Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
'Tristan' is a very unique case, not just in Wagner's output, but in music in general. It remains contemporary no matter what else surrounds it. There is something self-renewing about it.
Teddy Wilson, I think, said a little while ago that it's much easier to come in and play whatever comes into your mind, without obeying any of the laws of bass line and harmony and so on.
The whole world loves American movies, blue jeans, jazz and rock and roll. It is probably a better way to get to know our country than by what politicians or airline commercials represent.
The iconoclastic mode, that specific mode of language, there is an element of it that it is punk - that is confrontational. That's just a part of the language of jazz - at a certain point.
It can't be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!
I tend to avoid writing music about initial reactions to situations, like frustration or anger. I’d rather wait till I go through the problem, and write about the learning that took place.
It’s like flight, you’re flying… When you’re hitting something that’s turning you on, you get goose bumps. It’s a rush. It’s very exciting and that’s what I’m hoping to do to the audience.
And so my child and I came to this place to meet him eye to eye and face to face. He made my daughter laugh, then we embraced. We never knew what friends we had, until we came to Leningrad.
Sweetness flows from your appearance and your beauty makes me fall more in love with you. Anytime I feel low, I think about the good times you have given me and everything seems good again.
I am consciously not trying to bring in World Music elements. The ways that I work and feel are completely different in how they sound than someone playing the Kora in Africa would play it.
When I'm walking with my father through the woods, and we reach a place where you see so far that your ego suddenly shrinks because you are so touched by the dimension of your surroundings.
So before we end And then begin We'll drink a toast to how it's been A few more hours to be complete A few more nights on satin sheets A few more times that I can say, I've loved these days.
I think it was Duke Ellington who once said that we're always most pleased with our current record. I mean, you have to assume that you learn from one, and you do something better next time.
I was born in London in 1919. I first went to America in 1946 for a three-month holiday. Then I came back, worked here for almost a year sold up my home and went back on immigration in 1947.
There is no better feeling in the universe, other than being married and having a family, than standing on stage behind a piano and having 5,000 people waving at you. You cannot bottle that.
I guess like most people I'm a bargain-hunter. I love a bargain. I found out there's two prices on everything. There's the Rodeo Drive price and there's the same merchandise down the street.
Continuing to create music and perform is so important to me for many reasons. I love the interaction and connection I get with people when we perform live. Nothing is more rewarding for me.
There's always a place for the angry young man with his fist in the air and his head in the sand. He's never been able to learn from mistakes, he can't understand why his heart always breaks.
Those who have expressed doubts and misgivings about their ability to live this kind of life shouldn't try, because being a musician is not something you chose to be, it is something you are.
I can't stand being in Chicago anymore and hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto in the elevator. Because that shows me that when they come to the concert hall they listen to it in the same way.
Sound is often talked about in a very subjective way, as if it had a colour. This is a bright sound, this is a dark sound. I don't believe in that because I think that is much too subjective.
Although we are being presented in Carnegie Hall, we have to furnish a budget for our guest stars, and for the music writing - which is a huge budget in any orchestra that plays popular music.
I absolutely insist upon adequate rehearsal time - particularly for the pieces that orchestras know best. Because there, the tendency is not to take them apart - rediscover them - and you must.
You can tell by the applause: There's perfunctory applause, there's light applause, and then there's real applause. When it's right, applause sounds like vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce.
Focused will is incredible. If you have a dream and you don’t give up no matter what obstacles come up, then life’s problems will fall away and you will get what you want. It happens. It works.
Music is not a hobby, not even a passion with me; music is me. I feel what people get out of me is this outlook on life, which comes out in my music. My music is the last expression of all that.
Once you start playing a piece, there is a connection between every note. You cannot say, 'I will not concentrate on this note.' You cannot ignore things the way you do in the rest of your life.
Always there should be a little mistake here and there - I am for it. The people who don't do mistakes are cold like ice. It takes risk to make a mistake. If you don't take risk, you are boring.
As I understand life at different levels, I can use music to express what these levels feel like to me. Hopefully the listener can be transported to this understanding by listening to the music.
You don't have to compose a masterpiece every time, but I think the challenge of art is always searching for something different, searching for a new sensitivity, a new perspective, a new vision.
Some folks like to get away Take a holiday from the neighborhood. Hop a flight to Miami Beach Or to Hollywood But I'm talking a Greyhound On the Hudson River Line. I'm in a New York state of mind.
Jewish intellectuals contributed a great deal to insure that Europe became a continent of humanism, and it is with these humanist ideals that Europe must now intervene in the Middle East conflict.
There was only really one accident that was kinda bad but it was nothing to do with booze, just bad luck... I was having a hard time a couple of years ago... I'm a good driver, I just had bad luck.
I would say the songs that have different lyrics. I always write the music first, and there's a couple of songs on this box set that have different lyrics from what ended up on the final recording.
And all that we built, and all that we breathed And all that we spilled or pulled up like weeds Is piled up in back and it burns irrevocably And we spoke up in turns 'til the silence crept over me.
In high school, we studied a lot of poetical forms. I was really interested in the math that was involved and the strange live break ups. That gave me a great amount of respect for a rhymed stanza.
When I finally bought one, the Buchla was my only piece of furniture. I lived with that thing. It was my boyfriend! I thought there was something wrong with me, because I was in love with a machine
Stage fright, like epilepsy, is a divine ailment, a sacred madness... It is a grace that is sufficient in the old Jesuit sense - that is, insufficient by itself but a necessary condition for success.
An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.
The ear plays the role of the guide in the museum in the concert I'm taking now. We don't have an oral guide, we have to provide it ourselves. One reason why active listening is absolutely essential.
While there used to be one or two Pops orchestras, now there are all kinds of European orchestras that suddenly look upon this as a golden wand that can enable them to make money recording this music.
I'm kind of putting my toe back in the water and seeing how it feels. We're going to be doing stuff we haven't done for years and years and years. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this stuff flies.
Most of the time I spend looking for the 25th hour in the day, the ninth day in the week, the 32nd day in the month and the 367th, eighth or 70th day in the year because I feel I have a very rich life.
Around eighth grade I decided I wanted to be a composer and that's what I went to college for. Just a few years back, I switched out of composition and into creative writing so I could work with words.
Risk means everything from being honest about your faith, to moving, to quitting a job that's paying you a fortune but it's not what's in your heart. Risking things is one of the biggest fears we have.
I took the ET job because I wanted to stop traveling and they said I would only work half a day. Then I could work on music the rest of the day. They put in my contract that I wouldn't work after 1 P.M.
When I perform, I simply follow the music, and my heart; everything comes from me in a very natural way - it's not a show; and I believe in this way, it also touches the hearts of those in the audience.
If it seems like I've been lost in 'lets remember', If it seems I'm gettin' older and missin' my younger days, well you shoulda known me much better, cause the past is something that never got in my way.
When Hank Jones had his night off, I would get somebody to take my place as intermission pianist and I'd play the show with Ella, so I would get a chance to play with Ray Brown and Charlie Smith as well.
I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach.