Great Musical Sayings

#1. I realized I was not a great musical technician, if I was going to make anything interesting it would have to come from the creative side of me and not the craft side of me.

Jeffrey Lewis

#2. I'm just a consequence of the great musical momentum and the great changes we are going through in the world.

Shakira

#3. I was playing in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra as principal horn. I was there for some 15 years - one of the most exciting and great musical periods in my life.

Gunther Schuller

#4. From the opening lines, Sleeping with Schubert is a hilarious, whimsical romp through the looking glass of a great musical mystery. The writing snaps, crackles, and pops with humor as Bonnie Marson makes Schubert a sexy, happening kind of guy who gives new meaning to our dreaming the impossible.

Jonis Agee

#5. Here's Kanye, the great musical genius of his generation in hip hop, but, like, society really can't even deal with him because he's always saying something that people go, 'Oh, I can't believe Kanye said that. I can't believe he did that.'

Ben Horowitz

#6. Being in a different band always brings great musical experiences to be able to draw on.

Graham Nash

#7. 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

#8. The fact is that great musical pieces take and hold the stage because they provide great emotional experiences.

Sarah Caldwell

#9. I know how to make it a great musical. I've got to. It's like I've got to see it on stage.

Mel Brooks

#10. The virtuosos look to the students of the world to do their share in the education of the great musical public. Do not waste your time with music that is trite or ignoble. Life is too short to spend it wandering in the barren Saharas of musical trash.

Sergei Rachmaninoff

#11. Andy Rourke and I had been playing together from 14 or 15, and we had a very great musical chemistry. Andy's just a very respected and unusual musician.

Johnny Marr

#12. Musical theater is an American genre. It started really, in America, as a combination of jazz and operetta; most of the great musical theater writers in the golden era are American. I think that to do a musical is a very American thing to me.

Rachel Bloom

#13. 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

#14. I'm constantly discovering things. Like Bobby Bland. Right now I suppose I'm into the Eighties, which turned out to be a great musical period.

Chiwetel Ejiofor

#15. Wouldn't Ponochio II be a great musical, now that he has to face the real world and get a wife ... job. Now he wants to be a toy again.

Rufus Wainwright

#16. What is beautiful enchants me. I mean not just physical beauty but a wider concept of beauty. There is beauty in poetry and in great musical or singing performances. There is beauty everywhere if you can just see it.

Andrea Bocelli

#17. Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn't mean that artists from the rock n' roll/folk-roots culture - of which he was not really a part - shouldn't get better as they get older, like the great jazz or blues artists.

Bonnie Raitt

#18. I have a pretty good math mind, so I can see patterns, but I don't have a great ear. It's like a tragedy - I can see so much more natural musical ability in so many other people.

Bo Burnham

#19. We teach young kids from 8 to 14 or 15 about their musical heritage through great songs written by American songwriters. We don't do too many modern composers, although we include songs from Billy Joel and other writers like him.

Margaret Whiting

#20. I'm a huge music fan. I usually say that if I had been born with a musical inclination, it would've been great. The Beatles changed everything for me, and I wanted to be a journalist for 'Rolling Stone.' I'm a big music fan in a Cameron Crowe way, kind of in a spectator way.

Emma Stone

#21. Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited - that has music and rhythm and time.

Frank Ocean

#22. I'm a fan of musicals from great masters, and I was able to have an opportunity to express myself in musical numbers with Glee.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

#23. I'm glad you asked that question, because of any musical situation I've been in, the communication feels great here with Russell. He really pays close attention to what I'm doing because he cares.

Benny Green

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

Hal Price

#25. The great familiar musical works are always greeted by the audiences as ever welcome and beloved friends.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski

#26. Rock stardom and all that stuff like that was never like my main M.O., my main M.O. is musical growth, and if I become a rock star in the process, great!

Kip Winger

#27. Right when 'High School Musical' was taking off, one of my little cousins called and was really excited to tell me there was a huge 'I Hate Zac Efron' club at her school. I'm sure they're doing great. More power to them.

Zac Efron

#28. Fred Sturm has proven to be a great asset to the musical world as a teacher, composer and author. His gifts have enriched the musical life of all the people who have been fortunate enough to share his wisdom and musicality.

Bob Brookmeyer

#29. I used to do puppet theatre and also mime and musical theatre in Florida for competitions and festivals, which was great. I was very much involved in theatre when I was in college.

Wesley Snipes

#30. Jerry Garcia was a great American master and the Grateful Dead are not just a genuine piece of musical history, but also an important part of American history,

Trey Anastasio

#31. Not being a natural songwriter ... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Bonnie Raitt

#32. Musical theater is great; you get painted up, you get to play princesses and witches, and you sing. The joy alone of that can really carry a lot.

Chris Pine

#33. My mother encouraged me and was very great about me being gay, but she always encouraged me to follow my musical dreams, which I'm very grateful for.

Elton John

#34. We thought it would be great to see if you could put pop music back into musical theater.

Neil Tennant

#35. We've had musical stuff in the show [ South Park] forever. That's mostly because Trey's a big musical fan, and he's a great songwriter. He's been writing songs his whole life. So since the beginning, we've always put a lot of musical moments.

Matt Stone

#36. Regarding the current Broadway revival of The Music Man, Jay Nordlinger wrote: There will always be those who sniff that the show is "feel good"-but, oh, it feels good to feel good. And the main reason The Music Man feels so good is that it is good-a great American musical.

Meredith Willson

#37. Anything can become a musical sound. The wind on telegraph wires is a great sound; get it into your machine and play it and it becomes interesting.

Hans Zimmer

#38. I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater.

Laura Benanti

#39. I wanted to make a more Romanesque film that told a story over a long period of time - this one spans 45 years. I had a great desire to make another musical, but this time I wanted to be more ambitious.

Christophe Honore

#40. I got to sing with Placido Domingo ... I got to sing with Aaron Neville, who is one of my favorites. Got to sing with Brian Wilson, one of the great high tenors. And Ricky Skaggs, a bluegrass tenor. I'm also proud of my musical friendship with Emmylou Harris.

Linda Ronstadt

#41. Coming from the U.K., I can think of so many great songs and musical moments that didn't require a belter of a voice; my favorite singer is Kate Bush and she's not a belter, or PJ Harvey ... I'm definitely more of an alternative girl.

Carmen Ejogo

#42. That's why Tennessee Williams was a great writer. Poetically, dramatically, it was fantastic stuff. And with the landscape, the losers in life populating it. His short stories have got rhythm, something musical about them.

Ciaran Hinds

#43. I think my biggest musical hero growing up was probably Ian MacKaye. He set a great example for all of us local musicians. Still, to this day, I see him as the best example of a right-on musician.

Dave Grohl

#44. And I said - Styx - as a musical group it is our place to reflect the light that is shining on us back onto this place and say - this is where so much great stuff started.

James Young

#45. The musical based on my life would most likely be called 'Something Fabulous.' 'Something Fabulous' - that's a great title!

Megan Hilty

#46. Stand-up is my heart and now I get a chance to do that and the music altogether. That's going to be great. I'm trying to be the Sammy Davis Jr. of 2005. I'm planning on going out with Cedric the Entertainer because he's got that musical bone, too.

Jamie Foxx

#47. I didn't read this book
I inhaled it. This a terrific new take on a great old rock n roll story, a clash of the musical titans.

William McKeen

#48. I mean, it feels like a homecoming in a really wonderfully comfortable place to be - the same director, the same musical director, my same dressing room! [laughs] It's a great place to build something with freedom.

Kelli O'Hara

#49. The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing. Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangor and swell.

Arthur Conan Doyle

#50. I got signed with the songwriting deal when I was sixteen and they were really great - my publishers, who to this day are still my publishers and are like my musical family, my second family - they took me in and taught me what a good song is.

Lights

#51. There is a musical rhythm to great writing, especially if it's performed correctly.

Richard LaGravenese

#52. I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a medicine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#53. 'High School Musical' is definitely the best thing that's happened to my career and I walked away with great friends from it.

Monique Coleman

#54. To be able to explore the genre of the musical is nice. It was great to be able to sing professionally, for the first time, and dance, which was something that I did growing up, but I had not done for many, many years.

Penelope Cruz

#55. I think having musical training as a child was really, really important. I studied piano as a child. Piano is a great instrument to understand musical theory on. I think I have that in my brain somewhere.

Corin Tucker

#56. The first time I started listening to Irish music, I had a very strong connection. Strangely enough, there's a great many Japanese melodies and vocal styles that sound very much like Hungarian music. You start seeing all these cross-references and comparative, independent musical cultures.

Tom Waits

#57. I had to go and sing with the musical director of the film, Simon Lee, who is just incredible, and it went great. I sang with him about five things, things we'd worked on. And then I went to sing for Andrew Lloyd Weber.

Gerard Butler

#58. Mormonism has this great cheesy aesthetic - when you watch their videos, it's almost as if they're about to flash a smile at the camera and burst into song. Mormon cheesiness is so close to musical cheesiness.

Matt Stone

#59. 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

#60. The distance between me and Benny [Goodman], was that I was trying to play a musical thing, and Benny was trying to swing. Benny had great fingers; I'd never deny that. But listen to our two versions of 'Star Dust.' I was playing; he was swinging.

Artie Shaw

#61. Everyone knows 'Smash' is about musical numbers, and everyone knows we have fantastic dance sequences and great performances.

Raza Jaffrey

#62. Detroit's a great music town. If your interaction with it was mainly musical, I'm sure you have a good opinion of the place.

Jeffrey Eugenides

#63. I'm not like my siblings, who are musical but can turn their hands to other professions! I'd always wanted to be involved in music - I'm a great believer in doing things that fulfil you.

Laura Mvula

#64. It would be great to do theater one day, but I don't think I'd do a musical.

Alia Shawkat

#65. I was lucky enough to see the original cast of 'In the Heights.' This one blew my mind. The infusion of Latin, hip hop and rap with musical theatre, great storytelling and talent was a powerful combination to me during a time when I'd not been moved by much!

Josh Young

#66. That's the great thing about music. If you played it, it's correct. The worst musical train wreck hurts absolutely no one. It's all part of the show. In fact it's how we get to the great stuff. There is no penalty for skating on the edge or throwing ourselves off the cliff. So we do.

Stewart Copeland

#67. When I first started acting, I started in opera and had a great desire to play grand, tragic characters. I got sidetracked in musical theater and ended up doing a lot of comedy.

Leslie Easterbrook

#68. I'm healthy, have a loving and adorable family, great hunting dogs, a gravity defying musical career and most importantly, fuzzy-headed idiots hate me.

Ted Nugent

#69. I am very proud of my musical growth and contributions to the band in the last four years. I have nothing but positive thoughts and feelings towards John, Mike, James, and John. Jordan Rudess is a friend of mine and a great talent. I wish all of them the very best!

Derek Sherinian

#70. If you are in a play, and you catch a cold, you are able to muddle through. If you are carrying a musical, it's a different thing altogether. It's the great fear of any singer's life.

Elaine Paige

#71. A musical would be fantastic. The soundtrack would be great and I'd like to do acting.

Melanie Chisholm

#72. Some of the greatest guitarists, historically, have had no chops, they've just had great taste. I know a lot of musical school kids who just have no taste.

Kemp Muhl

#73. Speaking purely from a musical standpoint, I think I am a great performer.

Lady Gaga

#74. The greatness of Mac Rebennack, alias, Dr. John, also known as John Crieux, rests on his command of the musical use of idiomatic expression. Not a technically well-endowed singer, nor a great songwriter, he leaves his mark through the discipline and control he exerts over all that he touches.

Jon Landau

#75. I think 'SNL' is so well-known for its musical performances, as well, and people really breaking into America through a really great performance on there. So I think me and Gotye are both really excited to be amongst such company. You know, it's great.

Kimbra

#76. As we get older ... I don't know a single person who has devoted their life to musical theatre who hasn't had a couple of misses as well as a bunch of hits. The misses, we learn a great deal from them.

Maury Yeston

#77. 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