Quotes About Music

I love to read. I love to stretch. In the morning, I get up, and if I'm not in a hurry, I will lie on the floor on a rug, look through some books and magazines, and maybe listen to music and try to do stretching exercises to tune up.

I've also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament - it was about 1982 - they called it Peace Sunday.

I told my father I wanted to play the banjo, and so he saved the money and got ready to give me a banjo for my next birthday, and between that time and my birthday, I lost interest in the banjo and was playing guitar.

Also, right at that particular time in the music business, because of people like the Beatles, people began owning their own publishing. I'll just say this really quickly - they used to divide the money for the music that was written in two, just equal halves.

And my dad wanted me to play the trumpet because that's what he liked. His idol was Louis Armstrong. My dad thought my teeth came together in a way that was perfect for playing the trumpet.

Music itself is a great source of relaxation. Parts of it anyway. Working in the studio, that's not relaxing, but playing an instrument that I don't know how to play is unbelievably relaxing, because I don't have any pressure on me.

So I had a couple of years of playing trumpet. I really enjoyed it, but it was not the kind of instrument you could whip out at a party. Let's face it.

So what I do, more than play any instrument - I mean, I love to play - but more than that, I write songs. Songs that are about living, about what it's like to be going through all the things that people go through in life.

The biggest influence? I've had several at different times - but the biggest for me was Bob Dylan, who was a guy that came along when I was twelve or thirteen and just changed all the rules about what it meant to write songs.

You can love a song, but you can form a bond with an album, a relationship that evolves as organically and beautifully as a marriage.

For the longest time I was brought up listening to only two genres of music, pop and rock. So in the past few years I've been trying to expand my interests because I think that you can only write to the extent of your knowledge, and if your knowledge is limited you can't write past that.

I know in my heart , Tiago whispered, the language we like to speak is music and poetry and even cold, sweet piraguas on hot, hot summer days. But it feels like this place wants to break my heart. It feels like every day it tries to make my mom feel tinier and tinier, like the size of Perrito's head in my hands.

My whole family knows I can't sing. My voice, my sister says, is just left of the key. Just right of the tune. But I sing anyway, whenever I can.

As the orchestra lifted into "Darling Nikki," I took small breaths to keep tears from coming. I had not expected this --to feel the close of a chapter. The girlhood of my life over now.

They were laughter on hot city nights hot milk on cold city mornings, good food and good times fancy dancing and soul music. They were family.

And when we pressed our heads to each other's hearts how did we not hear Carmen McRae singing? In Angela's fisted hands, Billie Holiday staggered past us and we didn't know her name. Nina Simone told us how beautiful we were and we didn't hear her voice.

Sometimes I'm just sitting in my room and a song will come on the radio that stops something inside of me, makes me sit up straight on my bed and listen. Sometimes, it's the piano chords, a sweet riff that has all eighty-eight keys talking. Sometimes it's the drums—high hat telling a story—I don't know how to explain the way music moves through my brain and my blood and my bones.

But that afternoon there was an orchestra playing. Music filling the brownstone. Black fingers pulling violin bows and strumming cellos, dark lips around horns, a small brown girl with pale pink nails on flute. Malcolm's younger brother, his dark skin glistening, blowing somberly into a harmonica. A broad?shouldered woman on harp. From my place on the stairs, I could see through the windows curious white people stopping in front of the building to listen.

I'm just saying it's Prince. And it's my ceremony and he's a genius so why are we even still talking about it? You already nixed the words. Let me at least have the music. Daddy doesn't care. He likes Prince too. Jeez!

When the trumpeter picked up a solo and the music lifted past where the voices had just been, I felt like my ribs were shattering. There was so much in all of it. Just. So. Much. I wanted to say to Iris, It all feels like it's trying to drift out into somebody's eternity.

Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions.

The feeble clavichord did not carry far; the harpsichord was only a little stronger; but Cristofori in Italy was working at these defects; he built a machine he called clavicembalo piano e forte — a keyboard instrument to play "soft and loud." Contrary to all experience, we now call it simply "a soft.

Muchos espíritus distinguidos, aún hoy, parecen no poder aceptar ni incluso comprender que de una fuente de ruido la selección haya podido, ella sola, sacar todas las músicas de la biosfera.

Léo ferré disait de la mélancolie: « C'est un désespoir qui n'a pas les moyens. »