Best 926 quotes in «musical quotes» category

A lot of my musical education was done simply by listening. If you really want to excel on your instrument, it's almost impossible to not develop and analyze what you see and hear and to incorporate all of it into your own playing.

A lot of people ask me why I don't expand and explore other musical areas, but I like the plain three- and four-chord rock-and-roll that I call the the semi-blues.

Although music appeals simply to the emotions, and represents no definite images in itself, we are justified in using any language which may serve to convey to others our musical expressions. Words will often pave the way for the more subtle operations of music, and unlock the treasures which sound alone can rifle, and hence the eternal popularity of song.

Always drawn to the theatric, Bowie also performed in stage productions of "The Elephant Man" and just recently collaborated on "Lazarus," an off-Broadway musical that's a sequel to his 1976 role in the film "The Man Who Fell To Earth.

America does not need gorgeous halls and concert rooms for its musical development, but music schools with competent teachers, and many, very many, free scholarships for talented young disciples who are unable to pay the expense of study.

A musical takes two to five years. You have to love it to put in the years.

A musical audience is at best uninspiring, at worst definitely drab. ... Respectability hangs like a pall over the orchestra and the boxes; a sort of sterile sobriety ill-fitted to the passionate geometry of music.

A musical is only as good as its director. The same can also be said for the CIA.

A musician cannot move others unless he, too, is moved.

A musical blast! Fun for the whole nuclear family!

A musical film is my idea of heaven. You can pre-record, you don't have to sing live. Singing live was the bit I hated the most. I never felt like a confident singer.

A musical is the same as a burlap sack, I would not want to be in either

An artist makes something to be physically experienced by another person. It's a raw, freely chosen, interpersonal relationship between the maker and the viewer, so it's close to what a musical composer does, or a poet or a dancer. It is coming out of one's inner being.

And if Henry Higgins is not the most reprehensible character ever written for the stage, that's only because somewhere, somehow, someone is composing a musical biography of Ronald Reagan

And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.

And my singing, I don't think I could sing Wagner or opera, but I could probably carry a tune. I was in a musical once, but it was never performed.

And I love Jane Austen's use of language too--the way she takes her time to develop a phrase and gives it room to grow, so that these clever, complex statements form slowly and then bloom in my mind. Beethoven does the same thing with his cadence and phrasing and structure. It's a fact: Jane Austen is musical. And so's Yeats. And Wordsworth. All the great writers are musical.

Any good music must be an innovation.

And what, then, is belief? It is the demi-cadence which closes a musical phrase in the symphony of our intellectual life.

Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. He failed.

Any film that you make, it's a very high end game of musical chairs ... but that's just the nature of filmmaking. You do the dance with a certain actor.

Anything you are shows up in your music - jazz is whatever you are, playing yourself, being yourself, letting your thoughts come through.

Anything we were studying in school, like math, or understanding somebody's behavior outside of school, kind of worked its way into something I could understand by way of a musical experience I'd had or something I'd heard.

...As every one of us knows, there are some festivals and games in which everything goes right, and every element lifts up, animates, and exalts every other, just as there are theatrical and musical performances which without any clearly discernible cause seem to ascend miraculously to glorious climaxes and intensely felt experiences, whereas others, just as well prepared, remain no more than decent tries.

As a composer seeking to remain anonymous I am shy of confessing my musical activity. This is intelligible enough. For others it is their chief business, the occupation and aim of life. For me it is a relaxation, a pastime which distracts me from my principal business, my professorship. I love my profession and my science. I love the Academy and my pupils, male and female, because to direct the work of young people, one must be close to them.

As an actor, you generally don’t get to choose what projects you are part of, so I’ve been very fortunate that The Book of Mormon was something I got to be part of. I don’t want to be lofty, but it was groundbreaking, in many ways, for musical theater, so that was really thrilling to be part of.

As regards the presentation of musical ideas, obviously rules of order soon appeared. Such rules of order have existed since music has existed and since musical ideas have been presented... So we shall try to put our finger on the laws that must be at the bottom of this.

As for the symphonic activities... when I was a student at the Eastman School of Music, I became exposed to a lot more musical forms, elements, opportunities, and I fell in love with strings and their uses.

As it grows ever more complicated today, musical art seeks out combinations more dissonant, stranger, and harsher for the ear. Thus, it comes ever closer to the noise-sound.

A supreme composer can only come out of a musical nation.

At first the difference will be in whatever atmosphere I bring into it. It's not going to be like, 'I really want to do The Daily Show and I'd love to turn it into an abstract musical.' I like the format and the chance to satirize the news.

Atlanta's my musical home. It really was the place where I really came alive.

At one time musical theater, particularly in the '40s and '50s, was a big source of pop songs. That's how musical theater started, really - it was just a way of linking several pop songs for the stage.

At one point, I was hell-bent on being a Disney animator, and sort of got over that in college and wanted to do my own stuff. You know, towards the end of college I had actually planned to go to the Boston Conservatory of Music for musical theater.

Back when I was in theater school, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, 'Sweeney Todd' was a huge touchstone for me, my favorite musical for sure.

Basically, I composed the musical structure in one pass. The rest was editing and small adjustments. And when the play was read by actors with the music, the sequence timed-out perfectly.

Band of Skulls is joining Cage the Elephant as my new musical caffeine.

Basically [Louise] Brandeis was a Jeffersonian. And you say the timing is great, and it is in a lot of senses, except not for [Tomas] Jefferson, because this is a Hamiltonian moment, and he's the rock star of the minute with a great musical.

Barry Manilow was very special for me. We've had many collaborations since then and all have been equally rewarding and musical. I've learned so much from him. I like being a student around him; observing him in his environment.

Basically, I’m a musical vocalist, but I do voiceover stuff as a sideline, like plumbing or something.

Being a purely instrumental album, it makes a musical statement, not a religious one, and I hope that people can feel the emotion of the great melodies, even without the words.

Being a musician is very easy. My house is full of musical instruments. There's a lot of music, always.

Being in a different band always brings great musical experiences to be able to draw on.

Bel canto is to opera what pole-vaulting is to ballet.

Being on a musical quest was something I always enjoyed.

Bruce Katz is a spectacular talent! He's a brilliant composer and arranger who uses uncommon and unique musical intelligence to redefine jazz and blues far beyond the pale of the accepted definitions of keyboard competence. Whether on piano or organ, when you hear Bruce Katz you know it's him, unmistakably and uniquely.

Bought the Vegematic and Pocket Fisherman, too, illuminated illustrated history of Life, and Boxcar Willie.

Britney Spears has shoulders like a man.

Bernstein has been disclosing musical secrets that have been well known for over 400 years.

Bobby [Fosse] was very difficult to work with, he wanted to be a big star at MGM, but it was the end of making musical movies at the time.