Melodies Quotes

Ernst Dwinger in his Siberian Diary
mentions a German lieutenant - for years a prisoner in a camp where cold and hunger were almost
unbearable - who constructed himself a silent piano with wooden keys. In the most abject misery,
perpetually surrounded by a ragged mob, he composed a strange music which was audible to him alone.
And for us who have been thrown into hell, mysterious melodies and the torturing images of a vanished
beauty will always bring us, in the midst of crime and folly, the echo of that harmonious insurrection
which bears witness, throughout the centuries, to the greatness of humanity. ~ Albert Camus

I am really obsessed with finding melodies that just hypnotize you and sink you into a song. ~ Hoodie Allen

Richard Shindell works impressive alchemy with the plainest, most primal American pop melodies. ~ Glen Hirshberg

I started classical and operatic lessons when I was 8 and become an operatic singer and went to competition. I write my own music. A lot of the songs, growing up, I was into writing dark stories and poems, and one day I started putting melodies to them. ~ Cassie Steele

Operating theaters are not nearly as popular as dramatic theaters, musical theaters, and movie theaters, and it is easy to see why. A dramatic theater is a large, dark room in which actors perform a play, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by listening to the dialog and looking at the costumes. A musical theater is a large, dark room in which musicians preform a symphony, and if you are in the audience you can enjoy yourself by listening to the melodies and watching the conductor wave his little stick around. And a movie theater is a large, dark room in which a projectionist shows a film, and if you are in the audience, you can enjoy yourself by eating popcorn and gossiping about movie stars. But an operating theater is a large, dark room in which doctors preform medical procedures, and if you are in the audience, the best thing to do is to leave at once because there is never anything on display in an operating theater but pain, suffering and discomfort, and for this reason most operating theaters have been closed down or have been turned into restaurants. ~ Lemony Snicket

I hear these melodies. I hear horn lines and string lines. That's what's fun about recording with an orchestra. ~ Barbra Streisand

I don't meditate in any formal way, but I often lie in bed or find myself in nature and enter into that state of quiet where I get images, feelings, or melodies. ~ Julian Lennon

My whole trick is to keep the tune well out in front. If I play Tchaikovsky, I play his melodies and skip his spiritual struggle. ~ Liberace

Those who were still able to write beautiful melodies were kitsch composers like Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky approaches true art not in his numerous beautiful melodies, but when a melodic line is thwarted. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Things I love about spring are these:
Blooming flowers on fruit-bearing trees.
Fire-red tulips - their first reveal -
Followed by sun-yellow daffodils.

Trees acquiring new coats of green.
Natural waterfalls glistening.
The chirps and melodies of birds.
Throaty ribbits of frogs overheard.

A passing whiff of mint to smell,
Oregano and basil as well.
Colorful butterflies with wings.
Fuzzy, industrious bees that sting.

Sunlight waning late in the day.
Warm breezes causing willows to sway.
Most of all, a sense of things new,
Including budding feelings for you. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I don't play just one-two-three-four. I try to play melodies. ~ John Densmore

Music is given of God to further his purposes. Sweet melodies mellow the souls of men and help prepare them for the gospel. After men receive the truth, songs of praise to Deity help to sanctify and cleanse their souls. ~ Bruce R. McConkie

That's one of the things I like best about folk music is the beautiful melodies - and the harmonies - that exist in it. And of course, some of the stories, the story songs. ~ Roger McGuinn

In music, musicians must be able to read musical notes and have developed the skill to follow the music from their studies. This skill allows them to read new musical notes and be capable of hearing most or all of the sounds (melodies, harmonies, etc.) in their head without having to play the music piece. By analogy, in Mathematics, we believe a scientist, engineer or mathematician must be able to read and understand mathematical codes (e.g., Maple, Mathematica) in their head without having to execute the problem. ~ Inna K. Shingareva

I like to hear melodies that go from one extreme to the next- saxophone to a bell to a whistle, for instance. ~ Roscoe Mitchell

Floating"

Our canoe idles in the idling current
Of the tree and vine and rush enclosed
Backwater of a torpid midwestern stream;
Revolves slowly, and lodges in the glutted
Waterlilies. We are tired of paddling.
All afternoon we have climbed the weak current,
Up dim meanders, through woods and pastures,
Past muddy fords where the strong smell of cattle
Lay thick across the water; singing the songs
Of perfect, habitual motion; ski songs,

Nightherding songs, songs of the capstan walk,
The levee, and the roll of the voyageurs.
Tired of motion, of the rhythms of motion,
Tired of the sweet play of our interwoven strength,
We lie in each other's arms and let the palps
Of waterlily leaf and petal hold back
All motion in the heat thickened, drowsing air.
Sing to me softly, Westron Wynde, Ah the Syghes,
Mon coeur se recommend à vous, Phoebi Claro;
Sing the wandering erotic melodies
Of men and women gone seven hundred years,
Softly, your mouth close to my cheek.
Let our thighs lie entangled on the cushions,
Let your breasts in their thin cover
Hang pendant against my naked arms and throat;
Let your odorous hair fall across our eyes;
Kiss me with those subtle, melodic lips.
As I undress you, your pupils are black, wet,
Immense, and your skin ivory and humid.
Move softly, move hardly at all, part your thighs,
Take me slowly w ~ Kenneth Rexroth

I'm a sucker for pop melodies, things you can't get out of your head. ~ Ryan Tedder

Ushering

Under reign of dystopic melodies
and optimistic lyrics
Two Delusional hopefuls we swept under our wings
and squeezed out our tears over
over the years to make them grow
Our saint-like protagonists
Our best bet and last chance ~ Bunny Rogers

Along with its enchanting and exquisite melodies, West Side Story has attitude and a tremendous amount of frenetic energy. It's emotional, theatrical and technical. It's everything. ~ Steve Vai

In string theory, all particles are vibrations on a tiny rubber band; physics is the harmonies on the string; chemistry is the melodies we play on vibrating strings; the universe is a symphony of strings, and the 'Mind of God' is cosmic music resonating in 11-dimensional hyperspace. ~ Michio Kaku

So much of my career has been about saying things the way people say them, using melodies not that I can sing but that the people can sing. ~ Lionel Richie

Country music to me is heartfelt music that speaks to the common man. It is about real life stories with rather simple melodies that the average person can follow. Country music should speak directly and simply about the highs and lows of life. Something that anyone can relate to. ~ George Jones

There is a high that comes from live shows, a collective energy in a large group of people all gathered for one reason. The beat slices through the melodies and then drops; the crowd bounces and undulates like ripples of water. ~ Christina Lauren

Birds that cannot fly high into the sky rejoice exceedingly and sing sweet melodies when they get to the top of the tallest tree on the highest mountain! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Don't fear to sing alone. If your song is right and melodies are touching, listeners will appear. ~ Debasish Mridha

The sap rises and, itself a mixture of elements, flowers in a mixture of tones; the trees, the rocks, the granites cast their reflections in the mirror of the water; all the transparent objects seize and imprison colour reflections, both close and distant, as the light passes through them. As the star of day moves, the tones change in value, but always they respect their mutual sympathies and natural hatreds, and continue to live in harmony by reciprocal concessions. The shadows move slowly and drive before them or blot out the tones as the light itself, changing position, sets others vibrating. These mingle their reflections, and, modifying their qualities by casting over them transparent and borrowed glazes, multiply to infinity their melodious marriages and make them easier to achieve. When the great ball of fire sinks into the waters, red fanfares fly in all directions, a blood-red harmony spreads over the horizon, green turns to a deep red. But soon vast blue shadows chase rhythmically before them the crowd of orange and soft tones, which are like the distant and muted echoes of the light. This great symphony of today, which is the eternally renewed variation of the symphony of yesterday, this succession of melodies, where the variety comes always from the infinite, this complex hymn is called colour. ~ Charles Baudelaire

Every time I would think about my purpose, the answers seemed to come in sounds. In melodies. In feelings. ~ David Archuleta

Pythagoras based musical education in the first place on certain melodies and rhythm that exercised a healing, a purifying influence on the human actions and passions, restoring 'Pristine Harmony' of the souls' faculties. He applied the same means to the curing of diseases of both body and mind ... ~ Porphyry

The anarch nurtures no expectations. He stakes on no one but himself. Basically, people remain pied pipers, whatever melodies they play to introduce themselves. And as for the rats - that is a chapter unto itself. ~ Ernst Junger

I tried to stick with what I knew best, which is writing rock n' roll songs and melodies. I am as passionate as I was when I was 20. ~ Gary Cherone

At this time of my parting, wish me good luck, my friends! The sky is flushed with the dawn and my path lies beautiful. Ask not what I have with me to take there. I start on my journey with empty hands and expectant heart. I shall put on my wedding garland. Mine is not the red-brown dress of the traveller, and though there are dangers on the way I have no fear in my mind. The evening star will come out when my voyage is done and the plaintive notes of the twilight melodies be struck up from the King's gateway. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

You should listen to songs and listen to what works. Listen to why a song is a hit. Check it out-not to imitate it, but there are certain things that work-hooks and melodies. Hear what works through the ages. ~ Diane Warren

I used to - my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I've always heard kind of melodies in my head. ~ Bono

I think whatever an artist does, it just has to be quality and good. I think the way Kanye's doing what he's doing with the Auto-Tune is actually creative because he just writes good melodies. He just writes good songs. He's just gifted. ~ Will Ferrell

I try to concentrate on the words, on the melody, but then she starts searching through songs, and this feels like my brain - fragments of words, fragments of melodies, fragments of moments, fragments of things. ~ Jennifer Niven

I was growing up listening to Queen. Freddie Mercury threw those incredible melodies into his songs. ~ Gary Cherone

It's a privilege to serve the poor, to be servants of noble Africans, but I better belong in the rehearsal room or in the studio with my band. That's where I want to be and I still wake up in the morning with melodies in my head. ~ Bono

It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of 12-tone rows just don't happen. They must be constructed ... To demonstrate any formal idea in music, whether structure or stricture, is a matter of construction, in which the methodology is the controlling metaphor of the composition ... Only by 'unfixing' the elements traditionally used to construct a piece of music could the sounds exist in themselves-not as symbols, or memories which were memories of other music to begin with. ~ Morton Feldman

There are melodies that speak as eloquently as words, that flow logically and inevitably from a single, pure emotion. ~ Rachel Hartman

It is not hard to compose but it is wonderfully hard to let the superfluous notes fall under the table ... So many melodies fly about, one must be careful not to tread on them. ~ Johannes Brahms

The machinery of compulsory equalization works against the finest trait of the human species, the fact that we recognize ourselves in our differences and build links based on them. The best of the world lies in the many worlds the world contains, the different melodies of life, their pains and strains: the thousand and one ways of living and speaking, thinking and creating, eating, working, dancing, playing, loving, suffering, and celebrating that we have discovered over so many thousands of years. Equalization, which makes us all goofy and all the same, can't be measured. No computer could count the crimes that the pop culture business commits each day against the human rainbow and the human right to identity. But its devastating progress is mind-boggling. Time is emptied of history, and space no longer acknowledges the astonishing diversity of its parts. Through the mass media the owners of the world inform us all of our obligation to look at ourselves in a single mirror. ~ Eduardo Galeano

I love Bill Finn's stuff. It's so rewarding for an actor. It's conversational but intricate. He writes some beautiful, simple songs and melodies, but he also writes this cacophony for people. ~ Max Von Essen

In English, the sounds and melodies I created were an inspiration to me, and words came to me as I explored the sounds, and from there I was able expand on the meaning. ~ Utada Hikaru

I feel connected to every song on this record [ 'Modern Vampires Of The City' ], but yeah I think there's something special about 'Young Lion'. It's pretty different from any song that we've had before because the vocals are kind of between two different very simple instrumental piano melodies and it's almost like something that we call a vignette, it's sort of like a miniature. ~ Rostam Batmanglij

I like to write about the way things used to be and paint pictures of my memories with beautiful words and melodies. ~ Lana Del Rey

I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warner Brothers, Merrie Melodies, and Loony Tunes cartoons. ~ Billy Collins

When I'm in Los Angeles, it's hard to be creative. For me, New Orleans is one of those places that's like a muse. You can hear music on the streets. There's a certain character the city has that inspires you when you're needing to write lyrics and come up with melodies and come up with rhythm and blues. The city has a pulse and it's an inspiration for me. ~ Chris Thomas King

You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God. ~ Quincy Jones

When you sample something, you're using the crutch of borrowing chords and melodies from a song that's already great, that's already stood the test of time, that's already special. When you're trying to do it all from scratch, you're writing something brand new that has to stand on its own. ~ G-Eazy

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music. ~ Dinah Shore

I hear melodies and hooks all day. I've always been that way, since I was a kid. ~ John Legend

I'm into song-writing; I'm into melodies that break your heart a little bit. That's the thing that got me into music; that's what I look for in music for the most part. ~ Danger Mouse

I have ideas for songs all the time, but musical ideas, like melodies, really come out when I'm in nature. ~ Brett Dennen

Melodies are important. I always kind of pride myself on my melodies. ~ Lee DeWyze

Some poets write pages upon pages because their hearts have a song to sing and their melodies cannot be contained in a single stanza... and I find myself typing out a quote because my soul is still gasping for breath, and all the words form a single sentence: I miss us. ~ Alfa H

Though music transcends language, culture and time, and though notes are the same, Indian music is unique because it is evolved, sophisticated and melodies are defined. ~ Dayananda Saraswati

I'm definitely using different parts of myself, but I think when it comes down to words and melodies, I can't really force anything too much. ~ Lia Ices

There's a song for every feeling, Bee. Every tear, every smile, every heartbreak and every victory. Music ignites the soul and strips us bare. It's our very essence. Even if you have no one else to turn to and you feel all alone, remember that you can always find comfort in ballads and melodies, serenades and love songs. ~ Julie Johnson

The 'secret' of Shostakovich, it was suggested - by a Chinese neurologist, Dr Dajue Wang - was the presence of a metallic splinter, a mobile shell-fragment, in his brain, in the temporal horn of the left ventricle. Shostakovich was very reluctant, apparently, to have this removed:
Since the fragment had been there, he said, each time he leaned his head to one side he could hear music. His head was filled with melodies - different each time - which he then made use of when composing.
X-rays allegedly showed the fragment moving around when Shostakovich moved his head, pressing against his 'musical' temporal lobe, when he tilted, producing an infinity of melodies which his genius could use. ~ Oliver Sacks

It grew louder, siren crying from her the depth of very voice; Sweet melodies to
guide me to the underworld. ~ Chika Onyenezi

My thought with harmonies and melodies in general, is that if it doesn't come right away then it's never going to come at all. ~ Zach Condon

We love great melodies and great songs that have great hooks and melodies, so we start a little bit more on that side as opposed to other people that start more lyric-based. Sometimes we'll do it the other way. ~ Dave Haywood

So I write melodies - thirty, forty, fifty - then I cast them off until I have just two or three. If only one is needed, I go see the director and ask him to decide. ~ Michel Legrand

I wrote 90 percent of the record in prison. A lot of people wonder, "How the hell did you do that?" I just pretty much played drums on my legs with my hands and while I did that, I would hum the guitar parts and sing the melodies of the songs. ~ Ronnie Radke

Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat, only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this our pilgrimage to no country and to no end.

In that shoreless ocean, at thy silently listening smile my songs would swell in melodies, free as waves, free from all bondage of words.

Is the time not come yet? Are there works still to do? Lo, the evening has come down upon the shore and in the fading light the seabirds come flying to their nests.

Who knows when the chains will be off, and the boat, like the last glimmer of sunset, vanish into the night? ~ Rabindranath Tagore

These days I'm missing everything. I'm haunted by music; music I can hear, but never play again. Melodies that taunt me note by note, mocking me with the simple fact that they exist. ~ Katja Millay

Down the violet wind slid syrinx melodies, wild as foxes, mad as love, strange as wakening. ~ Cecilia Dart-Thornton

Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means. ~ Bela Bartok

Many love music but for music's sake, Many because her touches can awake Thoughts that repose within the breast half-dead, And rise to follow where she loves to lead. What various feelings come from days gone by! What tears from far-off sources dim the eye! Few, when light fingers with sweet voices play, And melodies swell, pause, and melt away, Mind how at every touch, at every tone, A spark of life hath glistened and hath gone. ~ Walter Savage Landor

There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.
There are not more than five primary colours, yet in combination
they produce more hues than can ever been seen.
There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of
them yield more flavours than can ever be tasted. ~ Sun Tzu

Working with (new collaborators) and letting people in to try new melodies and new lyrical ideas was very hard. ~ Gwen Stefani

I love you beyond paints, beyond melodies, beyond words. ~ Kiera Cass

The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences of the brain just as the loveliest melodies are not too sublime to be expressed by notes. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A perfect poem owes its perfection to sounding the voice of the heart and the melodies of the conscience, as well as its ability to reflect the considerations, beliefs, opinions, and horizons of thought of the poet, but not due to its formal or mental aspects. ~ M. Fethullah Gulen

For the poets tell us, don't they, that the melodies they bring us are gathered from rills that run with honey, out of glens and gardens of the Muses, and they bring them as bees do honey, flying like the bees? And what they say is true, for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in him. So long as he has this in his possession, no man is able to make poetry or to chant in prophecy. ~ Plato

The instrumental record is a bit subtler. It's the kind of stuff on sound check, when I first pick up my violin and start to play, the kind of melodies that just pour out of me. Some of them sound very classical. Some of them sound experimental, polyrhythmic loops that I make. ~ Andrew Bird

I think with me and the type of music that I'm trying to make, it's always going be soulful because I grew up listening to different types and variations of soulful melodies and jazz, but experimenting with different types of stylistic souls. ~ Charlie Puth

Dry your eyes O dry your eyes, For I was taught in Paradise To ease my breast of melodies. ~ John Keats

Elton John can be a master of the sleight of hand. The arrangements make it seem like there are substantial melodies underneath the tracks - but almost nothing demands repeated listenings. Similarly, he always sounds like he's singing up a storm, but his voice glosses over the material, reducing most things to an uninteresting sameness. ~ Jon Landau

My plea therefore is this: Let us get our instruments tightly strung and our melodies sweetly sung. Let us not die with our music still in us. Let us rather use this precious mortal probation to move confidently and gloriously upward toward the eternal life which God our Father gives to those who keep his commandments. ~ Spencer W. Kimball

Little things at first. Sunlight. Melodies. Smells. They'll awaken something inside you. An image will flash. Then you'll remember deeper things. Like how you felt when he touched you. Kissed you."

I grip the armrests of the chair, trying to stay cool. "Would you stop?"

"I thought you'd want to be prepared. Those memories, they're going to feel real. And you may start having urges--"

"Oh god, please don't use that word. Why are adults always using that word?"

"What word? Urges?"

"Gah." I plus my ears.

She shrugs. "I'm just saying."

"Stop saying. And stop planting stuff in my head."

"She raises a sharp eyebrow. "I'm planting stuff in you head now? How very sci-fi of me. ~ M.G. Buehrlen

I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics. ~ Freddie Mercury

I'm trying to be expressive on my instrument and conduct as I'm improvising. So I'm conducting with the melodies and the rhythms that I play. And so it's a very organic way. It's a lot like Charles Mingus played, cuing people in from what you play and how you play it rather than standing in front of a band, conducting and pointing. ~ Joe Lovano

I hope you know that you are not alone, and in those hours when you feel that you are, just know there are other people out there - singing the same melodies of wanderlust, climbing over mountains in the dark, and waking in the night to stare at the moon, thinking of this large world and dreaming - just like you ~ Apex

Make your melodies simple enough so that the average person can hum them. ~ Tom T. Hall

In country music the lyric is important and the melodies get a little more complex all the time, and you hear marvelous new singers who are interested in writing and interpreting a lyric and in all form of popular music. ~ Dinah Shore

Imagine Eminem writing a play with complex raps and syllables, and melodies flowing in and out. That's what it was like for me listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda, it was incredible. So it just goes to show that if you put your teaching style in a certain form, that will attract the attention of the people you are trying to teach. ~ Ryan Montgomery

At the very moment Mrs. Bentley was smiling down upon them with her yellow mask face, around a corner like an elfin band came an ice-cream wagon. It jingled out icy melodies, as crisp and rimmed as crystal wine-glasses tapped by an expert, summoning all. The children sat up, turning their heads, like sunflowers after the sun. (Season of Disbelief) ~ Ray Bradbury

In the Negro melodies of America I find all that is needed for a great and noble school of music. ~ Antonin Dvorak

I started out writing poems before I figured to put melodies to them and play the guitar. Somewhere, there's a book out there on all those early songs and poems. I hope no one ever finds it. I don't think it's my finest work. ~ Willie Nelson

Do broken pianos play broken songs? Do they have busted melodies for busted hearts? Is there a song living inside it that's waiting to get out? Her keys are shattered and her notes long since silent but I can still hear her song. Just listen, just listen. ~ Tyler Knott Gregson

Being a purely instrumental album, it makes a musical statement, not a religious one, and I hope that people can feel the emotion of the great melodies, even without the words. ~ Kenny G

My school life was very much a wandering experience. I was having trouble in school and I was not making a lot of friends. So coming home and actually improvising on the piano and just coming up with melodies was an escape for me. ~ Josh Groban

Feeling hearts
touch them but lightly
pour
A thousand melodies unheard before. ~ Samuel Rogers

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

Well, what I love about '80s rock music is the amazing, fantastic melodies. ~ Julianne Hough

Singing beautiful melodies is one thing, but to deliver the text so that the people understand it, even in a foreign language, has to be worked at very hard. ~ Maureen Forrester

We start a lot with melodies and instrumentation and trying to figure out good melodies for verses and choruses. We get to lyrics sometimes second, so we'll start humming a melody, finding something, and see where the music takes you as far as lyrics are and what you want to say and go from there. ~ Dave Haywood

I love artists who have spirituality. Jonathan Coulton is the man, I love his melodies and lyrics. Chap-hop is the bomb! ~ MC Lars