Quotes About Music

The ancient Greeks worshipped the human capacity for insight. Scott Berkun, in examining the topic of innovation, pointed out that the Greek religious pantheon included nine goddesses who represented the creative spirit. Leading philosophers such as Socrates and Plato visited temples dedicated to these goddesses, these muses, who were a source of inspiration. We honor this tradition when we visit a museum, a "place of the muses," and when we enjoy music, the "art of the muses

So much, it would seem, for the music that would eventually be regarded as the first truly American art form.

This new black music represented excess and licentiousness, a direct flouting of traditional moral values.

How often do we Christians "take the Lord's name in vain" during our worship? It matters to God if we lie, even if we're singing, and even if everybody around us is singing the same thing. Music can make us feign a commitment that just isn't there, causing us to become callous, insincere believers.

But nobody is born being able to hear [intervals], and many people never master them. Some people never even notice that "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "The Alphabet Song" follow the same melody (and hence consist of the same sequence of intervals).

Repetition sometimes works in poetry, but rarely in prose. The musical provocateur John Cage once wrote a lecture in which a single page was repeated fourteen times, with the refrain "If anybody is sleep let him go to sleep" (Cage, 1961). Midway through, the artist Jean Reynal stood up and screamed, "John, I dearly love you, but I can't bear another minute.

Our sense of a composition largely inheres in how we feel about the individual parts; narrative arcs are almost always essential in drama but (unless there are lyrics involved) often less essential in music. All of this is, I suspect, again symptomatic of human memory limitations. We live, to a remarkable degree, in the present; what happened thirty seconds ago is already rapidly fading from our memory (or at least rapidly becomes harder for us to retrieve).

Memory, perception, coordination, strength: guitar is just plain hard.

Strangely enough, when the Sugababes' 'Freak Like Me' went to number 1, which was built around my 'Are 'Friends' Electric' song, I had another song called 'Rip' go to number 1 in the Kerrang TV chart, so I was pulling new people in from very different areas of musical interest. That was quite an amazing week.

Put on some music, honey. Put on some Diz, will you? His music is magic, and you'll please his ghost by invoking it," Kodama said. "You'll need his protection in the days ahead.

Music's staying power is a function of how timeless the lyrics, song and production are.

Erik is not truly dead. He lives on within the souls of those who choose to listen to the music of the night.

Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead." - Christine, from Gaston Leroux's: The Phantom of the Opera.

She's singing to-night to bring the chandelier down!

Sometimes, the Angel [of Music] leans over the cradle... and that is how there are little prodigies who play the fiddle at six better than men of fifty, which, you must admit is very wonderful. Sometimes, the Angel comes much later, because the children are naughty and won't learn their lessons or practice their scales. And sometimes, he does not come at all, because the children have a wicked heart or a bad conscience.

I really like all music, but mostly Country, older R&ampB, and the good classic rock.

You know I used to listen to music a lot more.

a record has the human touch embedded in the grooves, the stamp of someone who once believed in it.

Any music fan could get to know a song on a favorite 45, a bigger fan might risk playing the B-side.

It's funny that because a lot of old jazz is being sampled now, you are finding a lot of young kids, a lot of scenesters and clubgoers, who are getting praise, laurels and dates with women because they listen to people like Herbie Hancock. In my day, listening to Herbie Hancock would have gotten you beaten up.

Not all music should be functional. Any culture, and all cultural levels, need music that challenges conventions and pushes the boundaries. To say that church music is a functional art does not mean that art music and popular music are superior or inferior to it. It means only that church music cannot be free art, an end in itself. "It is art brought to the cross, art which is dedicated to the service of God and the edifying of the church." 85

To say that church music is a functional art means, on the contrary, that it is composed, played, and sung " to serve the purposes of God , particularly in the church's expression of its worship, its fellowship, and its mission." 86

If you accept my analysis, it follows that a "good congregational song" is one that is excellent and has integrity in terms of its own genre , in its words, music, and interaction between them. It makes no sense to compare hymns, choruses, rounds and refrains and declare that one genre is superior or inferior to another. It also follows that a single genre can include varying musical styles, as with "Taizé" and "evangelical" choruses.

When she played her music even the night demons stopped their work & it took them some time to remember what it was they were doing & the best of them had no stomach for it for a long time after that.