Quotes About Tradition

I feel that I belong to the 19th century. Some composers' music is very topical. It almost says, 'This is about what I read in newspapers yesterday.' Not mine.

As some to Church repair, not for the doctrine, but the music there.

Our mothers and grandmothers ... moving to music not yet written.

If New Orleans is allowed to die, a crucial part of the world's music heritage will disappear.

The underlying process in Northern music tends to be slower and continuous, whatever's happening on the surface; in Southern music the underlying process is always faster.

I mean, the genuine roots of culture is folk music.

The southerner talks music.

Once you're in a particular country, and you're surrounded by musicians who are so adept at traditional music, you suddenly realize how much there is to explore and digest and learn and experience.

It's hard for me to think of others because I'm not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century.

In terms of creating new music, I'm willing to even branch out and take a slight gamble, but I'm not going all the way far left. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel.

Cubans are frantic when it comes to appreciating music.

I know there's some kind of history to mountain music-like it came from Ireland or England or Scotland and we kept up the tradition.

Country music artists are staying true to their roots, keeping it country but throwing a little bit of rock flair in there which I think is a good thing.

One of the things that I think is such a constant in country music is that the song is so much a story. I believe it is supposed to be based around a story.

When I hear bluegrass today, I hear so many new sounds in it. It's almost like country music in a way.

When you go to the Opry for a show or hear it on the radio, you get the whole circle of country music.

In the course of an average lifetime anyone growing up in a house with such a clock will hear the tune over a million times.

Lots of the bands [in New Orleans] couldn't read too much music. So they used a fiddle to play the lead - a fiddle player could read - and that was to give them some protection.

Secular music was not allowed in our household.

To shut yourself from history is to shut yourself off from say music or painting or the theatre, literature for the rest of your life. It would be to cheat yourself of the pleasures of life.

Hymn tunes are the nearest we've got to English folk music.

In Africa, music is not an art form as much as it is a means of communication.

The curious beauty about African music is that it uplifts even as it tells a sad story.

I've been hearing fiddle music since I was in the womb, I'm sure.