Best Musical Wisdom

1396 Musical quotes by 1030 unique authors

Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way--through the senses,… — John Coltrane
I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about… — John Coltrane
Jazz is musical humor. The noun jazz describes a modern American technique for the playing of any music, accompanied by noise called harmony, and interpolated… — Bix Beiderbecke
THE HOT (AND SERIOUSLY COOL) ENERGY that comes from the musical gospel preached by the title character of FELA! feels as if it could stretch… — Ben Brantley
The blues is a mighty long road. Or it could be a river, one that twists and turns and flows into a sea of limitless… — Billy Gibbons
I consider my musical ability to be a gift from the Creator. It's not that I try to work hard or nothing like that, it's… — Erykah Badu
For the virtuoso, musical works are in fact nothing but tragic and moving materializations of his emotions; he is called upon to make them speak,… — Franz Liszt
I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing and I cannot acquire the… — Sergei Rachmaninoff
I mean, I think I liked every band I ever played in because each band was different, each band had a different concept, and each… — Buddy Rich
After 'The Blues Brothers,' I wanted to do a good musical number with real dancers and shoot it correctly. — John Landis
With an ear open to your musical dialectic, one can be young and become old, can work and rest, be content and sad: in short,… — Karl Barth
Poetry is music, and nothing but music. Words with musical emphasis. — Amiri Baraka
Any musical person who has never heard a Negro congregation under the spell of religious fervor sing these old songs has missed one of the… — James Weldon Johnson
But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of… — James Weldon Johnson
Why compose works that have to be re-created every time they are performed? Because definitive, once-and-for-all developments seem no longer appropriate to musical thought as… — Pierre Boulez
My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest… — Sergei Prokofiev
You know the bank I used to cry all the way to. I bought it. — Liberace
Don't bother to look, I've composed all this already. — Gustav Mahler
The amount of money one needs is terrifying... — Ludwig van Beethoven
I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet. — Niccolo Paganini
If a young man at the age of twenty-three can write a symphony like that, in five years he will be ready to commit murder. — Unknown Author
I never use a score when conducting my orchestra... Does a lion tamer enter a cage with a book on how to tame a lion? — Dimitris Mitropoulos
God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way. — Arturo Toscanini
I really don't know whether any place contains more pianists than Paris, or whether you can find more asses and virtuosos anywhere. — Frederic Chopin
Movie music is noise. It's even more painful than my sciatica. — Thomas Beecham

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