Quotes About Music

Turn a page, walk the lines of sentences: the singer steps out, and conjures a world of color and noise in the space inside your head.

He blinks; he has to swallow back tears. The parlor looks the same as it always has: two cribs beneath two Latin crosses, dust floating in the open mouth of the stove, a dozen layers of paint peeling off the baseboards. A needlepoint of Frau Elena's snowy Alsatian village above the sink. Yet now there is music. As if, inside Werner's head, an infinitesimal orchestra has stirred to life.

Now the piano makes a long, familiar run, the pianist playing different scales with each hand--what sounds like three hands, four--the harmonies like steadily thickening peals on a strand, and Werner sees six-year-old Jutta lean toward him, Frau Elena kneading bread in the background, a crystal radio in his lap, the cords of his soul not yet severed.

Clair de Lune," a song that makes her think of leaves fluttering, and of the hard ribbons of sand beneath her feet at low tide.

They cross the Channel at midnight. There are twelve and they are named for songs: Stardust and Stormy Weather and In the Mood and Pistol-Packin' Mama. The sea glides along far below, spattered with the countless chevrons of whitecaps. Soon enough, the navigators can discern the low moonlit lumps of islands ranged along the horizon.

In the candlelight, she looks of another world, her face all freckles, and in the center of the freckles those two eyes hang unmoving like the egg cases of spiders. They do not track him, but they do not unnerve him, either; they seem almost to see into a separate, deeper place, a world that consists only of music.

Jutta drags herself closer; she watches her brother with outsize eyes. A piano chases the violins. Then woodwinds. The strings sprint, woodwinds fluttering behind. More instruments join in. Flutes? Harps? The song races, seems to loop back over itself. "Werner?" Jutta whispers. He blinks;

He waits until dark. Marie-Laure sits in the mouth of the wardrobe, the false back open, and listens to her uncle switch on the microphone and the transmitter in the attic. His mild voice speaks numbers into the garret. Then music plays, soft and low, full of cellos tonight . . .

As if, inside Werner's head, an infinitesimal orchestra has stirred to life.

Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them?

Ca inchipuiti mai sunt oamenii! De ce sa te obosesti sa compui muzica daca tacerea si vantul sunt mai cuprinzatoare? De ce sa aprinzi lampi daca intunericul, inevitabil, le va stinge?

Violins, horns, drums, speeches—a mouth against a microphone in some faraway yet simultaneous evening—the sorcery of it holds him rapt.

The music of the poem lends meaning to the words, and the meaning of the words lends music to the poem.

Just as in the music of harps and flutes or in the voices of singers a certain harmony of the different tones must be maintained Ã¢â'¬Â¦ so also a state is made harmonious by agreement among dissimilar elements. This is brought about by a fair and reasonable blending of the upper, middle and lower classes, just as if they were musical tones. What musicians call harmony in song is concord in a state.

I remember a moment when the Prince went back to his old school, Grammar School in Melbourne, and slightly to his horror his old music teacher produced a cello.

I've been composing music all my life and if I'd been clever enough at school I would like to have gone to music college.

I hear it still. As I lay down my pen and take to my bed, I am aware of the bow being drawn across the bridge and the music rises into the night sky. It is far away and barely audible - but there it is! A pizzicato. Then a tremelo. The style is unmistakable. It is Sherlock Holmes who is playing. It must be. I hope with all my heart that he is playing for me . . .

Je l'entends toujours. Alors que je repose mon stylographe et que je me dirige vers mon lit, je perçois l'archet qu'on tire sur le chevalet, et la musique qui s'élève dans le ciel nocturne. C'est lointain et à peine audible - mais c'est là! Un pizzicato. Un trémolo. Le style est impossible à à confondre avec un autre. C'est Sherlock Holmes. ll faut que ce soit lui. J'espère que c'est pour moi qu'il joue...

It was an Édith Piaf album, Chansons Parisiennes.

I don't even know what words to use to talk about the music industry anymore. But the business has changed a lot - the methods of releasing music.

Technology has opened up the music business 100-fold and provided space for all kinds of new faces.

Being in a band is always a compromise. Provided that the balance is good, what you lose in compromise, you gain by collaboration.

Grammy nominations are certainly pleasant, but you can forget about them and lead a perfectly happy life - provided you have the approval of the musicians you work with.

Jazz has provided the framework for all the other stuff that I've done.