Musical Quotes

I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.

In contrast, traditional classical music starts from an abstract musical schema. This is then notated and only expressed in concrete sound as a last stage, when it is performed.

I always wish life could be a musical. One person just says 5, 6, 7, 8.

I remember Tim telling me that he had an idea for a musical and he said to me that he was hoping that ABBA would be writing the music, which I thought was a pretty wild idea because they were obviously known very much as pop writers.

I really just followed my musical instincts every step of my life.

I really like the old stuff that I cut my musical teeth on, and I loved it when the industry was just like that, without really a genre. Today, country radio's more aimed at a demographic than a genre. It just softens everything.

And the invention of transformations of certain figures has become the most important in musical composition.

We went for the best overall feel on each song. There are no musical overdubs at all. It's a true live record; it's one of the few true live records out there.

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes; you move to places you wouldn't if you knew better.

My training in music and composition then led me to a kind of musical language process in which, for example, the sound of the words I play with has to expose their true meaning against their will so to speak.

Ironically, that was quite a bit of the appeal of Rumours. It's equally interesting on a musical level and as a soap opera.

Woody is so musical in his filmmaking. I've never worked with anyone I've trusted so completely. He won't let you hit a false note.

I've studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.

When I think about the real pioneers of the psychedelic movement in a musical sense, not just the culture, everything had a handmade sort of vibe to it. We're inventing our culture as we move along into this.

I never played a musical instrument growing up but I knew kids who did and took it very seriously.

Piano playing is a dying art. I love the fact that I can be one guy with one instrument evoking an emotional and musical experience.

I think I'm more influenced, just in general, not by blues artists, but more by stuff from Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder is probably my biggest musical influence of all. And Donny Hathaway.

That creates the magic, and that's the wonderment of the musical process and how precious that is.

If I made a musical in the beginning of my career, it would have been crane shots and tracking shots and people coming out of cakes and whatever, but these techniques are something that I've left behind me.

I had my own musical ideas that Mick helped me with as well.

My parents were what I like to call proper musical fans. Lots of Sondheim was played in the car.

My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.

There are so few directors who are musical who appreciate music.

At one time musical theater, particularly in the '40s and '50s, was a big source of pop songs. That's how musical theater started, really - it was just a way of linking several pop songs for the stage.

In my mid 30's, after a decade or so of giving full time to the music thing and finding myself with about $10 in the bank and no assets other than my musical equipment, I realized I needed to get serious about making a living.

Len and I had parted musical ways and this was one of the problems.

So, through all that early professional career I would occasionally do a musical, a pantomime or a play with songs. The next stop would be a Shakespeare, or an Ibsen, or a play by a brand new writer who had never done anything in the theater before.

Being a musician is very easy. My house is full of musical instruments. There's a lot of music, always.

If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process.

I'm doing 'Les Miserables,' the movie. I've done a lot of musicals and a lot of movies, and I know there are not a lot of people in Hollywood who have been down those two paths so I've been like, 'Come on, let's do a movie/musical.'