Famous Quotes & Sayings

Morton Feldman

It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of 12-tone rows just don't happen. They must be constructed. ... To demonstrate any formal idea in music, whether structure or stricture, is a matter of construction, in which the methodology is the controlling metaphor of the composition... Only by 'unfixing' the elements traditionally used to construct a piece of music could the sounds exist in themselves-not as symbols, or memories which were memories of other music to begin with.

Mose Allison

The idea was I'd never amount to anything in music, The theme there was that I was talented, but I wouldn't work hard enough to do anything with it.

Seth Godin

Remember the Bob Dylan rule: it's not just a record, it's a movement.

Ray Brown

Jazz is something that you have to feel. It's something that you have to live.

Ray Brown

The better it gets, the fewer of us know it.

Ray Charles

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

Ray Charles

I heard someone say that all black people got rhythm. Bullshit.

Ray Charles

Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.

Ray Charles

Music is nothing separate from me. It is me... You'd have to remove the music surgically.

Ray Charles

I was born with music inside me

Ray Charles

I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.

Ray Charles

Music to me is like breathing. I don't get tired of breathing, I don't get tired of music.

Tom DeLonge

Music is good when it makes you dance. Music is great when it makes you who you are

Todd Rundgren

People who have memorized your songs-how can you not love them?

Slash

... that's one of the cool things about going to local bars: seeing what people are doing and jamming with them. I'm a huge advocate of jamming with others; you learn a lot. So I love to go and do that - even if people wipe the stage up with you..

Slash

Whenever society gets too stifling and the rules too complex, there's some sort of musical explosion.

Slash

I love classical music. It has left a major mark on my playing.

Skitch Henderson

I listen to everything, I listen to all artists that come along.

Smokey Robinson

I don't ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music

Snoop Dogg

I'm a musician - I'm always making music. Kobe Bryant is always playing ball. Well, Snoop Dogg is always recording.

Snoop Dogg

I'm just doing what I do best and that's what makes good music, and that's how you can relate to people.

Socrates

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful.

Sameron adion aso I shall sing a sweeter song tomorrow

Thelonious Monk

I find my inspiration in myself.

Thelonious Monk

Man, that cat [Ornette Coleman] is nuts.

Thelonious Monk

A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.

Thelonious Monk

I don't know where jazz is going. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens.

Thelonious Monk

I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

Thelonious Monk

After two takes you're imitating yourself.

Thelonious Monk

If you really understand the meaning of be-bop, you understand the meaning of freedom.

Thelonious Monk

I don't have a definition of Jazz. You're just supposed to know it when you hear it.

Thelonious Monk

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

Thelonious Monk

All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.