Best 1187 quotes in «musician quotes» category

I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him.

If politically infused music is denied airplay, music reviews or festival stage time because it is considered "politics" rather than "art", then there will be no music left to ban. It will never reach the surface anyway, not to the larger audience. I believe that there is a high degree of censorship in the west, most importantly in the form of self-censorship among musicians themselves. This is why what you hear on the radio is - increasingly often - pure and toothless entertainment. Almost by definition, there's nothing left in pop music worth banning.

If there is any selfish angle, then it would probably be me just knocking myself in the head, thinking "Is there anybody here? Am I still able to communicate with other musicians?

If we perform the romantic repertoire we need more musicians.

If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. therefore, respect every musician in his proper place.

If you are a musician who has released albums, it would perhaps be morbidly interesting to know how much you would be owed if everyone who now has your music had actually bought your record.

If you go to a concert, you will notice, is it loud? Is the music fast? Is it predominately strings or brass? There are things we can all register, whether we are musicians or not. Painting's no different. Taking pleasure in projecting oneself into the painting is the act of looking. That's what looking is.

If you listen to a lot of the songs that are popular now, there's very little melody in there. People love the beat. But to musicians, it's melody, because we understand how elusive it is and how hard it is to hold.

If you make a suggestion and [musicians] don't know what you mean, you have to be able to do it yourself. I often sit down on drums and show 'em just exactly what I want. And I do it and then say, "How do you do that?" It's because I know how it looks, I know what I want to hear, and I don't drop or rush any tempo. It ain't in my body, it ain't in my nephew's body.

If you're a Brit you kinda get used to people being cold and aloof and just generally arrogant - particularly musicians. (Compared to Londoners New Yorkers are a walk in the park!)

If you make money back from your record, you're doing it smart. It's an expensive hobby. I'm lucky enough to still make a living as a musician through live work and odd bits of royalties.

If you're a woman musician, that is your qualifier. I've had people come up to me and say, "You're good for a girl." My only issue is, when that stereotype and stigma already exists, sometimes it's perpetuated by people who may not really play guitar. You somehow need to transcend that division of gender.

If you're allowed to make your mistakes, I think you should. But people don't really like hearing you admit them. Although I'd never wanted to dump on the musicians that were involved in that... Because it was not their fault.

If you're an actress or a musician, everyone thinks you're hot

If you truly have expertise - and expertise can be say a chess master who has really mastered something or an artist or a musician of some sort you know if you give a jazz musician.

If you're trying to connect to people with music - it's more of an outward process and a lot of times musicians can be very inward.

If you strive to become a good human being with the qualities of generosity, humility and having reverence for life...just maybe you'll become a great musician.

If you want to be a better musician, hang out with a computer coder.

If you want to know what's really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than truth or beauty.

I get really insecure because even though I can speak in musician's terms, I don't know as much as real musicians.

I get to be a musician with my life, so it doesn't even matter if I'm good in it. It means at the very least, I'm pulling the wool over everyone's eyes consistently enough. And I put food on the table, and have work to do.

I got really excited about it. But then we went into the studio and tried to record some with different musicians, and it didn't sound good. It didn't work. So we put together the album [Unchained] with just a guitar and myself.

I go by the "Miles Davis school of production and band-leading", where you pick the best musicians you can, you provide them with a minimum of direction, and you just let the music happen. I've seen it work time and time again.

I got by as a musician since day one. I don't live beyond my means. I have real cheap tastes.

I guess I'm used to seeing actors, but rock musicians still hold a special magic for me.

I grew up listening to a lot of that stuff, Motown and Stooges. But also early rock-and-roll like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. I feel like as I grew older, I've been working with different musicians, people that have are constantly showing me different things.

I grew up in a time when being a musician and learning to be a musician was actually very wonderful.

I grew up wanting to be a musician, but my parents were sure I would starve to death. So, they put me in physics and chemistry. That eventually blew up, and I got into radio.

I guess I'm fortunate that I'm still around and I emphasize 'I guess', because you never can tell what musicians would be playing had they been around as long as I have.

I guess I'm still holding on to something that I know will probably never happen, because somewhere deep down inside me, I have this little piece of hope that someday, it will.

I guess a certain contingent of the musicians in London at the beginning of the '70s were fed up with denim and the hippies. And I think we kind of wanted to go somewhere else.

I had abandoned my plans for priesthood and replaced them with dreams of being a musician.

I have a music career as well, so I was going to either be an actress or a musician. Then, I did both. But, I was always going to do something creative.

I have a buddy of mine who's a musician, and I play guitar and sing quite a bit with him.

I have a deep respect for musicians, and I feel like I would want to be so prepared and so well-educated and deep in the process before I ever release anything.

I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves.

I have a problem with capitalism, in it's extreme sense. At the same time communism, I have a problem with that, because every man must feel like a lord in his own manor.

I have a real love of sound and the shape of the sound. I'm a musician, and I'm fascinated with the effects of sound, and tone, and pitch and melody and all that sort of stuff.

I have a thing: I will always put money in for any street musician anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. It's like giving back the money I got.

I have been a provoker and I'll probably always be one in the public arena for the rest of my life.

I had no aspirations to be a musician, but I picked up a guitar for two seconds and haven't put it down since.

I have always been a singer, a writer, and a musician, not as a prodigy or as in a trade handed to me by my parents, but because of an inner voice or maybe a command from beyond reality as it is usually defined.

I have a theory - if the music is good and you have good musicians, the name doesn't matter that much. There are a lot of examples of that. The name is just a calling card.

I have learned that collaboration are everything to me. Music is a social thing. If there are no ears to hear it, it has no value. I have really loved getting input from other great musicians- like recording strings with my family or making weird synth sounds with tore nissen.

I have found that the best cure for self pity is to do something to help someone else.

I have learned a lot from jazz. I compare good acting to jazz music. The more you study and prepare as an actor, the more equipped you are to live in the moment. Just like the gifted musicians in my dad's quartet, it takes a courageous actor to be free.

I have more fun hanging out with my friends who are musicians and rock stars. You know politicians by and large are pretty stiff, pretty rehearsed.

I just look up to anyone who made music back then because you really had to be a musician. There were no samples or drum machines. Those people back in the day paved the way for people like me.

I have no desire to make money off musicians. I just want to promote them because I want to share music.

I have no ear for music. When I attend a concert, I endeavor gamely to follow the sequence and relationship of sounds but cannot keep it up for more than a few minutes. Visual impressions, reflections of hands in lacquered wood, a diligent bald spot over a fiddle, take over, and soon I am bored beyond measure by the motions of the musicians.