Quotes About Background Music

#1. Jazz is not background music.

Horace Silver

#2. Jazz is not background music. You must concentrate in order to get the most out of it. You must absorb it.

Horace Silver

#3. How can music without any words make you think? I listen to jazz when I'm doing something else. I use it for background music, I don't just sit down and concentrate on it. Lyrics, words - that's what makes me think.

Eddie Murphy

#4. I never work with music. I hate background music, always did. I only like music in the foreground, meaning, deliberately listen to it, actually.

David Hockney

#5. It's important to me that people feel connected to the band through the music, you know? I don't want it to be wallpaper. I don't want it to be background music. I want it to be clear: This is the song. These are the words. If you feel the same way as I do, sing it as loud as you can.

Dave Grohl

#6. Here I was with the guy I maybe-loved, relaxing by the ocean with salty crisp breezes and blue-gray sea curving into a for-ever horizon. We even had background music to add to the romantic ambience. And except for the "can't kiss because he's my brother" thing, this was the perfect romantic moment.

Linda Joy Singleton

#7. Rather than really have, like a close relationship to anything that's coming out today, people are just, they've got it on as background music. It's kind of the same way the cabdrivers use music; it's very disposable.

David Bowie

#8. Surely words are just the background music when passion pounces on a soul.

Andrew Sean Greer

#9. We are increasingly likely to find ourselves in places with background music. No composers have thought to write for these modern spaces, which represent 30% of our musical experience.

Brian Eno

#10. First I think I was interested in the stories, and later on, I became more interested in the language itself, so the stories became almost secondary, but it was kind of a background music for my life.

Tom Robbins

#11. That's when I see him. Peter Kavinsky, walking down the hallway. Like magic. Beautiful, dark-haired Peter. He deserves background music, he looks so good.

Jenny Han

#12. You don't do background music the way a lot of more conventional films do. The music is often kind of a character in your films to the extent that sometimes you stop and watch someone perform a song.

Wes Anderson

#13. Whatever you do has to be commercial and it can't be too distracting - it has to be background music, basically.

Beck

#14. The conception of background music is changing. You use less and less of it these days.

Satyajit Ray

#15. People sort of imagine Chris Morris and me sitting somewhere dark, with dripping taps and chilling background music. In fact, we like to sit on his roof in the sunshine - and there's an endless amount of just sitting there, going, 'So, erm, er, what shall we do?'

Peter Baynham

#16. It was at that exact moment that I saw Peter walking down the hall toward me. He looked so good. He deserved his own background music.

Jenny Han

#17. The stuff that I write doesn't work very well as background music. You have to watch it from beginning to end and pay attention as if you were watching a play.

Aaron Sorkin

#18. Life is just like a movie, except it does not have background music, but you cannot see it in media.

Abrar Ahmed Chowdhury

#19. Over-familiar, the music has become a kind of audio-Valium, background music rather than something I listen to actively and attentively. A gin and tonic after a long day. A shame, I think, because while each note remains the same, I used to hear them differently. It used to sound better.

David Nicholls

#20. The countdown reached ten seconds and I could almost hear an invisible crescendo of stirring background music. 'Anchors aweigh!' Five, four, three, two, one ... and we had ignition!

Eugene Cernan

#21. Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II is an album that readily serves as background music to its own telling.

Marc Weidenbaum

#22. Odd that I couldn't catch any of your dream," Bones went on. "Normally your dreams are like background music to me.

Jeaniene Frost

#23. It's typical for video customers to often use licensed music - whether a soundtrack, background music, or sound effects - to complement their video projects.

Jon Oringer

#24. As long as each song makes somebody feel something, I think that's the point of it all. I don't want it to just be background music, you know?

Alessia Cara

#25. You know, one of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music.

Annie Proulx

#26. There was an electric buzzing sound that was constantly on, acting as background music like a million cicadas in the forest. A constant white noise.

Missy Lyons

#27. The trouble with life is that, unlike movies, it doesn't have background music. We never know how we're supposed to feel.

Lewis Gardner

#28. I play music - I write my own music, but I play music, just background music really, and just let it happen.

Anthony Hopkins

#29. Kids don't think about their folks nearly as much as everybody imagines. Parents are just there, like background music at the mall.

Ron Koertge

#30. Life should play background music just as in the movies.

Avijeet Das

#31. The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life.

Jonathan Franzen

#32. 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

#33. 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

#34. Standing in this glittering room with the music in the background and the press and hum of scores of people, the clink of glasses, the faint smells of warmth, champagne, stiff material and sometimes of flowers and perfume,

Anne Perry

#35. I can't just listen to music walking down the street unless I have a reason to. I can't just listen to music as a piece of junk in the background. It drives me insane.

Mika.

#36. I don't think anyone listening to my music needs any special knowledge. They don't need to have a background in contemporary music. They don't need to go to new-music concerts all the time in order to be able to understand it.

Missy Mazzoli

#37. When the musical keyboard was created in the 1970's, you had electronic geeks that had no background in music created these devises and gave them to musicians that had no background in electronics. The result was some of the wierd sounds that came out in the '70s.

David Bowie

#38. The Eagles, let's face it, they were a pretty cool group, Fleetwood Mac, Blondie. I had this really eclectic background in music.

Meredith Brooks

#39. The look that passes between Jeffrey and Kimber right then feels like it requires a swell of cheesy music in the background. Aw, I think. Baby brother's in love. I also find this kind of gross.

Cynthia Hand

#40. Jazz exemplifies artistic activity that is at once individual and communal, performance that is both repetitive and innovative, each participant sometimes providing background support and sometimes flying free.

Mary Catherine Bateson

#41. And in the background of Early's story was her voice. Her soul. Her sadness and longing. Because when it's raining, it's always Billie Holiday. p. 81

Clare Vanderpool

#42. The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of music for the pageantry of it, there came a deeper realization of the effect of that office on the man.

John Philip Sousa

#43. We played more rock music when we were writing the script. 'Renegade'. All of the Styx songs. All of the old '70's and '80's music, that's the stuff that's pounding in the background while we were doing this stuff. It's a part of those movies.

Todd Farmer

#44. I love when I reach Marcus on the phone and as he says hello, I can hear the music he's listening to in the background. That music is the sound of him without me. How he surrounds himself when I'm not there, which is almost all the time.

Megan McCafferty

#45. I have no education, I have no academic background in painting or in music, but I write music and I compose music and I write and I sell paintings, and my rule is, well, they can't arrest me.

Anthony Hopkins

#46. One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music.

Stephen Sondheim

#47. I have mainly come from a theatre background, I did 'Oliver' here I played the Artful Dodger and I did 'The Sound of Music.'

Ben Nicholas

#48. It's like I've always had a painted musical sound track playing background to my life. I can almost hear colors and smell images when music is played.

Sharon M. Draper

#49. To some of us the thought of God is like a sort of quiet music playing in the background of the mind.

William James

#50. I don't think of my music as something that works well in the background. And because a lot of it isn't in 4/4, people might not like to dance to it.

Max Tundra

#51. Music is heard in the background. As the movemnt becomes sharper; the many dancers acting but as one. She is one with her secret. As the time draws near, the woman's body begins to push. With the rhythm of the music and the beat of the dancer's feet; her secret almost revealed.

Lisa C. Miller

#52. Most people might think that I've come from a musical background, but nobody in my family was in any kind of band or played anything. I just picked up music from breakdancing really, that's what got me to listen to music, and in general I was just a creative guy.

Lunice

#53. I try to greet my friends with a drink in my hand, a warm smile on my face, and great music in the background, because that's what gets a dinner party off to a fun start.

Ina Garten

#54. I come from a pop background, but I'm also a Puerto Rican and I do feel this music. My approach to salsa is a humble one, and I defy anybody to prove that I'm faking it.

Marc Anthony

#55. There's a certain fast-food approach to the whole music thing that's changed the role it plays for us all. You are doing it while you are doing other things. Not that that is new - people have had music on in the background as long as there has been music.

Tom Waits

#56. My wife Juliana and I first saw Eurovision while on our honeymoon in Greece in 2006, and we were amazed by it. They basically recreate a music video onstage, and pyro cannons, LED video screens, background dancers, fireworks, costume changes, and wind machines are their tools.

Seamus Dever

#57. I listen to music when I write. I need the musical background. Classical music. I'm behind the times. I'm still with Baroque music, Gregorian chant, the requiems, and with the quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. That is what I need for the climate, for the surroundings, for the landscape: the music.

Elie Wiesel

#58. My music has a very spiritual background, a sanctity that is almost like worship.

Ravi Shankar

#59. I used to play a few instruments including guitar and snare drums, but I think a musical background is an important part of a career. If you start out playing instruments you create a better instinct and feeling for music.

Nicky Romero

#60. As far as music being something that's not background, it doesn't mean that it's loud, it means that it's instantly something to dwell on and process and swallow and regurgitate.

Youth Lagoon

#61. Listening to music as preparation or background for your work brings you into a creative mood ... choose one type of music to calm down, another to reach a higher energy level, depending on the artwork you are doing.

Nita Leland

#62. I would say that although my music may be or may have been part of the cultural background fabric of the gay community, I consider myself an outsider who belongs everywhere and nowhere ... Being a human being is what truly counts. That's where you'll find me.

Annie Lennox

#63. My first album, 'Get Lifted,' was a hip-hop soul album that had some of its roots in the church, as far as the sonic choices, in the way that I sing and write songs. I have always had that as part of my background and part of my influence when I am making music.

John Legend

#64. I grew up listening to pop; I grew up listening to '60s pop music, the Beatles, the Monkees, Herman's Hermits and all that stuff. So I had a very strong background of listening to great pop music.

Jane Wiedlin

#65. Music is my passion, singing, performing. I play piano and musical theater is my background.

Janel Parrish

#66. The Little Drummer Boy was playing in the background for what seemed like the third time in a row. I fought off an urge to beat that Little Drummer Boy seneless with his own drumsticks.

Dana Reinhardt

#67. up at him while the guitar pealed in the background, she rocked back and forward, totally out of sync with the music, but caught up in the warmth of the moment. His black hair flopped down over one eye and she reached up to push it away. With one hand, he took

Ella Frank

#68. I put on music and I'm washing my car. And I put on music if you have somebody and you're trying to make love. You put that on in the background and you go, maybe this will be romantic.

Chris Isaak

#69. I realize that people won't even download the entire album and might just download a song or two and put it in a playlist for a workout or in the background while people do dishes. That's fine and I can't dictate how people listen to my music, but I structure records the way I listen to records.

Mikal Cronin

#70. When I was young, I thought classical music was only the background noise for cartoons.

Ben Carson

#71. So, when you divide the world into music lovers, music fans and then those people who are just very casual about their music, it's wallpaper to them, it's elevator music, it's just the thing that's playing in the background that helps them through their day.

Michael Stipe

#72. Let your life be a song. Let music be the background of whatever human things you will do for this blazing, spinning planet, and never let go of the good, never let go of the kindness.

Logan Keys

#73. It's easy enough to foist your music collection on your kids. Lectures are not required; you just play the stuff while they are prisoner in the back seat on a long drive, or softly in the background while eating dinner.

Dean Wareham

#74. I wanna make my imprint in the game as far as music - hip-hop, and just music, period. 'Cause I come from hip-hop, that's my background, but I'm not gonna let that limit me from where I can go.

Nayvadius Cash

#75. Life would be flat without music. It is the background to all I do. It speaks to the heart in its own special way like nothing else.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

#76. You watch the country-music awards that they show on the television, and you see country music has reached about 1985. It's all huge processed drum sounds and chiming chorus guitars and programmed synths bobbling along in the background.

Andy Partridge

#77. I do believe that one way to bring cultures together, to develop trust between people and countries and religions, is through education. And through music and art and basketball and activities and joys that people share worldwide, regardless of ethnic background or religious orientation.

Steve Kerr

#78. I went from trying to get people just to listen to my music, not necessarily knowing me, to this. I didn't want to be known, because I didn't want to be Fetty Wap. I'm just a background guy.

Fetty Wap

#79. Anything that keeps you happy and writing is part of my writing ritual: I like music, so I tend to have it playing in the background. But if I'm interested, I can write in an airport waiting areas.

Neil Gaiman

#80. And my career, the things that have happened have happened because of my music education background.

Jon Secada

#81. I vaguely remember my schooldays. They were what was going on in the background while I was trying to listen to the Beatles.

Douglas Adams

#82. Music as background to me becomes like a mosquito, an insect. In the studio we have big speakers, and to me that's the way music should be listened to. When I listen to music, I want to just listen to music.

David Lynch

#83. My family making music was like a folk background, really: banging on tabletops, playing banjo and all kinds of things.

Dave Davies

#84. I'd love to do a musical actually. My background is in music. I have a bachelors in music. I thought that I was going to be a composer, long ago when I first started. So it was amazingly fun to do those two routines in the film.

Ivan Reitman

#85. I would think, to me, growing up in the south, growing up with all the gospel music, singing in the church and having that rhythm and blues - the blues background was my big inspiration.

Jackie DeShannon

#86. I had a big background in listening to classical music and I started trying to compose, like I was playing the guitar but I heard an orchestra in my head.

John Fahey

#87. Both parents were very encouraging - especially my father. My father thought the sun rose and set with me. Neither one had a musical background or any musical talent. They liked classical music, but neither could carry a tune.

Gordon Getty

#88. I come from an art-school background, and I still feel that in my music, it's about exploration and challenging myself, about putting myself in a place that's frightening because I haven't been there before.

P.J. Harvey

#89. For me, music was always a second language. I didn't have a musical background, and I started studying very late, at fourteen.

Garth Greenwell

#90. The music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.

Joyce Carol Oates

#91. I started out coming from more of a concert music background. It just turns out that 20th-century music techniques lend themselves to scary movies and horror movies.

Marco Beltrami

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

Ennio Morricone

#93. I'm a self-taught guitarist, but I have a classical music background.

Adam Jones

#94. When I was younger, I was able to write with music playing in the background, but these days, I can't. I find it distracting. Even when the music is just instrumental or has lyrics in a language I don't understand, the clash between the voices in my head and the song can be very disorienting.

Daniel Alarcon

#95. Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

Neil Diamond

#96. I've not been an admirer of contemporary music since punk rock went off the boil in 1977, but once a year I'll listen to 'Spiral Scratch' by the Buzzcocks, or 'Hippy Hippy Shake' by the Swinging Blue Jeans. Otherwise, I can put up with Chopin or shakuhachi flute in the background.

Billy Childish

#97. When I started I didn't know anything about music. I came from an absolutely non-musical, non-artistic background.

Blixa Bargeld

#98. I studied audio engineering at university. The background I am from, music was never seen as a viable career; it was always a hobby.

Chet Faker

#99. Accountancy prepares one to be able to run very different kinds of businesses, and my background prepared me for the music.

Zarin Mehta

#100. You've got to step up, Emme. They need to hear your voice, hear you. You're better than being stuck in the background.

Elizabeth Eulberg