Best 1187 quotes in «musician quotes» category

I was raised a musician and I played classic music, violin, in orchestras and music comedy theaters, I have music running around in my head all the time, and if I hear music that's too interesting, I have to pay attention to it.

I was very drawn to music of all types, from Beethoven to Jimi Hendrix. There were musicians and composers who obviously were expressing a vision that was beyond the mundane.

I was worried that I didn't have as many Facebook 'likes' as another musician. You can almost feel like a failure if you aren't building your fame in that way.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

I went to Havana, and I was like, "Wow, there's culture everywhere!" That was one thing that I did notice when I went to Cuba was that artists are paid to be artists, and poets are paid to be poets, and musicians are paid to be musicians by the government. The government - and I'm not saying that the Cuban government's perfect - but the government does place a value on culture.

I was starting a group of musicians and we had a group of young composers in Finland back in the '70s, and the real conductors, the professional conductors at the time were not interested in our stuff.

I went to art school and never thought I'd be a musician, but then punk rock came along in the late 70s and kind of ruined my life. So I quit art school to get involved in music and I've been doing it ever since.

I went to university (Brown), I worked as a designer, I competed in Olympic sport (rowing) ... and I ended up being a musician. It's in the DNA, I guess.

I work with musicians whose opinions I respect and if they don't like something they don't hold back. They'll say, 'That really sucks' and 'You've lost it' and 'You're no good anymore.' And I crawl away with my tail between my legs and I fear that kind of ridicule, but I want them to like the music I'm bringing to them.

I worked really hard to develop me as an artist and as a musician. I have so many different influences and play so many different instruments, I don't think anyone knew what to do with me!

I won't complain about touring, because I really do believe that a public-figure musician complaining about being a public-figure musician is just absurd. Like, 'Boo hoo hoo! I have to stand on stage and people pay attention to me!'

I wouldn't buy somebody's album on a dare if they called him a musician's musician. I don't write to be a writer's writer. I don't want to be like the little-magazine writer.

I would advise all young musicians to not only experience and play chamber music, but to go to operas, speak to the singers, to explore and expand your horizons.

I would love to interview Dave Grohl. I just think he's an amazing musician, and I grew up listening to Nirvana, so I have so many questions about that.

Jay Ashby is simply a great musician!

I would say that for the younger musicians, technical proficiency is necessary and a given these days. But the study and the way you function in society, your beliefs and the way you live, that is where you will find a real musician, a real artist.

[Jazz musicians] couldn't cut rock. I had to be more limited and specific about what I was doing.

Jazz musicians are the coolest people on the planet. Can I have some cool?

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

Jazz is the greatest American art form and our greatest export. We don't pay attention to the youth of jazz, don't stoke the fires creatively for the youth coming up. I feel like jazz musicians became too much of purists - with Donald Byrd doing funk jazz in the '70s.

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

Jazz musicians are so comfortable. The reason they can't do what we do is because they're so comfortable doin' what they do.

"Jazz" to begin with, is a really bad word... all the true musicians that really play jazz, jazz is the worst word for it. Jazz is a process. Jazz is a creative process. It's not so much a genre, but a way of expression.

[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.

Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians.

Jazz musicians like John Coltrane needed these very clear titles for their abstract music, and your decision to bring voices into your music as a way to tap into content. It's related to the way my text-based work still functions as abstraction for me. If I repeat a sentence down a canvas, the text starts to smudge and disappear. It essentially becomes an abstract piece. The meaning of the text is still there.

Jazz musicians have some outlaw in them somewhere.

Jonathan Kreisberg is a great musician whose playing and writing always tell a story. His formidable technique and intellect never get in the way, but only serve the agenda of the heart.

KISS is Las Vegas entertainment. A musician doesn't need the mask.

Lately, I'm spending more and more time working with non-rock musicians and leaving the mainstream - almost dissolving into another world, musically.

Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.

Like most artists and musicians, I considered myself detached from the political life. But I had an insight that maybe we would have a political contribution to make in the future.

Like most musicians, Im good at becoming immersed in the music that I am currently working on. We seldom lift up our heads to contemplate even the music we will be doing in the future, let alone what weve done in the past.

Like the musician, the painter, the poet and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made.

Like the ability of all the musicians to end the song at the right time. Or when it's time for a chord change, but nobody knows what the chord should be, and you all, you know, it all just changes, magically, at the same time. It's when you pick up your phone to call someone and that person is calling you.

Liverpool was an industrial town, a poor town. The people fought hard for what they wanted to achieve and there was a hunger there, and that hunger has remained with the musicians.

[Loco De Amor is] a euphoric, melodic romp across the hemisphere... A joyful, fun musician's record from a really good guitarist

Learning how to record has been super empowering for me, because I spent so many years going into the studio and watching other people do it. I guess a lot of musicians have gone through this because now recording is really available for everybody.

[Louis Armstrong] was the only musician who ever lived, who can't be replaced by someone.

Luther Vandross was a musician who sang. So after a while he was also the number one background singer in New York, so he would sing for Bette Midler, he sang on "Fame," he sang for David Bowie, he sang for - whoever needed backgrounds, he would arrange the parts and hook your record up. He also sang on commercials. McDonald's, Budweiser.

Just look at the Old Testament. They didn't go out with the army first. They sent the musicians out.

Many of the African musicians are well-schooled and well-versed...what they do takes a high level of musicianship.

Making music, if youre a real musician, you carry on, regardless in this world.

Maybe the idea of being a rockstar or being the one who's recording or playing, sort of doesn't really matter as much anymore, when you're surrounded by great musicians who bring their spirit, their own talent.

Mendelssohn I consider the first musician of the day; I doff my hat to him as my superior. He plays with everything, especially with the grouping of the instruments in the orchestra, but with such ease, delicacy and art, with such mastery throughout.

Metaphysicians are musicians without musical ability.

Lou Reed's music has been in the lives of millions of people all over the world for decades. He had a truly universal presence and was respected by musicians across all genres.

Lou's such an old punk he was around when the Ramones were junkie hustlers first and musicians second, when punk meant something other than a mass-marketing concept designed to help the bridge-and-tunnel crowd feel cool.

Metal musicians say dumb things sometimes.

Many of the jazz musicians whom are no longer here. You don't realize that it's history when it is happening and then time passes and you look at a picture and you say "Wow, there is history attached to that.