Quotes About Music

I have attended operas, whenever I could not help it, for fourteen years now; I am sure I know of no agony comparable to the listening to an unfamiliar opera.

When I played Lady Day, I took Aba onstage with me as a joke. He started singing-in tune!-and the audience loved it.

...there isn't often anything in Wagner opera that one would call by such a violent name as acting.

The notes are right, but if I listened they would be wrong.

Why do you always start after my beat then rush to catch up? Do you want us to stay behind?

Tonight I'm going to listen with my ears.

I know this music from memory, not from the music.

Yes, the mutes are already on. You took them off in the beginning.

We have to play it longer because there are no numbers or letters.

Without him here, it is impossible to know how fast he will play it, approximately.

This is one bar you should take home.

I need one more bass less.

Long note? Yes. Make it seem short.

Brass, stay down all summer.

More basses, because you are so far away.

Did you play? It sounded very good.

It's so legato it's difficult to splice. Sibelius was famous for that.

Muti is going to do the Alpine Symphony this year. He will do it well because it is not very well known.

It's funny, I can see the science in how music is made with other artists, but it's hard for me to dissect my own thing.

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip.

Funny the way it is, not right or wrong, somebody's heart is broken, and it becomes your favorite song.

If you covered a broom handle with oil and shoved it up my arse, then put me on a trampoline, in a lift, I could write a better song on the walls.

It's funny, I write lyrics in a bizarre way - I'm always writing lyrics, mostly when we're traveling or walking around New York, that's when I'm writing most of the stuff.

When I die, so does hip hop.