Musical Quotations

Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.

I regard myself as a beautiful musical instrument, and my role is to contribute that instrument to scripts worthy of it.

I've never really been a confident person, except from a musical standpoint. I had to push myself early on, but it got easier with each gig.

Computers were never designed in the first place to become musical instruments. Within a computer, everything is sterile - there's no sound, there's no air. It's totally code. Like with computer-generated effects in movies, you can create wonders. But it's really hard to create emotion.

I'm a weird dichotomy of nerd, sports fan, and musical theater, so I'd love to do a superhero musical on Broadway. But all the good superheroes are claimed.

'Boy,' 'October,' 'War,' 'The Unforgettable Fire' and 'The Joshua Tree,' those records, they're part of my musical DNA and structure.

I really believe musical form will go on. There's got to be a way of making musical form in cinema live again.

When I think about the real pioneers of the psychedelic movement in a musical sense, not just the culture, everything had a handmade sort of vibe to it. We're inventing our culture as we move along into this.

The issue I had with the Lightspeed albums was that usually the main purpose with them was to fulfil really dorky musical goals, like, 'I wonder if I can do that,' and it was all very personal. It was more that once I'd finished the goal of what the song was, I was kind of done. It was like ticking boxes.

Genetically, I have tons of musical background in my life. My mother's father was a famous Weimar-era composer, Ernst Toch. My father's mother was the head of the Vienna Conservatory's piano department. It all canceled out in my case. I'm completely hopeless in music.

I decided to combine my musical background, business education and creative abilities - and go into the record business.

The folk music definition has changed in this fast music world and musical styles are blending really quickly.

I tried singing. I tried playing a musical instrument. I really wanted to be a musician, but I never could quite pull that off. I liked entertaining, but I was always drawn to some kind of technical work - some kind of honest labor.

I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater.

Musical harmony is based on physical principles, while in cooking, ingredients must be weighed out with precision. At the same time, you have to be able to invent because if one follows the same recipe all the time, you never create anything new.

The sound of the orchestra is one of the most magnificent musical sounds that has ever existed.

I came from a really musical family. I studied classical piano because my grandparents were piano teachers, but started doing musical theater at age nine in Fresno, California, and went to a performing arts high school. That was my life.

Jazz music, as is also the case with the old down-home spirituals, gospel and jubilee songs, jumps, shouts and moans, is essentially an American vernacular or idiomatic modification of musical conventions imported from Europe, beginning back during the time of the early settlers of the original colonies.

Certainly one of the more common experiences in the jazz field is discovering someone new. Improvising musicians are capable of being musical travelers, voyagers. We want to join in on whatever we hear. There is a freedom to wander the musical landscape.

Musical composition should bring happiness and joy to people and make them forget their troubles.

The human voice is the first and most natural musical instrument, also the most emotional.

I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet.

The pull between sound and syntax creates a kind of musical tension in the language that interests me.

When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.

I come from a background of experimental music which mingled real sounds together with musical sounds.

Perhaps two million years ago the creatures of a planet in some remote galaxy faced a musical crisis similar to that which we earthly composers face today.

Like an apparently strict musical form it breaks the five minute whole into its structural parts - a descriptive preamble, the action of taking the cards, the development of the cards' manipulation and the revelation of what has been achieved.

Jazz is the folk music of the machine age.

There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.

I like to work my camera as if it were a musical instrument.

Change is growth. For me it has been a very spiritual and musical rebirth.

Trying to describe something musical is like dancing to architecture, it's really difficult.

I love rock and opera, and I love musical theater, and I don't want to lose any of that.

I think words operate like musical notes that the eyeball hears.

We all love musical architecture; there's no doubt about that.

I've studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.

I just always wanted to be an actor. I don't remember ever not wanting to be an actor. I did a lot of musical theater when I was younger, and I really hope to get back there someday.

I frequently compose out the entire metric structure of a piece in modified cyclic form, where each cyclic revolution undergoes some form of 'variation' much as if measure lengths were concrete musical 'material.'

One ends up relying on pure musical inspiration, and failing that, the music won't lead to anything good, or it will alienate all but the most die-hard fans.

In 1969, I wrote a musical called 'Mother Earth.' It was a rock musical with an ecology theme. We did it at the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Southern California where I was a member. It was a smash hit in this small theater.

The course hitherto pursued in musical aesthetics has nearly always been hampered by the false assumption that the object was not so much to inquire into what is beautiful in music as to describe the feelings which music awakens.

Wintertime for me is a time when I do a lot of my writing in the studio. It's a time I enjoy. And it's very reflective and a very calming time of the year. Throughout the year I gather a lot of musical inspirations, and this is where I bring them to the studio and see what will evolve musically.

I don't care if Margot is a Dame of the British Empire or older than myself. For me she represents eternal youth; there is an absolute musical quality in her beautiful body and phrasing. Because we are sincere and gifted, an intense abstract love is born between us every time we dance together.

On the musical side, I always wanted to kind of carry on Pink Floyd's sound. You know, Pink Floyd always had such an original, creative and masterful sound, but there are no new albums. My thought was that there's a way to keep their sound alive.

The truth is I love musical theater and always have.

I remember Tim telling me that he had an idea for a musical and he said to me that he was hoping that ABBA would be writing the music, which I thought was a pretty wild idea because they were obviously known very much as pop writers.

For ten years, I went to piano lessons. I don't think I'm a very musical person, and the theory quite defeated me, but I had a freak aptitude for Debussy and Ravel.

I was a 'Glee' fan before I joined the show! Since my background is musical theater, it was exciting to see a TV show that incorporated music so much and in such a genius way.

I was probably singing before I could talk. Musical theater is my passion. If I could afford it, I would just do dinner theater and live a simple life.

Wanting to be understood by an audience that didn't know Russian, I tried to paint musical pictures by emphasizing the phrasing, using voice color more boldly, and varying the shade and nuance.

From my time in 'King Crimson,' I'd describe a Progressive band as one that keeps trying to break musical barriers, and keeps trying to do new music.

Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles.

In my opinion I do not think I am a better guitarist than Ace, I honestly think we're both different, and we both brought something unique to the musical.

When I discovered Gil Scott-Heron, I discovered a musical hero, a man who spoke baritone truth to power over jazzy funk at a time when funky music was primarily about shake, shake, shaking your booty.

Broadway has changed tremendously from the early days when the shows were referred to as musical comedies. Musical Theater is now a more expanded art form. Back then, singer/actors were not the norm. From the 60's to now, it is necessary to do it all to be a consummate Broadway performer.

Musical accidents are a gold mine. The thing about accidental discoveries is they won't be made unless you put yourself in a position to make that discovery. To do that means hundreds of hours, days and weeks where you do things and don't discover anything.

My musical director, Mark Cherry, is the most wonderful person who ever lived on God's good green Earth. He's my director, he does the arrangements. Really, he does everything - including certain janitorial chores!

When I was four, we had to choose a musical instrument to play at school, and I chose the cello. I played until I was 18, and although I found it nerve-racking to play solo, I loved playing in an orchestra. When I left school I didn't carry on with it, which I regret.

John Legend is a cool guy. He likes to chill, is easy to talk to and hang out with. He's also inspiring on a musical level.

There are plenty of actors who've caught the singing bug and vice versa, but with musical performers, you're constantly a persona - which is something I love about acting: you play a character, you leave and you get to be yourself again.

I would love to do a play, but I don't know about musical theatre. I've never done anything like that.

New Orleans is like a big musical gumbo. The sound I have is from being in the city my whole life.

I basically was in charge of the Jackson 5 - all their creative, when it came down to the studio, and all their musical endeavors.

For me, learning is a continuous process and an all-inclusive one - reading a book, learning a musical instrument or learning the martial art called taekwondo. Teach myself something new - that's my prayer.

From a young age, I had done a lot of theater and musical theater. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life, but every time I was away from acting, I just felt very incomplete and a little stir crazy.

If the composer withholds more than we anticipate, we experience a delicious falling sensation; we feel we have been torn from a stable point on the musical ladder and thrust into the void.

I so miss musical theater. Secretly, I'm in awe of Broadway performers.

I've been singing since I could talk, pretty much. My dad was really musical and taught me how to sing harmonies and got me a karaoke machine with tape decks.

I ended up doing a local AmDram musical when I was nine or so. We had to sing and dance and act. It was probably terrible, but I loved it.

It costs a great deal of money to do a musical, and the more money involved, the more big business influences the artform.

My musical background is like almost every non classical musician in the world. One day a special record was heard and that was it. I was hooked, started trying to play various instruments and was off to bar land to become a rock star. What else?

If my life were a song, what would it be? 'A Never Ending Road of Musical Good Times'.

Essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.

My reading is always about musical biographies. I have an innate interest and passion for that.

But you know, I'm not 25 anymore, and I have always said musical theater in particular is a young person's game. It requires energy, mentally and physically, to do it.

I started in theatre. I went to the Boston Conservatory and majored in musical theater.

Music is neither old nor modern: it is either good or bad music, and the date at which it was written has no significance whatever. Dates and periods are of interest only to the student of musical history. . . . All old music was modern once, and much more of the music of yesterday already sounds more old-fashioned than works which were written three centuries ago. All good music, whatever its date, is ageless - as alive and significant today as it was when it was written

I never played a musical instrument growing up but I knew kids who did and took it very seriously.

I can't draw a stick person. I can't play a musical instrument. But I've always had a knack for making money.

Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed.

I personally do not believe in politics, hatred, or anger in my musical composition.

I did a lot of musical theatre when I was younger, so I would love to go back and do that again someday.

God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way.

I did a lot of musical theater when I was younger, and I really hope to get back there someday. I miss singing a lot. I listen to Broadway show tunes in my car and sing along to them.

My love of music comes from as long as I remember. I begged my mum to learn piano for a year when I was 4; she wanted to make sure I was serious, and I wanted to be Chuck Berry when I grew up! We were a very musical family; my mum would play guitar, and her, my dad and aunt would sing and harmonize!

I'm an obsessive musical theatre person, so some of the most formative albums for me were, you know, the 'Phantom Of The Opera' soundtrack or 'Into The Woods.'

I was a musical theater major at the University of Arizona. And I primarily trained with Marsha Bagwell. It was a classical program, so we did Chekov and Moliere and a lot of Shakespeare.

Opera is musical theatre, and the music can teach you so much about the theatre. Very often I use musical terms to think about how I comport myself on stage: I employ 'rubati,' 'ostinati,' 'cadenze.' Finding these parallels is very fascinating for me.

I don't see life without a musical career. I really enjoy doing what I do.

All of our songs take these really big creative turns and twists throughout the process, so sometimes songs will start out as a melody or some musical chord progressions.

No one should be allowed to make music as if he were made of wood. One must reproduce the musical text exactly, but not play like a stone.

One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture - some might say the supremely important aspect - is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past.

I always wish life could be a musical. One person just says 5, 6, 7, 8.

Dates and periods are of interest only to the student of musical history.

In the theater, it's about taking time in a musical segment, a pause in a musical way and then moving on.

I'm doing a play, a musical. The musical follows the Mamma Mia concept. It's my first LA theater project.

After a foreign invasion, there has to be a sort of feeling of musical inadequacy in the country.

I was always musical - yelling when I was a baby, singing into a brush and singing in the shower.

I played Jonathan Livingston Seagull in a musical version of 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull' in Austin, TX. It was pretty special.

I like writing for individuals with really rich musical personalities.