On Music Quotes

#1. I once worked at a record label called London Records. The company was owned by Roger Ames, one of the most successful figures in the British music industry. Roger always placed a value on loafing, on holidays, on not being in the office all the time.

John Niven

#2. I love Shakira - she is such a beautiful person. She does so many good things for the world on top of making good music. And she is an awesome mom. When you are Latina, it is all about family, and to see that she prioritizes family and her career at the same time is really nice.

Becky G

#3. I started writing music when I was 15 in my bedroom, and I'd post them on MySpace, and from there it shifted to doing covers on YouTube and building my Twitter.

Tori Kelly

#4. Music is music; you don't have to put a label on it.

Joe Perry

#5. If I put a value on my music, and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan; it can't work.

Robert Smith

#6. As regards the presentation of musical ideas, obviously rules of order soon appeared. Such rules of order have existed since music has existed and since musical ideas have been presented ... So we shall try to put our finger on the laws that must be at the bottom of this ...

Anton Webern

#7. I do the work with friends who are musicians as well. I'm working on a piece of music and I have an idea of who I want on the vocals, but I don't really have a list.

Paul Van Dyk

#8. I've never missed a gig yet. Music makes people happy, and that's why I go on doing it - I like to see everybody smile.

Buddy Guy

#9. Folk-punk artists like This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb or Paul Baribeau were popular in the Florida punk community. I saw people early on combine roots music with more aggressive music.

Benjamin Booker

#10. My eyes locked on his and I seemed to get caught in his gaze. We didn't speak, I just looked at his handsome face and memorized every inch of it. The music playing in the background, the stars shining down on us, the solitude, all of it was perfect and almost magical.

Kirsty Moseley

#11. While I am not a musician, I love music. I have over 15,000 songs on my iPod. Everything from hard core rap to the soundtrack from the original 'Cinderella.'

Lee Daniels

#12. Corina Bartra is a very intriguing singer. On Son Zumbon ... the music utilizes tricky rhythms, the leader's haunting voice, and plenty of short solos. There is no lack on intensity in this program.

Scott Yanow

#13. Ain't nobody making music to not be heard and the easiest way to be heard is to be on the radio, but you should never compromise who you are, your values or your morals.

Talib Kweli

#14. I was improvising before I was reading music. I was just trying to play things on the clarinet by ear. I think my ear is one of my greatest assets.

Pete Fountain

#15. There's a thin line between interesting music and self-indulgence. We crossed it on the Passengers record.

Larry Mullen Jr.

#16. The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it's very different for me as a performer. I'm not playing music - I'm just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar ... whatever it is.

Taylor Hanson

#17. If I give a little hint or clue as to where my voice could be going, that would [be] read. Because people can listen closely, you know, you can sit with headphones or you just concentrate on music, you can just hear, sometimes, the desires of the voice itself.

Will Oldham

#18. Writing music on your own makes you think a lot about your life. Who are you? Would you change anything about yourself? This is where it comes from.

Enya

#19. I find this kind of folk with guys in Wellington boots and washboards not good to listen to. That music is one step away from barn dancing as far as I'm concerned. Anyone under the age of 60 should not be wearing Wellington boots on stage.

Johnny Marr

#20. I always spend too much time on getting the details right. That's the problem with computers. They make it possible to change too much of the music after it's been recorded.

Hans-Peter Lindstrom

#21. At 82, Nelson (who wrote the song "On the Road Again," among a thousand or more others) is the elder statesman of country music, a steadying and powerful voice in the industry and on environmental issues, and he's still on the road much of the year. The music keeps calling.

Willie Nelson

#22. Michael Jackson doesn't really belong on this planet. He's the most important figure in the history of music. He'll be remembered far longer than George Bush will. 200 years from now, people will be talking about Michael Jackson, and no one's going to mention George Bush.

Brett Ratner

#23. Had music not delivered Richard, too, on more than one occasion, from a life he'd believed himself trapped in? The tempos had changed, but that almost didn't matter. The point, now as then, was to tune in to something bigger than yourself, and to feel around you others who felt as you did.

Garth Risk Hallberg

#24. I'm working on my life story. I'm not decided if it's going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

Dolly Parton

#25. What you see with your eyes when you're making music is going to have a profound effect on what you hear.

Andrew Bird

#26. My first time doing music was on acoustic guitar. I had a friend from Texas who taught me so much country, I entered a few country competitions. But eventually, I got tired of it.

Shamir

#27. Music herself should be silent when Nicholas speaks. (on why he had stopped playing during a performance with Tsar Nicholas I in attendance)

Franz Liszt

#28. My little brother and I took piano lessons at a young age and played music together later on in life just to play around at home until we decided to make a record. Eventually we started having more and more songs.

Josephine De La Baume

#29. Bob Marley performed the 'One Love Peace' concert in Jamaica with the two different warring political sides. There's always been that in black music and culture in general. It's no surprise because black music is such a reflection of what's going on in black life. It's not unusual for hip-hop.

Mos Def

#30. We're a gumbo of American music, and aren't ashamed to play pop or soul or rock because we all grew up on radio.

Jonathan Cain

#31. If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.

John Lydon

#32. Now is now, and I live everything one day at a time. The fact that I'm still on the planet and able to still make music is such a miracle.

Ronnie Milsap

#33. If I'm trading bars with somebody, it certainly is not because I have a release coming. Joe Budden prides himself on the music and not the sales aspect.

Joe Budden

#34. The ideal is to put on shows where, if you go into the same space again, you don't remember ever having been there before, because where you were was a space that only existed that one time, created by the music.

Will Oldham

#35. When I was 20, political music was the uncoolest thing on earth.

Bjork

#36. The song of thrush and blackbird, joy that falls so gently on the ears to celebrate another day of life and living, flying free.

John McLeod

#37. Music can kind of make you one-dimensional. People see what's on the surface and what you rap about, and they make their decision on who you are from there.

Chance The Rapper

#38. When I first saw Destiny's Child, I was in the fifth grade, and it made me want to sing and make music, and there would be these freestyles on the radio for what seemed like hours; it was just so cool to me.

Lizzo

#39. There's a kind of ear music ... a rhythmic synchronicity which creates a kind of heartbeat on the page.

Allan Gurganus

#40. Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art.

Stephen Sondheim

#41. I could have probably gone on and still played the part of the guitar player of Limp Bizkit, but musically I was kind of bored. If I was to continue, it would have been about the money and not about the true music, and I don't want to lie to myself, or to them or to fans of Limp Bizkit.

Wes Borland

#42. P.S. I'm going to throw an absolutely mind-blowing fact your way. I'm not kidding, either. The country of Uganda is obsessed with Celine Dion. They dedicate entire days to broadcasting her music. They love her that much. Five words. My. Heart. Will. Go. On. Yeah.

Fisher Amelie

#43. It's always a pleasure to perform for people who love country music. And Australians definitely fall into that category. Each time I go back, I learn something new about the country, and I get to see some of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Joe Nichols

#44. Rock music is electronic music, dependent entirely on electronic circuitry and amplification.

John Frusciante

#45. I don't feel that electronic music has to stand on the back of urban artists or anyone else to be recognized. It's great music.

Kaskade

#46. There was this rapper from New Orleans, Mystikal, who when I hear his music, I hear myself. Whenever I wanna get hyped, I put on Mystikal.

Anthony Mackie

#47. I know so few people who actually give music their undivided attention, so I've been trying to just park myself on the couch between the speakers and listen.

Cliff Martinez

#48. You know, I do music. If you look under the hood of the industry I'm in, it's all based on technology. From radio to phonographs to CDs, it's all technology. Microphones, reel-to-reels, cameras, editing, chips, it's all technology.

Will.i.am

#49. I'm actually not a very good driver, to be honest with you. I'm a scatterbrain driver. I'm not very focused. I'm always trying to find the right music station or put on a new CD or trying to eat something.

Lauren Lee Smith

#50. I used to split my time between writing, music and painting. I would work on a book and then abandon it, start a band, do an album, quit music, then do a gallery show. Eventually I decided to give writing a serious shot.

Isaac Marion

#51. The song was "I See the Light", another Tangled number. Aaron sang the male part of the duet, and Walter's friend Rose did a less-than-Mina soprano, but mostly the music fell away in the brilliant presence of the two young men on the dance floor.

Heidi Cullinan

#52. When you start playing music when you're quite young, it's easy to stay young. And then you're touring, and you see people who've been on the road for 10 or 15 years and they just haven't grown up at all.

Charlie Fink

#53. My father did not bother that I play not a classical music. He always congratulated me for my development in music, I mean in any music but, he hang on to continue training at the Academy of Music ... however, I never mentioned to my teachers that I trained myself at weekends in clubs.

Richard Clayderman

#54. I'm a self-taught musician so how I read music is kind of very weak and I kind of read my own version of tablature, I write my own crappy reminders on what I'm playing.

Jason Mraz

#55. Music always stimulates my imagination. When I'm writing I usually have some Baroque music on low in the background chamber music by Bach, Telemann, and the like.

Haruki Murakami

#56. Surfing music is dead. It was just a summer craze for kids on the beach. I'm finished with it.

Brian Wilson

#57. Artists take on an alias that's suitable for their style of music. Everyone had a nickname when they were younger.

Tinie Tempah

#58. Surf music is actually just the sound of the waves played on a guitar: that wet, splashy sound.

Dick Dale

#59. It must surprise people that I'm such a rap fan, but it's true. Sometimes, just staying in, putting on some rap music, and letting loose is all I need to have a good time.

Phoebe Tonkin

#60. Forget all the equipment, forget the music, at the end of the day it's just literally frequencies and their effects on your brain. That's what's everyone's essentially after.

Aphex Twin

#61. All music is based in one way or the other, or influenced through the ages, on technology.

Hans Zimmer

#62. Cooking, to me, it's kind of therapeutic. It's completely different from music as well. I'm not amazing at it, but I can cook myself a good meal. And I'm not just saying this, but anytime I'm on the bus or at home, I'm watching Food Network or cooking on TV just 'cause it's interesting to me.

Phillip Phillips

#63. When we put music on, he kind of kicks in the belly, and it's cool to see how he's not even born yet, but he's already responding to the music. When I talk to him, he kicks as well. It's a very deep connection that I have with my son already and he's not even born. So I'm loving it.

Jencarlos Canela

#64. I have Aboriginal roots on my father's side, and have always indentified with that spirit. I feel a lot of my music comes from that place.

Xavier Rudd

#65. There's no real outlet for making Hip-Hop in Alabama. You need to travel to get heard. You really need to be working though. You need to be going at it every day and getting yourself seen, getting yourself out there on the road, doing shows, making music. It's all about being on your grind.

Yelawolf

#66. I don't want to put any pressure on the music; it's my hobby and my release - a thing that I love.

Iwan Rheon

#67. If you're a sports star and you say 'faggot' on the courts, you get fined. But if you're in music and you say it 234 times, you get an MTV music award.

Tegan Quin

#68. I still felt we had some really good music on that record, but it's a shame that we couldn't make it better. And the tour was a total mess. We just had no life, no energy, and I felt we were going through the motions.

Matt Cameron

#69. In my career I defined myself by my music, and the danger is that one defines oneself based on popularity. As you know, that goes up and down, and you can't judge how you feel about yourself based on what your sales is.

Kenny Loggins

#70. In films, I didn't crave the type of attention I had sort of stumbled into in my music career. And I do not audition well. I'm really not good at it. Early on, I did movies like 'Alpha Dog' and 'Black Snake Moan' because the directors didn't ask me to audition.

Justin Timberlake

#71. Death is never more than a breath away from the act of playing music. Each note on a guitar represents a small curve: birth, life, and death-and then you start over.

Andy Summers

#72. Kind of gay? I wanted to say. Do you have any notion how many homosexuals sweated their ass off on the dance floor to make this soaring bit of derivative trash possible? How many died of AIDS, OD'd, or went broke on the way to that girl from Texas cutting a deal...

Adam Haslett

#73. When you travel on a bus with guys who love all kinds of music, you get exposed to some great stuff, man.

Gregg Allman

#74. I remember when we kissed. I still feel it on my lips. The time you danced with me with no music playing. I remember the simple things. I remember till I cry. But the one thing I wish I'd forget, the memory I wanna forget is goodbye.

Miley Cyrus

#75. All these interviews I'm doing - this is the kind of stuff that I was dreaming about doing when I was younger. I was praying for people to want to write about me. I wanted people to hear my music. I wanted to perform. I wanted to be on billboards.

Shameik Moore

#76. Most of the music you hear on the radio today is developed for making money. It doesn't feel true or honest. You can feel it in the music.

Iris Dement

#77. It's true that laptop performances can be boring for the audience. The problem is, the organizers of events are still putting us on the classic "rock stage," instead of trying to find new ways to present the music.

Christian Fennesz

#78. I was really amazed when I started hearing 'Songbird' on the radio. I couldn't believe that the record company promotion department had actually convinced radio music directors to play it -because there wasn't anything like it on the radio at the time.

Kenny G

#79. If music be the food of love, play on. 1 Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, 2 The appetite may sicken and so die. 3 That strain again! It

William Shakespeare

#80. The best thing about being on the road in general is just playing every single night in front of people that are genuinely fans of your music.

Ed Sheeran

#81. Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

Lyle Lovett

#82. I never shied away from a challenge and I love doing big, epic films. They're interesting to me just on a pure music level, just in terms of the amount of music I could create for a symphony orchestra and chorus.

Howard Shore

#83. Laying on the floor and listening to music might be all the therapy that you need.

Danielle LaPorte

#84. I have wonderful band mates that make music that I'm forced to listen to for hours on end until I come up with verses, and that in itself is an inspiration - they're awesome.

Nikki Jean

#85. I don't need music to write, but sometimes I put music on. I don't need special clothes or even my own equipment.

Jane Lindskold

#86. It was hard to work and work and work and not get your music played on the radio.

Shelby Lynne

#87. Ironically, being a coach on 'The Voice' and spending time with those kids, Xenia and Dia especially, I learned a lot about myself. It reminded me how lucky I am that this happened for me, and it kind of lit the spark inside me again for my love of music.

Blake Shelton

#88. I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I moved to L.A. when I was about eleven years old. I always go back to Milwaukee whenever I can. Just chill with my grandpa and my grandmother and just be with family, be with people that were there before I got a million views on YouTube because of my music video.

Jacob Latimore

#89. The Show Must Go On!

Queen

#90. I always choose music based on whatever the scene calls for, or whatever my mood is supposed to be.

Sinqua Walls

#91. A recent study shows that one hundred per cent of youngsters on hard drugs had at some time in their lives listened to so-called pop music

William Donaldson

#92. I'd love to develop a game and make the music for it. I'd love to do something based on Captain Lights. Who knows if that'll ever happen, but I'd love to do it.

Lights

#93. I like to write music. And I think exploring with lyrics and figuring out how to make complete songs is fun. I think I have a take on it. I don't know if it's great, but it's an interesting take. It's original.

Stone Gossard

#94. Music has no effect on research work, but both are born of the same source and complement each other through the satisfaction they bestow

Albert Einstein

#95. Donna Summer... Is a singing sensation who brings joy to all music lovers, a gifted individual and major figure in the entertainment world whose colourful melodies and tales stay eternally in every fan's heart.

Nik A. Ramli

#96. I fell in love with funk music through my father - Funkadelic - as well as soul and classical early on.

Miguel

#97. When they look back on me I want 'em to remember me not for all my wives, although I've had a few, and certainly not for any mansions or high livin' money I made and spent. I want 'em to remember me simply for my music.

Jerry Lee Lewis

#98. In 'thinking up' music I usually have some kind of a brass band with wings on it in back of my mind.

Charles Ives

#99. Gospel music was the thing that inspired me as a child growing up on a cotton farm, where work was drudgery and it was so hard that when I was in the field I sang all the time. Usually gospel songs because they lifted me up above that black dirt.

Johnny Cash

#100. I know too many musicians that have to tour on the same 10 songs, and they burn out. They get back to their house, and they have no reason to write new music. They are music'd out.

Justin Vernon