Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love commercial music! I can dissect it and criticize it with any critic in the business. But without any thought, I just enjoy it. It's folk music. That's what I'm doing, folk music. I'm not intellectualizing it . . . and making it into a phoney art form. I'm just doing the music I enjoy.
I have sat through an Italian opera, til, for sheer pain, and inexplicable anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded street, to solace myself with sounds which I was not obliged to follow and get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!
We must ask why apparently general musical abilities should be restricted to a chosen few in societies supposed to be culturally more advanced. Does cultural development represent a real advance in human sensitivity, or is it chiefly a diversion for elites and a weapon of class exploitation?
The first beat that I ever made that I thought was actually worth a damn was called 'Toilet Paper Nostrils,' and I made it when I had a cold. I had the worst cold ever. And I had toilet-paper nostrils making music, but it was really reflective of how I felt. It was a really sad trumpet sound.
My dad is Dominican, my mother's Puerto Rican, and I got into bachata at the age of 10 or 11. When I started listening, it had a reputation for being music for hick people. I thought that had to be changed. I was born and raised in the Bronx, and I knew you make something cool if you're cool.
I know that I'm here because of the grace of God. But I also know that I've been given this second chance for a specific reason, and that is to bring love to the world again through the voice of my music, and I'm so honored to be able to do it. I'm so blessed that God has chosen me to do that.
The maplewood flat-finished Martin had represented the most outrageous luxury in her life when she bought it in 1971 for four hundred dollars. But Lonnie Slocum assured her the Martin was a good investment, even if she never learned to play it better than an acid head who was into heavy metal.
Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of color may make it vague and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.
The music I like to play is Rock 'N Roll. I like to rock like a wild animal. I like to rock it well enough to whip a yak's ass. I love to rock it good on a horse's ass. I like to rock it real hard. I love to rock it all the way to Russia. I like to kick out the Jazz and kick it out all the way.
Music is 'significant form,' and its significance is that of a symbol, a highly articulated, sensuous object, which by virtue of its dynamic structure can express the forms of vital experience which language is peculiarly unfit to convey. Feeling, life, motion and emotion constitute its import.
All the shopping malls and restaurants and airports are riddled with low-fidelity loudspeakers, which apparently have developed the ability to reproduce by themselves; these are all connected to a special programming service called Music That Nobody Really Likes, and you cannot get away from it.
Scotty Moore plays one of the first really amazing riffs in rock history on Heartbreak Hotel with Elvis Presley ... it was dangerous, it scared everybodys parents, which was part of the attraction then - as it still is now... it totally blindsided me and made me want to get a guitar and do that.
If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand...... But until we find this new way of speaking, until we can find a nonapproximate vocabulary, nonsense words are the best thing we've got. Ifactifice is one such word.
There is something about music that keeps its distance even at the moment that it engulfs us. It is at the same time outside and away from us and inside and part of us. In one sense it dwarfs us, and in another we master it. We are led on and on, and yet in some strange way we never lose control.
Mozart eliminates the idea of haste from life. His airs could not lag as they make their journey through the listener's attention; they are not the right shape for loitering. But it is as true that they never rush, they are never headlong or helter-skelter, they splash no mud, they raise no dust.
The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.
Another guitar player who had a tremendous influence on my life was Howard Roberts ... I'd listened to a lot of Tal Farlow, Johnny Smith and Kenny Burrell, and I was certainly into those guys, but I was awestruck at the intensity and fire in Howards' guitar playing... for me, it became a roadmap.
I would. I'm just too, I'm kind of, a pussy, I guess. That's the problem. But, no, I'd love to. I think everybody should do open mics. I think it's very healthy for your soul. So yeah, I'd love to do it again, but I don't know. It's like I'm cutting a record if I do open mic now, so, I don't know.
Enjoy music. Not the kind that rocks and rolls, but the music of the masters, the music that has lived through the centuries, the music that has lifted people. If you do not have a taste for it, listen to it thoughtfully. If you do not like it the first time, listen to it again and keep listening.
Once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That's it. And what's more, the people at the very top don't work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.
One thing people always ask me is 'How do you play outside?' ... I have no idea how to teach that, but when I was discussing this with our bass player Jesse Murphy, he said 'tell them to go cliff diving'... In other words, when you're jamming, you have to take risks if you want to find new sounds.
For me, I actually come from an electronic dance music background: house music, electro house, trance music, even. When I was coming out of school, basically, I discovered Brain Fever, Flying Lotus, J Dilla and all that. That was when I got excited about hip-hop and when the Flume project started.
Kind words are the music of the world. They have a power which seems to be beyond natural causes, as if they were some angel's song, which had lost its way and come on Earth, and sang on undyingly, smiting the hearts of men with sweetest wounds, and putting for the while an angel's nature into us.
Ritchie Blackmore was a huge early influence on me, but after that I had to find my own way ... Johann Sebastian Bach was probably the most influential guy ever on me ... Vivaldi, Beethoven and eventually Paganini ... all of a sudden I was thinking in all these other areas, instead of blues riffs.
Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul...when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued withthe same passion; and if over a long time he habitually listens to music that rouses ignoble passions, his whole character will be shaped to an ignoble form.
I don't get anywhere meditating," she said. "I see people sitting there with their eyes closed, a smile on their lips or else grave-faced and arrogant, concentrating on absolutely nothing, convinced that they're in touch with God or with the Goddess. So instead, let's listen to some music together.
I wanted to be different and original but still have it be something my fans could get into. There also are some big, beautiful ballads. I told my producers that I wanted tracks that are going to blow up in the clubs, but I also wanted songs that were very melodic and with a lot of instrumentation.
People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.
One of the disadvantages of poetry over popular music is that if you write a pop song, it naturally gets into people's heads as they listen in the car. You don't have to memorize a Paul Simon song; it's just in your head, and you can sing along. With a poem, you have to will yourself to memorize it.
Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left.
Because it's our first official album, we wanted to show our color, the color of Blackpink. We wanted to present an image that people would think of when they think of Blackpink, and what kind of music we put out... we channeled the girly side of ourselves and performed according to the girly lyrics.
When Phil and I started out, everyone hated rock n' roll. The record companies didn't like it at all - felt it was an unnecessary evil. And the press: interviewers were always older than us, and they let you know they didn't like your music, they were just doing the interview because it was their job.
Life is a lot more interesting if you are interested in the people and the places around you. So, illuminate your little patch of ground, the people that you know, the things that you want to commemorate. Light them up with your art, with your music, with your writing, with whatever it is that you do.
Things can be really empty in this world, and I don't just mean the music world. It can become a very meaningless place if you don't really understand: 'who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing?' To feel fulfilment and have a deeper level of understanding, personally, that is the most important thing.
I'm a big online everything. But for me, shopping online started with music, obviously, then it went onto books, meditation CDs, and I just recently bought these electronic cigarettes. My husband is trying to quit smoking, so I went online and I bought those BluCigs cigarettes in every flavor for him.
Music is like a conversation. One person says one thing that speaks with a harmonica, with a bass, with a drum. They're all conversating, and we're just trying to find a way to make conversation rather than blah, blah, blah. But it's not really so hard a thing to do if you know the way to approach it.
My discussion with Keith Richards about the creative process led me to believe that there's an invisible presence of a stream of ever-flowing creativity that we overhear-all you have to do is pull up the antenna and dial it in. This presence allows you to maintain your sense of origin and move forward.
Punk rock and skateboarding took the 'school' out of living your life, and I related to learning as I went, doing a lot of different things that I liked, when I liked. Consequently, I'm mediocre at all of the above, but still stoked on being a lifetime student of music, skating, painting, writing, etc.
I've always liked depressing music because a lot of times, listening to it when you're down can actually make you feel less depressed. Also, even though a person may have problems with depression, sometimes you can actually be kind of comfortable in that space because you know how to operate within it.
The joy is actually in the music. It's the music that supports you and tells you what to do. It tells you how to fill the music. You don't have to be shy about feeling the music when you're singing. If you believe in music-the power of music-the music will support you and take you to another dimension.
The many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human, you don't have a soul.
I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech with such art as to produce effects of light and shade, for I am no painter. Even by signs and gestures I cannot express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer. But I can do so by means of sounds, for I am a musician.
When a person listens to a good song, and they can look out at the world and their lives and see the dark and the light, the negative and the positive, all the different elements, all come together in one holistic poem, that is a very healing and very reductive thing, and that's what my music is about.
Blessed is he who invented recording! But what a pity that he was not born centuries earlier! Think only of all that we would be able to hear and therefore understand better. Oh, the unending research in libraries and museums, the readings and collations of texts, the maddening desire to know the truth!
No matter what I do, I can't help but feel that I'm under a microscope. Some of it is completely silly, and some of it is meant to be hurtful. For example, a website accumulated all of my music videos to point out perceived Illuminati images. I loved that one. Of course, it was all ridiculous but funny.
I guess, in a way, I grew up mixed race: half white, half black. That question's always been on my mind: 'What are you? Are you this or that? Are you a white dude or are you a black dude?' In a strange way, music and comedy is kind of the same thing. I'm both. They're just different modes of expression.
Give me a shot to remember And you can take all the pain away from me A kiss and I will surrender The sharpest lives are the deadliest to lead A light to burn all the empires So bright the sun is ashamed to rise and be And I'm in love with all of those vampires So you can leave like the sane abandoned me
It's very strange how electronic music formatted itself and forgot that its roots are about the surprise, freedom, and the acceptance of every race, gender, and style of music into this big party. Instead, it started to become this electronic lifestyle which also involved the glorification of technology.
I wasn't playing the music, the music was playing me... and once that went away, and I had the feeling I was playing music, I had to stop. The need to go onstage and get my brain flattened every night left me, and what I didn't wanna do is go onstage and perpetrate a fraud... You cannot fool an audience.
I believe in knowing all you can about the music and the people who made the music. I think it's much more important to know some good Miles Davis stories than to know how to play like Miles. I think you'll play better if you know some of the funny things he did than if you know the licks that he played.