Great Music Quotes

Love and Death? What has great music or poetry ever been about, but those twin forces that undo a man? ~ Douglas Wynne

Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes. ~ Dodie Smith

I want to continue to constantly put out great music, expand further and further with the live show and music that is attracting music fans from all over the place, not only for ravers or electronic heads. ~ Skrillex

Great music was written by the great geniuses, and you want to do it justice. ~ Joshua Bell

There's room for everyone. There's room for pop country, for 'rock & roll' country, for stone-cold country, and everything in-between. Great music is great music. ~ Miranda Lambert

Coldplay are just four friends trying to make great music. ~ Will Champion

Columbia was a wonderful label for me. Wonderful. The records I made there garnered me an audience. I won a number of polls during the years that I was at Columbia. The Downbeat Jazz Poll. Leonard Feather, who was a huge critic back in the day, different polls that he had. The Playboy poll, a number of polls. So the music was great. ~ Aretha Franklin

Basically [Louise] Brandeis was a Jeffersonian. And you say the timing is great, and it is in a lot of senses, except not for [Tomas] Jefferson, because this is a Hamiltonian moment, and he's the rock star of the minute with a great musical. ~ Jeffrey Rosen

We love to learn because learning feels good. It both satisfies and stimulates curiosity. Reading a good book, having a meaningful conversation, listening to great music - just doing these things make us happy. They have no extrinsic purpose. To give them one takes away from their joy. ~ Zander Sherman

I think music sharing of any kind is great. ~ Talib Kweli

To put it in my music, that's not the message I am trying to send out. That's not the type of artist I am trying to be. That is not the type of lane I am trying to take. I'm looking for a crossover, wide audience. I am here to make great music and pursue a great career and connect with the fans _ this big artist that is making great music and sending positive messages. ~ Sean Kingston

Once again, Kirk Franklin takes the church beyond the traditional, transitioning his life's experiences into life lessons. Clearly there is more to this man than great music. You will feel the beat of his heart and faith. ~ T.D. Jakes

It's not like I'm not writing great music anymore, it's just that I want to take it another level. ~ Drake

One of the early pieces of advice I had as a General Authority was that "we ought to have great music in the Church and more of it, coupled with great speaking in the Church and less of it. ~ Jeffrey R. Holland

A lot of great bluegrass comes out of Kentucky. There's a lot of great music, like the Judds, Billy Ray Cyrus, Ricky Skaggs, and Keith Whitley. There's a lot of bluegrass intertwined with country music. ~ Chris Stapleton

All my momma's people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano. ~ Dolly Parton

Surely the hold of great music on the listener is precisely this: that the listener is made whole; and at the same time part of an image of infinite grace and grandeur which is creation. ~ Marya Mannes

I'd have to say that "Mr. Crowley" in my most memorable solo ... I had spent hours trying to figure out a solo for the song ... Ozzy came in and said "it's crap - everything you're playing is crap" .. he told me to get in there and just play how I felt. He made me really nervous, so I just played anything. When I came back to listen to it, he said it was great.. ~ Randy Rhoads

I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start. ~ Ina Garten

You came down from your throne and stood at my cottage door.
I was singing all alone in a corner, and the melody caught your ear. You came down and stood at my cottage door.
Masters are many in your hall, and songs are sung there at all hours. But the simple carol of this novice struck at your love. One plaintive little strain mingled with the great music of the world, and with a flower for a prize you came down and stopped at my cottage door. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

It was not an esthetic room. Though Frank Shallard might have come to admire pictures, great music, civilized furniture, he had been trained to regard them as worldly, and to content himself with art which 'presented a message,' to regard 'Les Miserables' as superior because the bishop was a kind man, and 'The Scarlet Letter' as a poor book because the heroine was sinful and the author didn't mind. ~ Sinclair Lewis

Great music as much about the space in between the notes as it is about the notes themselves. ~ Sting

I would never withhold information about the murder of my man Biggie, or anybody else. It's just silly and ridiculous. The accusations are just flying out. All I've been trying to do all my life is to make great music. ~ Sean Combs

The world is broken up by tribalism - the British, the German, the Swiss, the Hindu, the Buddhist, are tribes. See the fact that they are tribes, glorified as nations, and that this tribalism is creating havoc in the world, bringing wars in the world. Each tribe thinks in its own culture opposed to other cultures. But tribalism is the root, not the culture. Observing the fact of that is the action that frees the brain from the condition of tribalism. You see actually, not theoretically or ideationally, the fact that tribalism glorified as nations is one of the causes of war. That is a fact. There are other causes of war, economics and so on, but one of the causes is tribalism. When you see that, perceive that, and see that cannot bring about peace, the very perception frees the brain from its conditioning of tribalism.

One of the factors of contention throughout the world is religion. You are a Catholic, I am a Muslim, based on ideas, propaganda of hundreds or thousands of years; the Hindu and the Buddhist ideas are of thousands of years. We have been programmed like a computer. That programming has brought about great architecture, great paintings, great music, but it has not brought peace to mankind. When you see the fact of that, you do not belong to any religion. When there are half a dozen gurus in the same place, they bring about misery, contradiction, conflict: "My guru is better than yours; my group is more sanctified than yours; I have been initiated, you ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

I think I'd be pretty star struck over John Mayer. I'm a big fan of his music, and I think he's great. ~ Sterling Knight

I think that there's always great music being made. Always has been, always will be. ~ Robbie Robertson

I have a limitless amount of great music at my disposal and it's very, very pleasurable because when the music goes on the film it's amazing how much it livens up the film and gives it an emotional kick in the pants, sort of. ~ Woody Allen

The great music for so many artists - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones - was always at the moment when they were closest to pop. It would be easy for U2 to go off and have a concept album, but I want us to stay in the pop fray. ~ Bono

It's a bummer sometimes but I always believe that great bands and great music always prevail. ~ Steve Brown

Honestly, I just want to have a good time, listen to great singers and great music, and just use my instincts, as usual. ~ Christina Aguilera

Great music stops the inner turmoil of thought and allows the mind to seek its natural state of joy. Music frees our minds and allows us to soar to heights where we can experience the celestial. Music opens our minds to allow the perception of new thoughts of a higher nature, which gives us a spiritual lift, which produces yet more joy. ~ Wu Wei

You know what, the drummer is my manager. He's busy. And I'm busy. I don't need the dough, though. But having said that, there's a limit to how much bad music I wanna play. I did it when I was young, and some of the music was OK, but it wasn't great. ~ Aimee Mann

I was 16 when I came to New York. I had graduated to a tenor banjo in the school jazz band, and it was kind of boring - just chords, chords, chords. Then my father took me to a mountain music and dance festival in Asheville, North Carolina, and there I saw relatively uneducated people playing great music by ear. ~ Pete Seeger

His (Swami Vivekananda) words are great music, phrases in the style of Beethoven, stirring rhythms like the march of Handel choruses. I cannot touch these sayings of his, scattered as they are through the pages of books, at thirty years' distance, without receiving a thrill through my body like an electric shock. And what shocks, what transports, must have been produced when in burning words they issued from the lips of the hero! ~ Romain Rolland

I love great music and if it doesn't move me I don't listen to it. ~ Janelle Monae

Great music has layers of things to discover. I try to do so every night. ~ Yuja Wang

Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die. ~ Francois Truffaut

Lauryn Hill, P-Funk, Marvin Gaye, Public Enemy - I have a very diverse palate for music. I can go from Judy Garland to Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Wonder to Rachmaninoff. I just love great music. ~ Janelle Monae

I think we could have done a lot more great music, so I was disappointed that we didn't continue making records and touring, but it's hard to argue with 10 good years. ~ Jerry Harrison

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles. ~ Ahmet Ertegun

Make the kind of music you love even if you never hear it on the air. This was the basic lesson I'd gotten from Alan [Lomax]. Alan said, Pete, look at all this great music around. You never hear it on the radio, but it's right there, great music. ~ Pete Seeger

A mediocre music teacher tells. A good music teacher explains. A superior music teacher demonstrates. A great music teacher inspires. ~ William Arthur Ward

Great music is great music. It doesn't matter what genre it belongs. ~ Stjepan Hauser

Jonny Lang has the power to move the music into the next millennium by reaching the ears of a new generation. The great musicians have the power to break all of the 'isms'-race, age, sex, et cetera. Jonny Lang is one of those musicians. ~ Luther Allison

Dance music is great, but it's not a time to be reflective or particularly wistful. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Great music is a great remedy for depression, but you have to drink it in with your heart and mind. ~ Debasish Mridha

There were so many great music and political scenes going on in the late '60s in Cambridge. The ratio of guys to girls at Harvard was four to one, so all of those things were playing in my mind. ~ Bonnie Raitt

When I worked with General Electric, again this was soon after the Second World War, you know, I was keeping up with new developments and they showed me a milling machine and this thing worked by punch cards - that's where computers were at that time, and everybody was sort of sheepish about how well this thing worked because in those days machinists were treated as though they were great musicians because they were virtuosos on these machines. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

There are tons of people who have made great music, great art, great whatever, but you don't know about them until the people lift you to a certain height so that you could even be visible and get any kind of recognition. ~ Pharrell Williams

I would like to do a science fiction film some day. Star Wars seems really to have destroyed the genre, which at one time offered great musical opportunities. ~ Carter Burwell

At the end of the day, Fool's Gold is a label that, when I hear something I like, I try to grab it for the label. There's a ton of great music coming out. ~ A-Trak

I am always writing a potpourri of music. I want to give the world escapism through the wonder of great music and to reach the masses. ~ Michael Jackson

Finally, I would like to remind record companies that they have a cultural responsibility to give the buying public great music. Milking a trend to death is not contributing to culture and is ultimately not profitable. ~ Tony Visconti

Country Music is great music because it really comes from real life experiences. It is such a great haven for reality. ~ Bryan White

Indie music is 'it' now. It's kind of a revolution to the music: 1980s, 1990s music was getting very sanitized; they were complying with the music industry. Music was getting more and more dead in a way. Now, because of the social climate that's very severe, the artists are compelled to start being real. It's really great that indie music is now. ~ Yoko Ono

To play great music, you must keep your eyes on a distant star. ~ Yehudi Menuhin

Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with words, began to fashipn the theme of Iluvatar to a great music; and a sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the dwelling of Iluvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Mars is really different, into art. Lydia Lunch is more energy. James Chance is more commercial in a different way, in funk and jazz. They were all doing original things, trying to create their own sound and music. I think they're all great. ~ Ikue Mori

My inspiration comes from the message Duke Ellington gave - you are unique, be yourself, put out that thing that is you, then use your work ethic and produce great music. ~ Kenny Burrell

Nas is one of my favorite rappers because you don't get any of that flashy stuntin'; you get the real, just raw bars. The way he tells stories and his vibe, I think we would make great music together. ~ Juicy J

I don't feel that electronic music has to stand on the back of urban artists or anyone else to be recognized. It's great music. ~ Kaskade

I think the French have a romantic cliche that Englishmen have great style, great music, irony and sense of humour. Well, sometimes cliches are true. ~ Josephine De La Baume

Gilmartins voice is angelic, but her lyrical subjects are often serious and slightly sad. The conflict of the beauty of her voice and the sadness of her lyrics makes for great music! ~ Jeff Belanger

Be good to people. Be good to every single person you come into contact with. My best friends are great musicians. But more than that, they're great people. ~ Taylor Swift

What is the best music is impossible to define. Just because it's played by a virtuoso player, doesn't mean it's great music. It might not reflect the soul of a people, which is really my criteria for great music. ~ Mickey Hart

Well, one is inspired by the whole of life, one's own and somebody else's. You know how sometimes you hear great music, and music is completely untranslatable into words, into any words. A certain tension that is born when one listens to music could aid you in expressing something absolutely different. ~ Wislawa Szymborska

They were and still are a groundbreaking band. Even though they haven't released any new music in ages, you can put on the first Black Sabbath album and it still sounds as fresh today as it did 30-odd years ago. And that's because great music has a timeless ability: To me, Sabbath are in the same league as the Beatles or Mozart. They're on the leading edge of something extraordinary. ~ Rob Halford

When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band. ~ Flea

People are beginning to recognize reggae music, and know it's a very powerful music, and researchers have been researching and coming up with reports that it's a great music, a healing music ~ Peter Tosh

In ancient times the greatest of the prophets were great musicians. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

It's wonderful. It's amazing. I mean we have such a great music scene and art scene and there's just a great group of young people, you know, temping their way through their 20's doing other amazing things. And I've been in ... I spent like 10 years working here without ever having been shooting in Toronto. And it's so frustrating because it's a great city. And I remember seeing Montreal actually used as Montreal in that Ed Norton-Robert DeNiro ... ~ Alison Pill

Salsa is a phenomenal way to stay fit, have a great time with your friends and listen to great music. ~ Vanessa L. Williams

There's always something going on, and people need that 45-minute-to-an-hour-and-15-minute break, where they just escape and not worry about bills, health care and God knows what. That, to me, is when you're making great music: when people can just forget about what's going on. ~ Pitbull

We created the spirituals. We created so much great music, jazz chief amongst our innovations, teaching us how to prize ourselves and how to speak to one another, that our kids don't know that achievement, there's no way in the world that could be good for us. ~ Wynton Marsalis

It's just a joy to be able to work with a lot of different musicians. When you play with great musicians, whether they're schooled or self-taught, they keep you on your toes. ~ Cass McCombs

Great music completely obliterates any conceptions of genre. ~ Billy Corgan

I think what's cool about Slayer is no matter how old their albums are, it's the one band to me that their sound is immortal. It never sounds corny to me. You can go back and listen to some Pantera and Metallica albums, and you're like, 'OK, great music.' But Slayer, you go back, and they always sound fresh and hard as hell. ~ Blake Anderson

And no matter how much the gray people in power despise knowledge, they can't do anything about historical objectivity; they can slow it down, but they can't stop it. Despising and fearing knowledge, they will nonetheless inevitably decide to promote it in order to survive. Sooner or later they will be forced to allow universities and scientific societies, to create research centers, observatories, and laboratories, and thus to create a cadre of people of thought and knowledge: people who are completely beyond their control, people with a completely different psychology and with completely different needs. And these people cannot exist and certainly cannot function in the former atmosphere of low self-interest, banal preoccupations, dull self-satisfaction, and purely carnal needs. They need a new atmosphere - an atmosphere of comprehensive and inclusive learning, permeated with creative tension; they need writers, artists, composers - and the gray people in power are forced to make this concession too. The obstinate ones will be swept aside by their more cunning opponents in the struggle for power, but those who make this concession are, inevitably and paradoxically, digging their own graves against their will. For fatal to the ignorant egoists and fanatics is the growth of a full range of culture in the people - from research in the natural sciences to the ability to marvel at great music. And then comes the associated process of the broad intellectualization of society: ~ Arkady Strugatsky

No, I don't really think there's a "golden age" of anything. I think now is pretty fucking amazing. I'm probably the least nostalgic person. I don't think there was a golden time for music. There's always been people making great music standing here on Earth and saying, "This is where I stand, and this is what I've got to say, and this is how I feel about it." The industry of music has always been lousy. The stuff on the top, the stuff that rises, it's always been bad, right from when we first started getting into music. You just have to dig deeper. You have to look inward and outward. And then, when you make music, you can't just copy people. You can't just say, "This is how this was done, I'll do the same." You have to find what makes it good and kind of drag that kicking and screaming into your own world. Music is like a time capsule with no bearing. It doesn't really carry a message from the time when it was made. 1930s blues music doesn't really give you a sense of what it was like to live in America in 1930. It relates to your heartbeat now and where you are and what you're doing. I've said this in other interviews, but when I listen to Iggy Pop singing "Search And Destroy," it has no reference to Vietnam in my world. How could it? I'm from a small town in the middle of England. That's how music works. Looking back in music isn't even really looking back. Music's traveled to where you are. ~ J Spaceman

I can't believe 50 years have gone by since that film was released. I blinked and suddenly here I am. We all really felt blessed and as for me; how lucky can a girl get. Great music does more than enhance a film, it cements our memories in the film going experience. ~ Julie Andrews

I'd say, if you want to be an artist, start with your art; start with making great music and it will, hopefully, eventually cut through all of the nonsense that is out there. ~ Queen Latifah

Music is beautiful. Yes, music is great. My music's great. ~ Jon Anderson

The Protocol. Silence. A choice made generations ago to wipe out violence, but that had also succeeded in wiping out joy, laughter, and love. It had made the Psy an emotionless, robotic race that excelled in business and technology but produced no forms of art, no great music, no works of literature. ~ Nalini Singh

Inequality may linger in the world of material things, but great music, great literature, great art and the wonders of science are, and should be, open to all. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

We've all had the experience of you pick up a book, you can't get into it, you can't concentrate.Then one day you pick up the same book and you don't hear the phone ring. You're totally absorbed. Same thing I have to do every day. When you get into that special place of unconsciousness - you get it listening to great music or seeing a great movie - it just takes you out of yourself, out of this whole world. There's no feeling quite like it. ~ T.C. Boyle

The soul of the great musician can only be expressed in music. ~ Margaret Fuller

She is the sun that shines on my path, chasing away any shadows. She is the laughter that fills up the gaping holes, without which I would be a basket case. She is the reason why I love my job. The best part of my day is drinking a coffee, eating a chocolate treat and listening to great music, while sitting with Genevieve Cain. She appreciates life, she grasps it and makes it what she wants. Sure, she's hit a few bumps recently, what with her loser ex, but Gen's a survivor. And not just any survivor, she's a survivor with dignity and pride. ~ Nicola Claire

All great music is contemporary. If it's still alive and kicking, then it's contemporary. If it fades away, it was a period piece. It had its moment, and that was it. ~ Steve Reich

My advice is: if you've got to be miserable to write great music, then drive a truck. ~ Chris Isaak

When I get up in the morning, I go and I work with beautiful women and charming men and funny comedians and dramatic artists. And I'm presented with costumes and great music to choose from and sets. I travel a certain amount of places, so I've been living in a bubble. And I like it. ~ Woody Allen

I don't care about the charts; I just want to make great music that I enjoy performing on stage and I'm proud of. ~ Cher Lloyd

Finally, three smashing chords to finish, obviously intended to set off a roar of applause. I start to clap, but the man with the score glares again. One does not applaud in the midst of greatly great great music, even if the composer wants one to! Coughing, squirming, whispering, the crowd suppresses its urge to express pleasure. It's like mass anal retention. ~ Alex Ross

I've never really been a traditional country kind of guy. I wanted my music to sound more like the end of the '90s and to have the kind of great music, pop or whatever, that radio will embrace. ~ Bryan White

I was drawn to love songs, but I was just drawn to great music - no matter if it's hip-hop, pop, R&B or whether it's rock n' roll or country. It could be a Garth Brooks song, and if it's a smash, then I'll love the different wordplay and different melodies. That's what I'm a fan of - great music. ~ Nayvadius Cash

It's getting to the point where, to be honest with you, even though there is a lot of great music around, especially in clubland, certainly from my corner of something I just felt like I needed to get my hands dirty and DJ out. ~ Erol Alkan

In the presence of great music we have no alternative but to live nobly. ~ Sean O Faolain

You're in good spirits when you create and produce great music. All situations inspire music in different ways, man, from good situations, bad situations, depression, falling in love, falling out of love. I've been going through all those type of things. ~ Big Sean

We have inherited a great music. This music is a holdover. It comes with us like the skin, the texture of our hair. It's our memory banks. ~ Abbey Lincoln

So, you know, there are a lot of the biggest records of the year. There's great music in hip-hop and jazz and, you know, and folk music. ~ Stephen W. Thompson

I feel very honored to be playing with Bill Pierce. He's such a great musician. ~ Kevin Eubanks