels or categories on the music, only because people come with preconceived ideas about what they're going to hear, or won't come for this reason.

We've got great fans that rock and roll won't have, because you can have a one-hit record and country music used to, not so much anymore and you have a fan forever.

I probably won't be able to hear it until five years from now anyway. That's when I always hear my own music. It takes five years to sit down with it after not hearing it for a couple of years.

I can't read music. Instead, I'd do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize - out of like 5,000 kids! The judges were like, 'Very interesting interpretation!' I thought I was playing it right.

You have to insulate yourself - I'm talking about from everything, people can be talking to you and you won't hear 'em - that's how you write a song. And I haven't been able to do that over here 'cause I'm so busy and then, when I am off, I want to get away from music.

Let's say music is needed for only 43 seconds of film. You have to score it so it is an entity, so it won't bother anyone when it ends so quickly. Or if a song runs 2 minutes and 45 seconds, but the titles run a minute longer, you have to arrange that song so it doesn't get repetitious.

If you're writing a piece for the Boston Pops, the balance is towards one end. If you're writing a piece for a chamber music society, then it's towards another point. I won't make a final answer on that. I think it changes with every piece.

After that I won a prize, I was with a group of ancient music of Spain that they helped me a lot with a grant, you see, during three years. And so I made my debut in 1944 and I found myself helping my family, it was a very poor family.

The magic of playing has to do with how much everyone wants it to succeed. If you have five players in a situation where the music is being improvised and one is determined it is not going to succeed, it won't succeed even if one of the musicians takes control.

I think they can co-exist. You don't have to put one down for another. I've been bitten by the acting bug, and where it takes me, it won't take away from the music.

People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up.

So, to prepare for the role, I had to take music lessons, talk to wives who had husbands overseas, and carefully study the reactions and mannerisms of a friend who was expecting.

When they look back on me I want 'em to remember me not for all my wives, although I've had a few, and certainly not for any mansions or high livin' money I made and spent. I want 'em to remember me simply for my music.

Everything, I just wanted to be like my father. And, as I grew within the music, I kind of became myself which was even more like my father, only without me trying though.

Music is a language and different people who come along are each using that language to do something different, but all coming at it in a similar vein inasmuch as it's always community based and for the most part nonprofit. Most bands don't ever come within a mile of profit - clearly these people are not playing music to make money.

With Frat House, at times I needed to make music that would reflect what these fraternity brothers might actually listen to, but still keep it within the realm of a score; it still had to lead the viewer through the scene, or just help create the mood.