COTTAGE SCHOOL of MUSIC - Senior

Workshops

Quotes about music...

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. If heed is not paid to this, it is not true music but a diabolical bawling and twanging - Johann Sebastian. Bach (1685-1750)

You just have to press the right keys and the right pedals at the right time and the music plays itself. - Johann Sebastian. - Johann Sebastian Bach

I have always kept one end in view, namely, with all good will to conduct a well-regulated church music to the honour of God. - Johann Sebastian. Bach

I cannot conceive of music that expresses absolutely nothing. Béla Bartók (1881-1945)

Composers should write tunes the chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle. - Thomas Beecham (1879-1945)

This is not a brook [Bach means "brook" in German], it’s an ocean. - Ludwig van Beethoven (referring to Bach's 'Well-Tempered Clavier')

We musicians, like everyone else, are numb with sorrow at this murder, and with rage at the senselessness of the crime. But this sorrow and rage will not inflame us to seek retribution; rather they will inflame our art. Our music will never again be quite the same. This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. And with each note we will honor the spirit of John Kennedy, commemorate his courage, and reaffirm his faith in the Triumph of the Mind. - Leonard Bernstein - from Tribute to John F. Kennedy Speech made at United Jewish Appeal benefit Madison Square Garden, New York - 25 November 1963

The music of the church must be expressive ... The passions of opera are cold in comparison to those of our church music. - Jacques Bonnet (d 1724)

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. - Victor Borge (1909-2000)

"If there is anyone here who I have not offended tonight, I beg his pardon." -Johannes Brahms (who was noted for his bad manners) upon leaving a party one
night in Vienna. - Johannes Brahms

In the beginning there was rhythm. - Hans von Bülow (1830-94)

If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all. - John Cage (1912-1992)

Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school? - John Cage

My favourite music is the music I haven't yet heard. I don't hear the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I haven't yet heard. - John Cage

In truth we know by experience that song has great force and vigour to move and inflame the hearts of men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal. - John Calvin (1509-64)

Music must be made popular, not by debasing the art, but by elevating the people. - Henry Cleveland

When music and courtesy are better understood and appreciated, there will be no war. - Confucius (551-478 BC)

Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. - Confucius

A melody is not merely something you can hum. - Aaron Copland (1900-90)

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be 'No.' - Aaron Copland

[Of discords] Le régal de l'ouïe. A feast for the ear. - Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
 

Playing 'Bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing. - Duke Ellington (1899-1974)


My biggest kick in music – playing or writing- is when I have a problem. Without a problem to solve, how much interest do you take in anything? - Duke Ellington

Modern church music is so constructed that the congregation cannot hear one distinct word. - Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

Without the piano one cannot invent new harmonies. - Gabriel Faure, scolding music student, Ralph Vaughan Williams, for working in a hotel room with no piano:

I see man as someone into whose hands God has placed a hammer and a violin. Such a person lives a very happy life, he sees that with the hammer he can satisfy his material needs, and he feels that the violin opens up a world beyond language, beyond logic, a world that he cannot reach with his hammer. It is the violin that makes him human. But there is a devil called materialism that hates the violin; man easily allows himself to be led astray: the hammer creates comfort, luxury, order for him. He forgets how to play and how to perform on the violin: he forgets the divine gift of art. - Nicholas Harnoncourt

The fairest harmony springs from discord. - Heraclitus (c. 540-480 BC)

Tonality is a natural force, like gravity ... Music, as long as it exists, will always take its departure from the major triad and return to it. The musician cannot escape it any more than the painter his primary colours or the architect his three dimensions. - Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)

The reactions music evokes are not feelings, but they are the images, memories of feelings. - Paul Hindemith

Objectivity in music is rubbish ... Have you ever had an objective love affair? And what is music but love? - Lili Kraus (1905- )

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. - Martin Luther (1483-1546)

We have decided to follow the example of the prophets and the fathers of the church and write German hymns for the German people. - Martin Luther

I am not of the opinion that all the arts shall be crushed to earth and perish through the Gospel, as some bigoted persons pretend, but would willingly see them all, and especially music, servants of Him who gave and created them. - Martin Luther

Nothing on earth is so well suited to make the sad merry, the merry sad, to give courage to the despairing, to make the proud humble, to lessen envy and hate, as music. - Martin Luther

There are two things John and I always do when we're going to sit down and write a song. First of all we sit down. Then we think about writing a song. - Paul McCartney (b.1942)

It’s kind of like a funky sort of Afro-Cuban swinging jazz-rock sort of Classical punk waltz reggae calypso sort of Scottish feel. 
James and his family lived across the road from my Uncle Dave and Aunty Win. Aunty Win says they were very nice but very quiet, and only occasionally would you hear music coming from the house - James Morrison [on his song Ease On In]

I like an aria to fit a singer as perfectly as a well-tailored suit of clothes. (from a letter written in 1778) - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91)

Without music, life would be a mistake. - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Music is the universal language of mankind. - Christopher North (1785-1854)

Piano playing is more difficult than statesmanship. It is harder to awake emotions in ivory keys than it is in human beings. - Paderewski

Some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but for the music there. - Alexander Pope (1688-1744

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. - Elvis Presley

I have never doubted the importance of melody. I like melody very much, and I consider it the most important element in music, and I labour many years on the improvement of its quality in my compositions. - Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music. - Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)

The hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of. - Ned Rorem (1923- )

There is nothing more difficult than talking about music. - Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

Music is ...but the pauses between the notes... that is where the art resides. - Artur Schnabel

Nothing soothes me more after a long and maddening course of pianoforte recitals than to sit and have my teeth drilled. - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

The study of the history of music and the hearing of masterworks of different epochs will quickly cure you of vanity and self-adoration. - Robert Schumann

I've had only three wives and three guitars in my life, though I've flirted with others. - Andrés Segovia

It was my idea to make my voice work in the same way as a trombone or violin - not sounding like them, but 'playing' the voice like those instruments. - Frank Sinatra

Glorious the song, when God's the theme. - Cristopher Smart (1722-71)

The Church knew what the Psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise Him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament. - Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God. - Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I've felt it. - Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Verbal communication about music is impossible except among musicians. - Virgil Thomson (1896-1989)

Two years of close association with some of the best (as well as some of the worst) tunes in the world was a better musical education than any amount of sonatas and fugues. - Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) [On editing The English Hymnal]

You just pick a chord, go twang, and you've got music! - Sid Vicious

". . . 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 . . ." - Peter Warlock, The Sackbut, 1926

Of course music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen,
and if one plays bad music people don't talk. - Oscar Wilde

Every time Brahms went to hear one of his symphonies played, he would go in the audience and listen to the symphony, and the next day he would go to the Bibliotheque in Vienna, get the original score out and make changes—he never could leave it alone. Some sage said that a work of art is never finished, it's only abandone - John Williams [conductor]

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. - Frank Zappa

Some people crave baseball -- I find this unfathomable - but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing a bassoon. - Frank Zappa

I write the music I like. If other people like it, fine, they can go buy the albums. And if they don't like it, there's always Michael Jackson for them to listen to. - Frank Zappa

Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read. - Frank Zappa

Kodály quotes

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