Instrumental Music Quotes

I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time. ~ Carlos Santana

The essence of higher instrumental music lays herein that one is able to express in tones that what one is unable to say in words. ~ Richard Wagner

The Chili Peppers do a lot of improvising, but it's within the framework of song structures. The Meatbats is from a purely instrumental standpoint. But when you hear the term 'instrumental music' you think it's real serious stuff and everybody's playing a million notes and it's about playing fast. That's not what we do. ~ Chad Smith

I gave up language for a while, and I started painting.And then I only listened to Miles Davis and other instrumental music to see how it felt to be without words. ~ Rosanne Cash

The magic that you find in surf music, I think, is really timeless. You know, when I was very young, I was in a surf band. Surf music is an instrumental music that still means a lot to me, not in an nostalgic way, but as something that really gets to the heart of the guitar itself. ~ John Zorn

I always liked instrumental music, and I think there's a vehicle out there for it. I think a true artist not only records, but you have to perform and you have to have some kind of consistent output. You can't just put out an album every ten years and never play - that's not an artist, that's something else. But I find there's always been a vehicle for what I've done, because I get out there and play all the time. I say 12 hundred shows on my website just in case, because we can't verify it, but it's more like 15 hundred! ~ Michelangelo

You look back, and it was important to bring back instrumental music, and it was great to be a part of that wave of instrumental rock music. And clearly it was something I was destined to do. ~ Stuart Hamm

Instrumental music was only tolerated, on account of the times and of the people. But in gospel times, we must not have recourse to these, unless we wish to destroy the evangelical perfection, and to obscure the meridian light, which we enjoy in Christ our Lord. ~ John Calvin

When I was a teenager, I got into four track recorders, drum machines, and synthesizers, and I started producing instrumental music. ~ Duncan Sheik

I really feel instrumental music can speak - can contain tremendous amounts of information - but it's speaking to your subconscious. ~ Glenn Branca

I am an old man, and I here declare that I never knew them to be productive of any good in the worship of God, and have reason to believe that they are productive of much evil. Music as a science I esteem and admire, but instrumental music in the house of God I abominate and abhor. This is the abuse of music, and I here register my protest against all such corruption of the worship of the author of Christianity. ~ Adam Clarke

I write a lot of more instrumental music than I do vocal music. It's because I come out of a background of playing piano and then playing sax for a number of years. I kind of got into rock backwards. A lot of guys go into rock and then get sick of it and then go into something else. I came the other way, so I've always just had a lot more stuff lying around. ~ Tom Verlaine

Yeah, on the records, the guitars are made melodic, and I try to make it memorable. There's not much just wanking, to be honest - it's mostly melodic parts. I try not to play too many notes. It's just more instrumental music. It's a totally valid criticism if you don't like that kind of thing. It also is maybe a little anachronistic or unnecessary in a certain way. ~ Stephen Malkmus

Singing instrumental music is most important because, while you play an instrument, you are singing through the instrument ... actually, you are singing inside. ~ Ali Akbar Khan

When the sexes differ in beauty, in the power of singing, or in producing what I have called instrumental music, it is almost invariably the male which excels the female. ~ Charles Darwin

When you're talking about your own music every day, listening to bands, going to festivals, you can kind of lose sight of your initial connection with music. Instrumental music - especially jazz - helps me refocus. ~ Jenny Lewis

I did record a bunch of stuff, but the thing that usually stops me from doing that is that I'm a terrible singer. I made a bunch of instrumental music, and it feels really good, but just as a singer, I'm not good. ~ Flea

After all my years of doing instrumental music I still like just a simple instrumental song with a nice catchy melody and an opportunity to play a solo over a harmonic structure. ~ Stanley Clarke

The development of new instrumental and vocal idioms has been one of the remarkable phenomena of recent music. ~ George Crumb

Instrumental music can spread the international language. ~ Herb Alpert

Instrumental music is nonverbal and thus radically ambiguous. It doesn't lend itself to what might be called content-oriented analysis, though plenty of intellectuals have tried to analyze it in precisely that way. ~ Terry Teachout

The church, although lapsing more and more into deflection from the truth and into a corrupting of apostolic practice, had not instrumental music for 1200 years (that is, it was not in general use before this time); The Calvinistic Reform Church ejected it from its service as an element of popery, even the church of England having come very nigh its extrusion from her worship. It is heresy in the sphere of worship. ~ John Lafayette Girardeau

I probably listen to more instrumental music than music with lyrics, but at the same time I do love both. ~ Flume

I loved dancing with a delirious 'I wish I could die' passion, especially when the music appealed to me ... but alas! only one in ten partners had any notion of time, and what made it worse, the nine were always behind, never before the beat ... Sometimes I would firmly seize smaller, lighter partners by the scruff of the neck, so to speak, and whirl them along in the way they should go, but I saw they were not enjoying themselves, and oddly enough I wanted these wretches to like dancing with me. ~ Ethel Smyth

Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

As a really young child, I was listening to the echoes of the age before, music hall and stuff like that, as well as classical bits on the radio. ~ Roy Harper

I think we're about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world. ~ Brian Eno

When I'm singing, it's like I'm at home. And music is a great healer. I think I'd have been a basket case if I hadn't been a singer. ~ Lulu

When I was recording music, I'd record all the parts myself, and I wouldn't let other people in; that's essentially what Blood Orange is the result of; me trying to find the most comfortable I can be with everything. ~ Dev Hynes

On July 2, McCandless finished reading Tolstoy's "Family Happiness", having marked several passages that moved him:
"He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others ...
I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books , music, love for one's neighbor - such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps - what more can the heart of a man desire?" ... ~ Jon Krakauer

I believe if you ask any singer who was the greatest country music singer of all time, they would say 'George Jones'. He was without question and by far the BEST! I first met and worked with him when I was 13 years old; I am so very grateful that he was my friend. ~ Barbara Mandrell

The discovery of electrical waves ... has had a profound influence on civilization; it has been instrumental in providing the methods which may bring all inhabitants of the world within hearing distance of each other and has potentialities social, educational and political which we are only beginning to realize. ~ Joseph John Thomson

I took the sing from your song. I made a bed where you don't belong. ~ Ben Howard

Drumming is like film directing. You build a framework for everyone to create something together. ~ James Genn

We were orphans before we were ever the sons of these songs. ~ The Gaslight Anthem , Orphans

When I realized I was having trouble reading, I was too embarrassed to ask for help. Some teachers believed in me, but I just wasn't focused on school - I was into the music and trying to please my dad. ~ Fantasia Barrino

My favorite moment of the whole thing was when John Belushi suggested that I get a hold of all the blues records I could so I could research the music. ~ Steve Cropper

For there is a truth, one that is all too easy to forget:
There is magic in music.
Listen... ~ S.A. Patrick

Music is your only friend.
Until the end. ~ Jim Morrison

When you're from a boring town, you have to find things to do. It's funny: I always knew I wanted to make music, so I was always kind of ahead of my peers. I had an MP3 player by the time I was in the fourth grade. ~ Shamir

We can combat existential anguish – the unbearable lightness of our being – in a variety of ways. We can choose to work, play, destroy, or create. We can allow a variety of cultural factors or other people to define who we are, or we can create a self-definition. We decide what to monitor in the environment. We regulate how much attention we pay to nature, other people, or the self. We can watch and comment upon current cultural events and worldly happenings or withdraw and ignore the external world. We can drink alcohol, dabble with recreational drugs, play videogames, or watch television, films, and sporting events. We can travel, go on nature walks, camp, fish, and hunt, climb mountains, or take whitewater-rafting trips. We can build, paint, sing, create music, write poetry, or read and write books. We can cook, barbeque, eat fine cuisine at restaurants or go on fasts. We can attend church services, worship and pray, or chose to embrace agnosticism or atheism. We can belong to charitable organizations or political parties. We can actively or passively support or oppose social and ecological causes. We can share time with family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances or live alone and eschew social intermixing. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Will she disapprove of me?" Helen asked.
Rhys tried to imagine what his mother would make of this subtle, incandescent creature with a mind full of books and music in her fingers.
"She'll think you're too pretty. And too soft. She doesn't understand your kind of strength. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it. ~ Michael Franti

I went to a Karaoke Bar last night that didn't play any 70s music, at first I was afriad, oh I was petrified ~ Stewart Francis

You look like music…
And I can't write anything that would do you justice, but…
You look like music. ~ Will Darbyshire

Country music belongs to America. ~ Bill Monroe

The sentences I write have their roots in song and poetry, and take their bearings from music and painting, as much as from the need to impart mere information, or mirror anything. I am not a realist writer, even if I seem like one. ~ Colm Toibin

I make music to bring the dead to life for a couple minutes and then let it go. ~ Dave Sitek

Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage. ~ Alanis Morissette

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

I decided to start professionally making music at about 11. I was like, 'Okay, this is something I really want to do.' ~ Roshon Fegan

I would like to think of Badfinger's music as mood music. Something with a bit of feeling, whether it's hard or soft. ~ Peter Ham

We put the fun in dysfunctional. ~ Billie Joe Armstrong

I don't tweet very much. I still believe in the mystery of an artist. I believe in going out when I'm ready to sell my product. A lot of artists are out there every day. But I remember the Julio Iglesiases, the Jose Joses - and it was about the music. ~ Romeo Santos

If there is a God, he or she or it or whatever higher power there is is behind us so long as we're using our music in an inspirational way. I'm here for a reason, and I was given a talent, so I'll continue to try to use it. ~ Bert McCracken

I'd rather kill myself than work in the music industry today. ~ David Geffen

I would love to have a go at a band or some form of music one day. ~ Landon Liboiron

I use computers for email, staying current with my own website as well as finding important information through other websites. I also use it for creating MP3 files of new music I'm working on. ~ Clint Black