Music

"For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it -- even of my own music -- with the same nuances forever."

"I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience."

"Performance has remained the ideal locus of rock authenticity long after it has ceased to be the real origin of rock music."

"I object to background music no matter how good it is. Composers want people to listen to their music, they don't want them doing something else while their music is on. I'd like to get the guy who sold all those big businessmen the idea of putting music in the elevators, for he was really clever. What on earth good does it do anybody to hear those four or eight bars while going up a few flights."

"Light and noise pollution are “neglected pollutants” in need of renewed focus"

"The barbarians are inside the gate. They're playing Muzak in Jenners."

"I can't believe that people really prefer to go to the concert hall under intellectually trying, socially trying, physically trying conditions, unable to repeat something they have missed, when they can sit at home under the most comfortable and stimulating circumstances and hear it as they want to hear it. I can't imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen."

"We have all been affected as composers, as teachers, as musicians by recordings to an extent that cannot possibly be calculated as yet or predicted for the future. The music which is being most widely disseminated and most widely discussed, and therefore most widely imitated and influential, is that music which is available on records. The music that is only published is very little known. I don't think one can possibly exaggerate the extent to which the climate of music today is determined by the fact that the total Webern is available on records, that the total Schoenberg is becoming available."

"For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it -- even of my own music -- with the same nuances forever."

"I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience."

"If the listener does eventually come to the point where he makes the ultimate performance by splicing tapes from other musicians' recordings, he [sic] will eventually become just as bored with it as with other recordings, for it will still always be the same. Look, for instance, at electronic music. The boys are already becoming bored with what they do because they put it irrevocably on tape. The best indication of this is that more and more they are mixing the live performance element with their tapes."

"My experience of the original Edison phonograph goes back to the period when it was first introduced into this country. In fact, I have good reason to believe that I was among the very first persons in London to make a vocal record, though I never received a copy of it, and if I did it got lost long ago. It must have been in 1881 or 1882, and the place where the deed was done was on the first floor of a shop in Hatton Garden, where I had been invited to listen to the wonderful new invention. To begin with, I heard pieces both in song and speech produced by the friction of a needle against a revolving cylinder, or spool, fixed in what looked like a musical box. It sounded to my ear like someone singing about half a mile away, or talking at the other end of a big hall; but the effect was rather pleasant, save for a peculiar nasal quality wholly due to the mechanism, though there was little of the scratching which later was a prominent feature of the flat disc. Recording for that primitive machine was a comparatively simple matter. I had to keep my mouth about six inches away from the horn and remember not to make my voice too loud if I wanted anything approximating to a clear reproduction; that was all. When it was played over to me and I heard my own voice for the first time, one or two friends who were present said that it sounded rather like mine; others declared that they would never have recognised it. I daresay both opinions were correct."

"People have a good reason for saying that because the Japanese have been smart. They have visited Jamaica and they bought maybe 90 per cent of our vinyl collection and that vault is now in Japan. I talking classic vinyl that your grand parents used to collect. The Japanese came here and they knocked door to door and bought out the vinyl records...so most of our catalogue is in Japan."

"We did not see the value in vinyl, and so we were quick to sell them to the Japanese, and now they have all the gold."

"I don’t understand any music! I feel it. I want them to feel something! I don’t want them to understand it. If I wanted them to understand exactly what I meant, I can write an essay! I’ve written a lot of speeches and essays and articles and everything else, but I don’t want that! I don’t want a particular thing; I want them to let themselves go and feel something they’ve never felt before. That’s all. That’s what a concert is — not a pleasurable experience; it is an experience of life-changing dimensions!"

"For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it -- even of my own music -- with the same nuances forever."

"I can't believe that people really prefer to go to the concert hall under intellectually trying, socially trying, physically trying conditions, unable to repeat something they have missed, when they can sit at home under the most comfortable and stimulating circumstances and hear it as they want to hear it. I can't imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen."

"A composer's awareness of the plurality of functions of his own tools forms the basis for his responsibility just as, in everyday life, every man's responsibility begins with the recognition of the multiplicity of human races, conditions, needs, and ideals. I would go as far as to say (as my anger comes back) that any attempt to codify musical reality into a kind of imitation grammar (I refer mainly to the efforts associated with the Twelve-Tone System) is a brand of fetishism which shares with Fascism and racism the tendency to reduce live processes to immobile, labeled objects, the tendency to deal with formalities rather than substance. Claude Lévi-Strauss describes (though to illustrate a different point) a captain at sea, his ship reduced to a frail raft without sails, who, by enforcing a meticulous protocol on his crew, is able to distract them from nostalgia for a safe harbor and from the desire for a destination."

"Alas, this industrialized twelve-tone horse, dull on the outside and empty inside, constantly being perfected and dragged to a new Troy in shadow of an ideological war long since fought and won by responsible minds like Schoenberg, with neither systems nor scholarship for armor!"

"Collections of all twelve pitch classes can be differentiated from one another only by assigning an order to the pitch classes or by partitioning them into mutually exclusive sub-collections. The ordering principle is the basis of the twelve-tone system formulated by Schoenberg, the partitioning principle the basis of the system formulated around the same time by Hauer. In Schoenberg's compositional practice, however, the concept of a segmental pitch-class content is represented as well, as a basis for the association of paired inversionally related set forms. On the relation between Schoenberg and Hauer, see Bryan R. Simms, "Who First Composed Twelve-Tone Music, Schoenberg or Hauer?" Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute X/2 (November 1987)."

"Phillip Glass on The School of Paris as "crazy creepy people writing crazy creepy music.""

"'Form' has always come into being in a dialogue between particular 'instances' and the larger body of work, or 'tradition.'"

"Form is supposed to cover the shape or structure of the work; content its substance, meaning, ideas, or expressive effects. When the nineteenth-century music critic Eduard Hanslick declared, in an influential phrase, that music is 'forms put into motion through sounds,' he was suggesting that music's real content lies in its form."

"The term "chorus form" is often used to denote a type of performance - typically in jazz or rhythm 'n' blues, but also sometimes in country music and rock 'n' roll - where a given structural unit is repeated an indefinite number of times. The unit itself may be sectionally elaborate, as in the case of most Tin Pan Alley ballads. It may be twelve-bar blues, or something similar, as in the case of many R&B and rock 'n' roll numbers: here, a three-line AAB lyric, set to a three-phrase melody, is underpinned by a single gestural sweep in the harmony. Occasionally - as in some funk, dub reggae, and hip-hop, for example - it may approach the status of open-ended process."

"There is an idea, the basis of an internal structure, expanded and split into different shapes or groups of sound constantly changing in shape, direction, and speed, attracted and repulsed by various forces. The form of the work is a consequence of this interaction. Possible musical forms are as limitless as the exterior forms of crystals.""

"Form is a theatrical event of a certain length, and the length itself may be unpredictable."

"Burn down the disco Hang the blessed DJ Because the music that they constantly play It says nothing to me about my life Hang the blessed DJ Because the music they constantly play On the Leeds side-streets that you slip down Provincial towns you jog 'round Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ"

"It was a DJ style which helped to create the lifestyle which came to be known as hip hop. At the beginning of the disco era in the first half of the 1970s, regular disco jocks in clubs were most concerned with the blend between one record and the next - matching tempos to make a smooth transition which, at its best, could continually alter the mood on the dancefloor without breaking the flow. At its worst the technique could turn the night into one endless and inevitably boring song."

"I'm getting a dj" where dj is a broad service focused "chotchkie" or junket"

"Last night a DJ saved my life, yeah 'Cause I was sittin' there bored to death And in just one breath he said You gotta get up You gotta get on You gotta get down girl ... Last night a DJ saved my life Last night a DJ saved my life from a broken heart Last night a DJ saved my life Last night a DJ saved my life with a song"

"Now he took the music of like Mandrill, like "Fencewalk", certain disco records that had funky percussion breaks like The Incredible Bongo Band when they came out with "Apache" and he just kept that beat going. It might be that certain part of the record that everybody waits for--they just let their inner self go and get wild. The next thing you know the singer comes back in and you'd be mad."

"Break-beat music and hip-hop culture were happening at the same time as the emergence of disco (in 1974 known as party music). Disco was also created by DJs in its initial phase, though these tended to be club jocks rather than mobile party jocks - records by Barry White, Eddie Kendricks and others became dancefloor hits in New York clubs like Tamberlane and Sanctuary and were crossed over onto radio by Frankie Crocker at station WBLS. There were many parallels in the techniques used by Kool DJ Herc and a pioneering disco DJ like Francis Grasso, who worked at Sanctuary, as they used similar mixtures and superimpositions of drumbeats, rock music, funk and African records For less creative disco DJs, however, the ideal was to slip-cute smoothly from the end of one record into the beginning of the next. They also created a context for breaks rather than foregrounding them, and the disco records which emerged out of the influence of this type of mixing tended to feature long introductions, anthemic choruses and extended vamp sections, all creating a tension which was released by the break. Break-beat music simply ate the cherry off the top of the cake and threw the rest away. In the words of DJ Grandmaster Flash:"

":'Disco was brand new then and there were a few jocks that had monstrous sound systems but they wouldn't dare play this kind of music. They would never play a record where only two minutes of the song was all it was worth. They wouldn't buy those types of records. The type of mixing that was out then was blending from one record to the next or waiting for the record to go off and wait for the jock to put the needle back on.'""

"These kind of narrative poems are called toasts. They are rhyming stories, often lengthy, which are told mostly amongst men. Violent, scatalogical, obscene, misogynist, they have been used for decades to while away the time in situations of enforced boredom, whether prison, armed services or streetcorner life."

"Most people have music in the center of their lives. I believe my work sheds light on how music affects us and why it is so influential." from http://web.archive.org/20030225083736/www.ucla.edu/spotlight/archive/html_2001_2002/fac0502_mcclalry.html"

"Rather than protecting music as a sublimely meaningless activity that has managed to escape social signification, I insist on treating it as a medium that participates in social formation by influencing the ways we perceive our feelings, our bodies, our desires, our very subjectivities—even if it does so surreptitiously, without most of us knowning how. It is too important a cultural force to be shrouded by mystified notions of Romantic transcendence."

"It is important to remember that there really is very little resembling criticism of any sort in musicology."

"Tonality itself—with its process of instilling expectations and subsequently withholding promised fulfillment until climax—is the principal musical means during the period from 1600 to 1900 for arousing and channeling desire.""

"The point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingly violent episodes in the history of music.... The point is not to hold up Beethoven as exceptionally monstrous. The Ninth Symphony is probably our most compelling articulation in music of the contradictory impulses that have organized patriarchal culture since the Enlightenment. Moreover, within the parameters of his own musical compositions, he may be heard as enacting a critique of narrative obligations that is … devastating.""

"For me … the notion of an intimate relationship between music and society functions not as a distant goal but as a starting point of great immediacy, and not as an hypothesis but as an assumption. It functions as an idea about a relationship which in turn allows the examination of that relationship from many points of view and its exploration in many directions. It is an idea that generates studies the goal of which (or at least one important goal of which) is to articulate something essential about why any particular music is the way it is in particular, that is, to achieve insight into the character of its identity."

"Considering how readily musicologists criticize one another — witness the merciless footnotes (and reviews) of so many books and articles — the innocent bystander must find it strange that they remain unwilling to venture judgments about the quality of the music around which they work... But it is hard to see what can be the purpose of musicology if not to advise people on what to hear and how to hear it. Separating out the good, the bad and the indifferent, and helping listeners enjoy the best, is surely the least we can offer society in return for our keep."

"The rhetorical process functioned in many areas other than speech: Curtius wrote about 'rhetorical landscape representations' while Serpieris speaks of 'la retorica al teatro' (the rhetorical use of theatrical space), and music historians have learned that the language and approach of musical theory in the Middle Ages were borrowed directly from medieval grammar and rhetoric."

"As a music theorist, I have always contended that the historical approach to music theory is not enough. The modern theorist should, of course, be able to analyze the music of the masters, to explain (as much as possible) the sources of their musical language. They should also, however, be able to suggest new paths, new theories, including those that break with creative and scholarly tradition....This attitude has puzzled some of my academic colleagues, since I am in my own composition essentially a traditionalist. I do not believe that this is a contradiction or an inconsistency."

"What results [from the compositional system of Boulez's Structures] can only be described as composition by numerology. The possiblities are endless; a computer could be programmed to put down notes according to this prescription and in a very short time could turn out enough music to require years for its performance. By using different numerical rules -- using a knight's move, for example, rather than a bishop's move along the diagonals — music for centuries to come could be produced."

"A composer's awareness of the plurality of functions of his own tools forms the basis for his responsibility just as, in everyday life, every man's responsibility begins with the recognition of the multiplicity of human races, conditions, needs, and ideals. I would go as far as to say (as my anger comes back) that any attempt to codify musical reality into a kind of imitation grammar (I refer mainly to the efforts associated with the Twelve-Tone System) is a brand of fetishism which shares with Fascism and racism the tendency to reduce live processes to immobile, labeled objects, the tendency to deal with formalities rather than substance. Claude Lévi-Strauss describes (though to illustrate a different point) a captain at sea, his ship reduced to a frail raft without sails, who, by enforcing a meticulous protocol on his crew, is able to distract them from nostalgia for a safe harbor and from the desire for a destination."

"Alas, this industrialized twelve-tone horse, dull on the outside and empty inside, constantly being perfected and dragged to a new Troy in shadow of an ideological war long since fought and won by responsible minds like Schoenberg, with neither systems nor scholarship for armor!"

"I find above all that the expression, 'atonal music,' is most unfortunate--it is on a par with calling flying 'the art of not falling,' or swimming 'the art of not drowning.'"

"[Tonality is] the special meaning [functions] that chords receive through their relationship to a fundamental sonority, the tonic triad."

"[Tonality is the] set of relationships, simultaneous or successive, among the tones of the scale."

"In the passage quoted here from Monteverdi's madrigal [Cruda amarilli, mm.9-19 and 24-30], one sees a tonality determined by the accord parfait [root position major chord] on the tonic, by the sixth chord assigned to the third and seventh degrees, by the optional choice of the accord parfait or the sixth chord on the sixth degree, and finally, by the accord parfait and, above all, by the unprepared seventh chord (with major third) on the dominant. (p.171)"

"For the elements of music, nature provides nothing but a multitude of tones differing in pitch, duration, and intensity by the greater or least degree... The conception of the relationships that exist among them is awakened in the intellect, and, by the action of sensitivity on the one hand, and will on the other, the mind coordinates the tones into different series, each of which corresponds to a particular class of emotions, sentiments, and ideas. Hence these series become various types of tonalities. (p.11f)"

"But one will say, 'What is the principal behind these scales, and what, if not acoustic phenomena and the laws of mathematics, has set the order of their tones?' I respond that this principle is purely metaphysical [anthropological]. We conceive this order and the melodic and harmonic phenomena that spring from it out of our conformation and education. (p.249)"

"[Tonality is] the art of combining tones in such successions and such harmonies or successions of harmonies, that the relation of all events to a fundamental tone is made possible."

"Tonality is the organized relationship of musical sounds, as perceived and interpreted with respect to some central point of reference that seems to co-ordinate the separate items and events and to lend them meaning as component parts of a unified whole."

"[Tonality is] prolonged motion within the framework of a single key-determined progression."

"[Tonality is] contrapuntal progressions … can be key defining and capable of assuming structural significance."

"[Tonality is] directed motion within the framework of a single prolonged sonority."

"The inception of the principle of tonality and certain of its techniques expressing themselves in the construction of tonal units of various length and complexity goes as far back as the Organa of St. Martial and Santiago de Compostela. A continuous development of structural polyphony from the twelfth to the twentieth century may with justification be assumed. Whether we encounter the use of modes or the major-minor system, whether the contrapuntal voice voice leadings are different from those of later periods or whether harmonic thinking expresses itself in a different manner than later on in the eighteenth century, the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance demonstrates the same basic principles of direction, continuity and coherence as music from the Baroque period to the twentieth century."

"Music is tonal when its motion unfolds through time a particular tone, interval, or chord."

"The medieval musician … did not hear a triad as a triad … a textbook definition of tonal coherence is not the same as the phenomenon of tonal cognition as experiences."

"Music is the space between the notes. It is something to be felt. Although it does not has a concrete and precise definition....All of us know that music is every sound that reaches our ears and our heart says that it is something fabulous.....that is music."

"The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co-ordination between man [sic] and time."

"Form is supposed to cover the shape or structure of the work; content its substance, meaning, ideas, or expressive effects. When the nineteenth-century music critic Eduard Hanslick declared, in an influential phrase, that music is 'forms put into motion through sounds,' he was suggesting that music's real content lies in its form."

""'Is music the art of combining sounds according to certain rules (which vary according to place and time) for organizing a durational unit [une durée] by means of sonorous elements?' (Petit-Robert). Here, music is defined according to the conditions of its production (it is an art) and by its materials: sounds. For another writer, 'the study of sound is a matter of physics. But choosing sounds that are pleasing to the ear is a matter of musical aesthetics' (Bourgeois 1946: 1). Definition according to conditions of production has ceded to definition according to effect produced in the "receiver": sounds, to be music, must be pleasant. For others, music is almost always identified with acoustics, a particular branch of physics: 'certainly the study of acoustics and the properties of sound in some sense goes beyond the domain of the properly musical, but these 'divergences' are much less important and numerous than is generally thought' (Matras 1948: 5)."

"Music is a play of tones, that is, of fixed, clearly defined quantities. Other sounds, glissandos, cries, noises, may occur as inserts; if they are numerous the result is partly musical; if they predominate, it is no longer music in the proper sense of the word...discussion about the nature of the new art of sounds, those part musical and those totally untonal, is beclouded by the fact that it is called concrete or electronic 'music' although it has in fact transgressed the boundaries of musical art."

"We are too rarely interested in specifying what defines the concept 'music' in the spirit of indigenous peoples. We would be hard put to say (for whatever population or group we might choose) where music begins for them, where it ends, what borders mark the transition between speaking and singing."

"Music is motion in time."

"Understanding, and eventually defining tayil [a "musical" genre] demands a delineation of its relationships to other phenomena in the Mapuche world. As a basis for departure we may say that tayil is the lifeforce that an individual shares with all living or deceased members of his/her patrilineage. The shared soul of a patrilineage is termed kimpen; the essence of a kimpen can be verbalized or activated only through the performance of its respective tayil."

"The performance of tayil is restricted to women termed eltun. The verb denotes the act of pulling as associated with extracting teeth, the drawing of water from a well, and the uprooting of a plant. The Mapuche explain eltun as 'pulling or extracting by force,' or 'removing something from its source.' The performance of tayil 'pulls' the compound patrilineal soul out of an individual through a specific combination of melodic contour and iconographic text."

"Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which doesn't know that it is counting."

"Music is organized sound."

"A chord is by no means an agglomeration of intervals. It is a new unit which, although dependent on the formative power of the single interval, is felt as being self-existent and as giving to the constituent intervals meanings and functions which they otherwise would not have."

"[Tonality is] the special meaning [functions] that chords receive through their relationship to a fundamental sonority, the tonic triad."

"Melody is the golden thread running through the maze of tones by which the ear is guided and the heart reached."

"Melody is a series of repeated rising and falling intervals, which are subdivided and given movement by rhythm; containing a latent harmony within itself and giving out a mood feeling; it can and does exist independently of accompanying parts as a form; in its performance the choice of pitch and of the instrument makes no difference to its essence."

"Composers should write tunes the chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle."

"The heart of a melody can never be put down on paper."

"The melody is generally what the piece is about."

"Harmony is music does not consist merely in the construction of concordant sounds, but in their mutual relations, their proper succession in what I should call their audible reflex."

"The greatest beauties of melody and harmony become faults and imperfections when they are not in their proper place."

"A tune is always the same tune, whether it is sung loudly or softly, by a child or a man; whether it is played on a flute or on a trombone."

"A melody is a vocal or instrumental imitation using the sounds of a scale invented by art or inspired by nature, as you prefer; it imitates either physical noises or the accents of passion."

"The continuity and diegetic function of almost all vocal melody draw us along the linear thread of the song's syntagmatic structure, producing a 'point of perspective' from which the otherwise disparate parts of the musical texture can be placed within a coherent 'image'."

"You who are sitting before me have the power to change my consciousness into painting, poem, melody or anything else!"

"All fantasy should have a solid base in reality."

"In “Unbearable Weight”, I describe the postmodern body, increasingly fed on “fantasies of rearranging, transforming, and correcting, limitless improvement and change, defying the historicity, the mortality, and indeed, the very materiality of the body. In place of that materiality, we now have cultural plastic.” When I wrote these words, the most recent statistics, from 1989, listed 681,000 surgical procedures performed. In 2001, 8.5 million procedures were performed. They are cheaper than ever, safer than ever, and increasingly used, not for correcting major defects, but for “contouring” the face and body. Plastic surgeons seem to have no ethical problem with this. “I’m not here to play philosopher king,” says Dr. Randal Haworth in a “Vogue” interview; “I don’t have a problem with women who already look good and want to look perfect”. Perfect. When did “perfection” become applicable to a human body? The word suggest a Platonic form of timeless beauty-appropriate for marble, perhaps, but not for living flesh. We change, we age, we die. Learning to deal with this is part of the existential challenge-and richness-of mortal life. But nowadays, those who can afford to do so have traded the messiness and fragility of life, the vulnerability of intimacy, the comfort of human connection, for fantasies of limitless achievement, “triumphing” over everything that gets in the way, “going for the gold.” The Greeks called it hubris. We call it our “right” to be all that we can be."

"Fantasies are things that can't happen, and science fiction is about things that can happen."

"But films . . . it’s funny. People buy a ticket. That ticket is their transport to a fantasy which you create for them. Fantasyland, that’s all, and you make their fantasies live. Fantasies of love or hatred or whatever it is. People want their fantasies over and over. People who masturbate usually masturbate with, at the most, four or five fantasies. By and large. Most people like the same food and they like the same kind of music, they like the same kind of sexual fantasy for a period of time, then maybe it changes. As it is in children. Who is it? Bruce Lee. That’s the hero. Then you grow up and grow out of your Bruce Lee period, or your Picasso Blue Period, and go into another period. “But with kids, because they outpower us, because they have no representation, because they are so dependent, all they think about is power. Dinosaurs or the Million Dollar Man, because they feel so helpless, because they have no way out of it, except fantasy. Because they are only that tall. “And that’s all films are. Just an extension of childhood, where everybody wants to be freer, everybody wants to be powerful, everybody wants to be so overwhelmingly attractive that there’s just no doing anything about it. Or everybody wants to have comradeship and to be understood."

"Why fantasy? This question is more likely to be asked now than it was ten years ago, but the changing whims of fashion should not be confused with any fundamental change in human nature or truth. Fantasy is a component of the human psyche which has always existed and most likely always will exist, though the forms it adopts and the esteem in which it is held may vary. We spend a third of our lives in various realms of fantasy and whether or not we remember our experiences and include them in our reckoning of the world, they have a direct and significant effect on our everyday life."

"Your true adult, with fully-developed mind can enjoy fantasy whole-heartedly if it's written in adult words and thought-forms, because, being absolutely confident of his own mental capacity, he doesn't have any sense of embarrassment at being caught reading "childish stuff"....And every human being likes fantasy fundamentally. All we need is fantasy expressed in truly adult forms. Every author who honestly and lovingly does that makes a name on it. Lord Dunsany, Washington Irving, Stephen Vincent Benét."

"A long time ago, in a conference room far, far away... it was ordained that sword-and-sorcery movies would be the Next Big Thing. Just imagine crossing the fantasy worlds of JRR Tolkien and George Lucas! Mythic reverberations! Megabucks! Didn't work."

"There, Master Niketas," Baudolino said, "when I was not prey to the temptations of this world, I devoted my nights to imagining other worlds. ... There is nothing better than imagining other worlds," he said, "to forget the painful one we live in. At least so I thought then. I hadn't yet realized that, imagining other worlds, you end up changing this one."

"Thus, modern pleasure seeking according to Campbell is no longer related to the senses but to activities like daydreaming or fantasizing. The purpose of goods in this context is to act as props. They are the building blocs around which consumers create their pleasurable visions."

"Well, I really want to encourage a kind of fantasy, a kind of magic. I love the term magic realism, whoever invented it — I do actually like it because it says certain things. It's about expanding how you see the world. I think we live in an age where we're just hammered, hammered to think this is what the world is. Television's saying, everything's saying "That's the world." And it's not the world. The world is a million possible things."

"My fantasy since I was a small child was to dominate a dominating man. That turns me on more than anything, a man who does not want to be dominated—like Sean Connery, a really macho man. The kind of man who has no desire for submission. It’s truly perverse. It’s the power play: who has it, how long you have it for, and what you do with it."

"The Onion: How did your interest in fantasy first develop?"

"The Onion: How did you develop your particular visual style?"

""This sort of fiction, commonly called "sword and sorcery" by its fans, is not fantasy at its lowest, but it still has a pretty tacky feel; mostly it's the Hardy Boys dressed up in animal skins and rated R ( and with cover art by Jeff Jones, as likely as not). Sword and sorcery novels and stories are tales of power for the powerless. The fellow who is afraid of being rousted by those young punks who hang around his bus stop can go home at night and imagine himself wielding a sword, his potbelly miraculously gone, his slack muscles magically transmuted into those "iron thews" which have been sung and storied in the pulps for the last fifty years."

"She’d once told Devon, “I'm more interested in things that are real.” He’d been playing the game. Monitor-glow made his head a silhouette. He said, “What’s real is just an accident. No one designed reality to be compelling.” He gestured to the screen. “But a fantasy world is so designed. It takes the most interesting things that ever existed—like knights in armor and pirates on the high seas—and combines them with the most interesting things that anyone ever dreamed up—fire-breathing dragons and blood-drinking vampires. It’s the world as it should be, full of wonder and adventure. To privilege reality simply because it is reality just represents a kind of mental parochialism.”"

"It [fantasy literature] is accused of giving children a false impression of the world they live in. But I think no literature that children could read gives them less of a false impression. I think what profess to be realistic stories for children are far more likely to deceive them."

"Good fantasy, unlike other genres, is more resilient to the tests of time, mainly because the ceaseless march of technology leaves less of a mark."

"Maeda Toshio suggests that aside the theme of human selfishness, the hard-core rape and tentacle porn with which this manga and animation have become synonymous, are "Fantasy service [extras] for the male readers, men are hen-pecked by their wives and their are wages are increasingly equal to women's so they like the rape scenes as they restore their sense of power.""

"Fantasies of any kind are distorted forms of thinking because they always involve twisting perception into unreality. Fantasy is a debased form of vision. Vision and revelation are closely related, while fantasy and projection are more closely associated because both attempt to control external reality according to false internal needs. Twist reality in any way, and you are perceiving destructively. Reality was lost through usurpation, which in turn produced tyranny... No fantasies are true. They are distortions of perception, by definition. They are a means of making false associations, and obtaining pleasure from them. Man can do this only because he is creative. But although he can perceive false associations, he can never make them real except to himself. Man believes in what he creates... [Eventually] fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent..."

"Those who lack wisdom are children... Children do confuse fantasy and reality, and they are frightened because they do not know the difference. p. 132 What can be fearful but fantasy, and no-one turns to fantasy unless he despairs of finding satisfaction in reality. Yet it is certain that he will never find satisfaction in fantasy, so that his only hope is to change his mind about reality... The impossible can happen only in fantasy. When you search for reality in fantasies you will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of the ego, and of these you will find many. But do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven. Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful... Children may believe them, and so, for a while, the tales are true for them. Yet when reality dawns the fantasies are gone. Reality has not gone in the meanwhile. The Second Coming is the awareness of reality, not its return... reality is here. It belongs to you and me... and is perfectly satisfying to all of us."

"Harmless erotic fantasies are terrific, it’s the lousy ones you have to look out for—the harmful, destructive, morbid erotic fixations—real sadism, killing, blood-letting, torturing where the pleasure is in the victim’s actual pain, etc. Those are 100 per cent bad and I won’t have any part of them."

"The Thousand and One Nights, with its magnificent apparatus of genii and afrits, is the greatest work of fantasy that has ever been evolved by tradition, and given literary form. But it, alas, is not English, and has no English equivalent. The Western world does not seem to have conceived the necessity of fairy-tales for grown-ups — though it has been suggested that the modern detective story is an equivalent — and that is perhaps why it condemns them to a life of unremitted toil."

"I suppose the fantastic is what you imagine, but as soon as you do a fantastic thing, it's no longer fantastic, it becomes real."

"John Bell: What attracted you initially to heroic fantasy, a subgenre of fantastic literature that was once notorious for its less-than-enlightened racial attitude?"

"Fantasy is a distorted form of vision. Fantasies of any kind are distortions, because they always involve twisting perception into unreality. Actions that stem from distortions are literally the reactions of those who know not what they do. Fantasy is an attempt to control reality according to false needs. Twist reality in any way and you are perceiving destructively. Fantasies are a means of making false associations and attempting to obtain pleasure from them. But although you can perceive false associations, you can never make them real except to yourself. You believe in what you make. If you offer miracles, you will be equally strong in your belief in them. The strength of your conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver. Reality is "lost" through usurpation, which produces tyranny. As long as a single "slave" remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete."

"No fantasies are true. They are distortions of perception, by definition. They are a means of making false associations, and obtaining pleasure from them. Man can do this only because he is creative. But although he can perceive false associations, he can never make them real except to himself. Man believes in what he creates... [Eventually] fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent..."

"Children do confuse fantasy and reality, and they are frightened because they do not know the difference. p. 132"

"What can be fearful but fantasy, and no-one turns to fantasy unless he despairs of finding satisfaction in reality. Yet it is certain that he will never find satisfaction in fantasy, so that his only hope is to change his mind about reality... The impossible can happen only in fantasy. When you search for reality in fantasies you will not find it. The symbols of fantasy are of the ego, and of these you will find many. But do not look for meaning in them. They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven. Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful... Children may believe them, and so, for a while, the tales are true for them. Yet when reality dawns the fantasies are gone. Reality has not gone in the meanwhile. The Second Coming is the awareness of reality, not its return... reality is here. It belongs to you and me... and is perfectly satisfying to all of us. p. 209-210"

"It is said that science fiction and fantasy are two different things. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, and fantasy is the impossible made probable."

"Fantasy literature, in its broadest definition from "Cinderella" to "Beowulf" to Stephen Donaldson, is literature which makes deliberate use of something known to be impossible."

"Fantasy is a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent."

"The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy."

"The "hard" science-fiction writers are the ones who try to write specific stories about all that technology may do for us. More and more, these writers felt an opaque wall across the future. Once, they could put such fantasies millions of years in the future. Now they saw that their most diligent extrapolations resulted in the unknowable … soon."

"It is easy to imagine fantasy as physical and myth as real. We do it almost every moment. We do this as we dream, as we think, and as we cope with the world about us. But these worlds of fantasy that we form into the solid things around us are the source of our discontent. They inspire our search to find ourselves."

"Our writers, I believe, discern a resemblance between the world and their books. Through fantasy, they are saying something about life which could not be said within the naturalistic frame of reference."

"In 1977, Klaus Theweleit published a book in which he sought to understand the germination of fascism in interwar Germany. His method was to study the fantasy life of that era’s conservative revolutionaries, by reading the diaries, novels and letters of the men who joined the Freikorps militias, and fought against insurgent communists during the early days of the Weimar Republic."

"In the fantasies they committed to paper, the men associated the women they despised with floods of liquid and slime, and with dirt – substances that would threaten to overwhelm the defences of their ill-formed psyches."

""[Samples have] a certain reality. It doesn't just take the sound, it takes the whole way it was recorded. The ambient sounds, the little bits of reverb left off crashes that happened a couple of bars ago. There's a lot of things in the sample, just like when you take a picture—it's got a lot more levels than say, the kick-drum or the drum machine, I think. [...] Looking at a sampler the way it was used first—to try and simulate real instruments—you didn't have to get a session guitarist and you could just be like, 'Hey, I can have an orchestra in my track, and I can have a guitar, and it sounds real!' And I think that's the wrong way to use sampling. The right way is to get the guitar, and go, 'Right, that's a guitar. Let's make it into something that a guitar could never possibly be.' You know, take it away from the source and try to make it something else. Might as well just get a bloody guitarist if you want a guitarist. There's plenty of them." —Amon Tobin dead link, view archive here"

""Producers like Organized Noize mix samples and live instruments really well. Lots of times, I have trouble finding bass lines, because it's not very often on a record that there are good open bass lines. Sometimes I wish I could just have somebody come in and do what I want him to do on a bass line. It would be so easy. But what I do just keeps things much more challenging, I guess." —DJ Shadow"

""Cutting and pasting is the essence of what hip-hop culture is all about for me. It's about drawing from what's around you, and subverting it and de-contextualizing it." —DJ Shadow"

""When I sample something, it's because there's something ingenious about it. And if it isn't the group as a whole, it's that song. Or, even if it isn't the song as a whole, it's a genius moment, or an accident or something that makes it just utterly unique to the other trillions of hours of records that I've plowed through" —DJ Shadow, 33⅓ Volume 24: DJ Shadow's Endtroducing..., 2005"

""A lot of people still don't recognize the sampler as a musical instrument. I can see why. A lot of rap hits over the years used the sampler more like a Xerox machine. If you take four whole bars that are identifiable, you're just biting that shit. But I've always been into using the sampler more like a painter's palette than a Xerox. Then again, I might use it as a Xerox if I find rare beats that nobody had in their crates yet. If I find a certain sample that's just incredible—like the one on 'Liquid Swords'—I have to zap that! That was from an old Willie Mitchell song that I was pretty sure most people didn't have. But on every album I try to make sure that I only have 20 to 25 percent [of that kind of] sampling. Everything else is going to be me putting together a synthesis of sounds. You listen to a song like "Knowledge God" by Raekwon: it took at least five to seven different records chopped up to make one two-bar phrase. That's how I usually work." —RZA, The Wu-Tang Manual, 2004"

""For hip hop, the main thing is to have a good trained ear, to hear the most obscure loop or sound or rhythm inside of a song. If you can hear the obscureness of it, and capture that and loop it at the right tempo, you're going to have some nice music man, you're going to have a nice hip hop track." —RZA"

""Modern recorded music has evolved from focusing principally on musicianship and performance into an auditory collage where no sound is off limits. Sampling is simply another color on our palettes. Whether we're sampling old records, using advanced multi-sampling, or recording sounds ourselves, the final artistic product is paramount and should not be compromised in the face of any corporate legalities." —Sono"

""Let's say I find a loop or something that I want to use—you attach yourself to a particular aspect or emotion that you find in it—part of it is looking for like-minded sounds and part of it is just laying things out in a way that kind of helps accomplish what you want. It's what you can hear in a particular sound." —RJD2"

""I look at all the different parts and see how I can organize them in a way. It's like mathematics. Very mathematic. It's like graphs! You're always searching for the combination that sounds best. It's kind you set back, and feel the thing. If you want something to come in, you have to search for it, listen to it." —Blockhead"

""My music is based in hip hop, but I pull everything from dancehall to country to rock together. I can take a Led Zeppelin drum loop, put a Lou Donaldson horn on it, add a Joni Mitchell guitar, then get a Crosby, Stills & Nash vocal riff." —Prince Be Softly of PM Dawn, Musician magazine, June 1993"

""Sampling artistry is a very misunderstood form of music. A lot of people think sampling is thievery but it can take more time to find the right sample than to make up a riff." —Prince Be Softly of PM Dawn"

""Sampling's not a lazy man's way. We learn a lot from sampling, it's like school for us. When we sample a portion of a song and repeat it over and over we can better understand the matrix of the song." —Daddy-O of Stetsasonic, cited in Black Noise by Tricia Rose, Wesleyan Press 1994, p. 79"

""You got stuff darting in and out absolutely everywhere. It's like someone throwing rice at you. You have to grab every little piece and put it in the right place like a puzzle. Very complicated. All those little snippets and pieces that go in, along with the regular drums that you gotta drop out in order to make room for it." —Eric Sadler of Public Enemy's Bomb Squad, Black Noise by Tricia Rose, Wesleyan Press 1994, p. 80"

""It's a context issue, because not every sample is a huge chunk of a song. We might take a tiny little insignificant sound from a record and then slow it way down and put it deep in the mix with, like, 30 other sounds on top of it. It's not even a recognizable sample at that point. Which is a lot different from taking a huge, obvious piece from some hit song that everyone knows and saying whatever you want to on top of that loop. An example that's often brought up in court when we get sued over sampling is a Biz Markie track where he more or less used a whole Gilbert O'Sullivan song. Because it was such an obvious sample, it's the example lawyers use when trying to prove that sampling is stealing. And that's really frustrating to us as artists who sample, because sampling can be a totally different thing than that." —Beastie Boys"

""It's pretty much impossible to clear samples now [in 2005]. We had to stay away from samples as much as possible. The ones that we did use were just absolutely integral to the feeling or rhythm of the song. But, back [on Odelay] it was basically me writing chord changes and melodies and stuff, and then endless records being scratched and little sounds coming off the turntable. Now it's prohibitively difficult and expensive to justify your one weird little horn blare that happens for half of a second one time in a song and makes you give away 70 percent of the song and $50,000. That's where sampling has gone, and that's why hip-hop sounds the way it does now." —Beck"

""I think it's wonderful, and it's a kind of poetic justice. When I was a teenager, I used to go down to Birdland and hear Miles Davis and Kenny Clarke. Later on, when I was at Juilliard, I heard John Coltrane. This had an enormous impression on me. In 1974, after a concert at Queen Elizabeth Hall, this guy with long hair and lipstick comes up to me and says, "Hi, I'm Brian Eno." Then in Berlin in 1976, after a performance of "Music for 18 Musicians," I met David Bowie. Now cut to the Orb and their generation. That's the way life ought to be. That's the way Bach and Bartok and Stravinsky worked, and it's how Kurt Weill worked. There should be a back-and-forth between what goes on in the street and the clubs and what goes on in the concert halls." —Steve Reich"

""Basically, you go to the root of memory, and it's all about interaction with found documents - look at how you acquire language. You mirror the environment around you. That's what sampling does - it's a process of recall that changes memory as you recall it. Think of James Joyce or William S. Burroughs as turntablists and you get the same result - the turntable is a permutation machine. Look at the root word of "phono-graph" and it's basically "writing with sound - phono (sound) - graph (writing), the rest is just pushing many elements together in unexpected ways. It's the basic vocabulary of the 20th and 21st centuries."—DJ Spooky"

""Sample and stole is two different things. Stole is like I walked in your house, watched you make it, stole your Pro Tools ... Sample is like you heard it somewhere, and you just sampled. Maybe you didn't know who it was by because it don't have the credits listed." - Timbaland"

"It makes me laugh. The part I don't understand, the dude is trying to act like I went to his house and took it from his computer. I don't know him from a can of paint. I'm 15 years deep. That's how you attack a king? You attack moi? Come on, man. You got to come correct. You the laughing stock. People are like, "You can't be serious." - Timbaland on Elliot in the Morning"

"... And this is the origin of pop music: it's a professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music as well."

"A singer … is no more than an actor set to music."

"I learned more from Chuck Berry about America than I could have from the U.S. Information Service in London."

"I call my music the healing music… It makes the blind feel that they can see, the lame feel that they can walk, the deaf and dumb that they can hear and talk."

"It just happened. I like to sing, and well, I just started singing and folks just started listening. I can't tell folks that I worked and learned and studied, and overcame disappointments, because I didn't."

"Rock and roll is a music, and why should a music contribute to … juvenile delinquency? If people are going to be juvenile delinquents, they're going to be delinquents if they hear … Mother Goose rhymes."

"American country music … was and is … the soul music of white people."

"Elvis changed the country music scene quite a bit; he almost put country music out of business."

"You can't make a hit record out of nothing. … It's baseless to think you can make any recording a hit, just by playing it over and over and over again."

"Now my attitude is very simple: I must do what artistically pleases me."

"The things that were happening in 1955 were cosmic … in terms of music history."

"But now if I can wrap myself up in that song, and when that song gets to be a part of me, and affects me emotionally, then the emotions that I go through, chances are I’ll be able to communicate to you. Make the people out there become a part of the life of this song that you’re singing about. That’s soul when you can do that."

"God would be a very selfish god if he gave all the soul to one race. … When one sings from the heart and it reaches another heart, that's soul."

"I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war."

"I enjoyed all the records very much. I made them all from the heart. I made them all with art in mind, and all to reveal a picture of where I was when I made them."

"If I had as many love affairs as you've given me credit for, I would now be speaking to you from a jar at the Harvard Medical School."

"The day you open your mind to music, you're halfway to opening your mind to life."

"I was looking for a name like the Crickets that meant two things, and from crickets I got to beetles. And I changed [to] B E A because … B E E T L E S didn't mean two things, so I changed … the E to an A. And it meant two things then. … When you said it, people thought of crawly things; and when you read it, it was beat music."

"If you'd have asked me that question, 9 months ago, well, I would have been able to say, to come to America, to have a number one hit in America, and to play Carnegie Hall, to play the Palladium, to play in front of the Queen, and all that. ... The things we've done, they were our ambitions, say 9 months ago."

"We knew that America would make us or break us as world stars. In fact, she made us."

"I used to get mad about people recording my things; now I got a new thing going. … I don't get mad about them recording my material because they keep me alive."

"There's not many Americans, certainly not many of the teenagers I met when I first went to America, knew anything about [blues artists] at all. … They do now, which is very groovy."

"What I wanted to do with Bobby was just to get him to sound in the studio as natural, just as he was in person, and have that extraordinary personality come thru. … After all, he's not a great harmonica player, and he's not a great guitar player, and he's not a great singer. He just happens to be an original. And I just wanted to have that originality come thru."

"In the largest sense, every work of art is protest. … A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it. … A hymn is a controversial song--sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out. …"

"I like them all. … They're all pictures of me when I wrote them. … I have no favorite songs."

"Very rich."

"Some fella said to me, "Have you had LSD, Paul?" And I said "Yes." And it was only 'cuz I was going to just be honest with him. There's no other reason. I didn't want to spread it or anything, you know. I'm not trying to do anything except answer his question. But he happened to be a reporter, and I happened to be a Beatle."

"What we call a hook hits you, ... then you're almost not writing, lyrics come to you, a sort of magic takes over, and it's not like work at all."

"Here, I'm going to make you a big star … and you don't have to pay any dues. … For that, you're going to get no respect from your contemporaries. … To me, that was the cruelest thing."

"Ringo [Starr] … is always underrated. … He's probably … the finest rock drummer in the world today. … Ringo is the one."

"The softer you sing, the louder you're heard."

"Respect is something Otis achieved for himself in a way few people do. Otis sang "Respect when I come home." And Otis has come home."

"Manhood is what we profess, and what we try to get across."

"Soul is truth, … no matter where it comes from, no matter how it is presented."

"To sing blues, you've got to be able to, ... be willing to, feel things."

"... I just know that, right now, … the biggest record selling business there is is rock and roll."

"Rhythm and blues used to be called race music; … this music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it."

"I took song writing seriously when I discovered girls."

"[My] publicity agent … went to hear Father Divine and he had a sermon and his subject was 'you got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.' And I said 'Wow, that's a colorful phrase!'"

"So many proposals happened on the dance floor to the pretty music where the guy'Il say, 'Honey, I love you. Will you marry me?' I've often wondered how a young man gets through to his lady friend today when she'd be doing her own little thing 15 feet away. He tries to get her attention, waves his arms and somebody walks in between and he says, "I love you," and the little girl in the middle … a stranger . . . says "who me?""

"A song would come out … a singer's song, right? Elmo [Tanner] would whistle it. Whatever he didn't want to whistle, I would sing. Now you can imagine what I used to sing. It was frightening. Elmo was the whole band, you know?""

"I … started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that's just the way it came out."

"I think it's a great program. ... I made my wife go get me one of these radio recorders so that I could record the Pop Chronicles and have them for my own."

"For the serious aficionado of pop music and the casual listener alike, it's been a nearly unqualified success."

"A veritable schoolroom of the airwaves … significant records … leaving the story-telling … to the interview subjects."

"Phrasing. The art of dividing a melody into groups of connected sounds so as to bring out its greatest musical effect including also the placing of accent — cres. and decres., rall. and accel., rubato, etc. [...]"

"The art of phrasing by a performer is often instinctive and is one of the features by which a supreme artist may be distinguished from one of lesser inspiration, whether conductor, singer, or instrumentalist."

"The art of phrasing is essential for expressiveness in music. The impact of a musical phrase is dependent on how it is shaped by the individual performer, who [...] will have considerable freedom in structuring the perceptual surface of the musical auditory stream. At the level of the individual phrase, there are infinite possibilities for variation of the so-called expressive devices in music, such as timing and dynamic shape."

"Phrasing is always something essentially personal. It has really no fixed laws [...] and depends wholly on the musical and the poetical sense of the performer."

"No two artists phrase the same passage in exactly the same manner"

"[...] Phrasing, like other more aesthetic branches [...], is one of those things for which a detailed scheme of instruction cannot well be laid down. It can be demonstrated, violin in hand, but not described. Furthermore, the violinist is characteristically so dependant on the mood of the moment, the accidental influence of temper and disposition, that the same musician seldom plays the same phrase twice in exactly the same manner."

"Phrasing/musicality is not slavishly following a musical phrase, but rather a prolonging or a shortening of the physical action that serves to underscore the flow of the music."

"[...] inherent limitations of musical notation itself: no single slur mark can possibly capture the multifarious groupings simultaneously present at various hierarchical levels [...]"

"Phrasing. Most teachers are referring to some degree of phrasing with or without rubato when they admonish a student to be 'more musical'. Phrasing can certainly be taught, especially when the student is shown the parallels to the spoken phrase, and declamatory delivery. Just as a fine actor projects the meaning of the sentences of the playwright with various pitch contours, so does the string player project the meaning of the musical phrases of the composer. Where does the phrase begin and end? Which note or notes are to be stressed as the high points of that phrase? Where is the point of arrival? Does the phrase contain any interior smaller phrases, as embedded phrases or clauses in a sentence? Are there secondary ideas which should be delineated clearly? Is the phrase a declarative one, receding dynamically as it completes? ("Today is a lovely day.") Or is it a question, requiring an increasing dynamic at the end, just as the human voice goes up in a questioning manner ("Is today a lovely day?")."

"Upon a careful analysis of this term phrasing as it is understood and used by scholarly musicians, what exactly do we find its meaning to be? We find it used in three senses : first, as referring to a clear perception of the formal division of music into well-defined sentences and their parts; secondly, as referring to the right method of marking those divisions so that in the rendering of the music they may be evident to the hearer; and, thirdly, as referring to the correct and expressive rendering of each division."

"When the technical problems of finger dexterity have been solved, it is too late to add musicality, phrasing and musical expression. That is why I never practise mechanically. If we work mechanically, we run the risk of changing the very nature of music."

"A good performance is so full of these minute retardations and accelerations that hardly two measures will occupy exactly the same time. It is notorious that to play with the metronome is to play mechanically - the reason being, of course, that we are then playing by the measure, or rather by the beat, instead of by the phrase. A keen musical instinct revolts at playing even a single measure with the metronome: mathematical exactitude gives us a dead body in place of the living musical organism with its ebb and flow of rhythmical energy. It may therefore be suggested, in conclusion, that the use of the metronome, even to determine the average rate of speed, is dangerous."

"Most of us express ourselves very well indeed just in ordinary speech, and there is a nice sense of rhythm about it. When you think about this in relation to musical phrasing, you will understand why the metrical system is really opposed to natural musical expression."

"As in speech, so also in Music, phrasing always implies a break in the continuity of the legato. You must have commas, etc., in your speech, and you must provide them [...] as a breaking of sound-continuity [...]. Many players forget this necessity, and mistakenly fancy their phrases to be quite well defined, while all the time they are connecting each new phrase to each preceding one in an unbroken continuity [...]"

"Again, the important subject of phrasing is so often treated carelessly that its doctrines seem to be little better than a sort of cant It may seem strange to call so familiar a term as "phrasing" a mystery; but very often it is unintelligent familiarity that makes mysteries of things. This word "phrasing " is one of those most frequently heard in the mouths of teacher, pupil, listener and critic; it is an indispensable word for the article writer and bookmaker ; it is a sort of universal charm word for the would-be musician. Indiscriminate usage, unintelligent usage, cant usage, "devitalises" words, and makes mysteries of them.[...]"

"And, again, how many pupils are there who after informing you that such a player phrased beautifully, will, at the piano, favour one with such a practical example of complete ignorance of the subject, by an easy flow of unpunctuated rubbish [...] The cant of phrasing — that affectation of knowledge and attempt to veil ignorance by the use of a high sounding or impressive shibboleth not clearly understood by the user — is as plentiful in musical highways and byeways as are blackberries in summer hedgerows."

"The dead level of monotony which we notice in the performance of some violinists is, in the main, due to a lack of proper phrasing. They seem content to play the notes as they are written, and apparently do not realize that a melody is something more than a long string of tones to be sounded in succession. [...] The melody is not a projection of successive notes; it is carefully and consistently built up of melodic-units, each of them independent, yet all dependent on each other, and calling for various degrees of rhythmic and emotional accentuation."

"Phrasing can never be made a mechanical process, without perverting and artificializing the whole manner of delivery."

"100 according to Maelzel, but this must be held applicable to only the first measures, for feeling also has its tempo and this cannot entirely be expressed in this figure."

"If a pianist plays as if a metronome were at his side, the time may be faultless, but there will not be much scope for expression."

"I do not mean to say that it is necessary to imitate the mathematical regularity of the metronome, which would give the music thus executed an icy frigidity; I even doubt whether it would be possible to maintain this rigid uniformity for more than a few bars."

"A metronomical performance is certainly tiresome and nonsensical; time and rhythm must be adapted to and identified with the melody, the harmony, the accent and the poetry."

"I think here as well as with all other music, the metronome is of no value. As far at least as my experience goes, everybody has, sooner or later, withdrawn his metronome marks. Those which can be found in my works – good friends have talked me into putting them there, for I myself have never believed that my blood and a mechanical instrument go well together."

"Paderewski plays the rhapsodies like improvisations – inspirations of the moment. It is the negation of the mechanical in music, the assassination of the metronome. When ordinary pianists play a Liszt rhapsody, there is nothing in their performance that a musical stenographer could not note down just as it is played. But what Paderewski plays could not be put down on paper by any system of notation ever invented. For such subtle nuances of tempo and expression there are no signs in our musical alphabet. But it is precisely these unwritten and unwritable things that constitute the soul of music and the instinctive command of which distinguishes a genius from a mere musician."

"How shall a discriminating sense of rhythm and a correct regard for time-keeping be cultivated? Certainly not by the continuous use of the metronome. The click of this little mechanical time-keeper serves admirably to mark the tempo, but if slavishly depended on will make a slave of mechanism rather than a musician."

"An inelastic time-measurer can never give us characteristic Bach or Beethoven, Mozart or Wagner. Metronome marks are never more than approximate at best."

"It is notorious that to play with the metronome is to play mechanically – the reason being, of course, that we are then playing by the measure, or rather by the beat, instead of by the phrase. A keen musical instinct revolts at playing even a single measure with the metronome: mathematical exactitude gives us a dead body in place of the living musical organism with its ebb and flow of rhythmical energy."

"To be emotional in musical interpretation, yet obedient to the initial tempo and true to the metronome, means about as much as being sentimental in engineering. Mechanical execution and emotion are incompatible. To play Chopin's G major Nocturne with rhythmic rigidity and pious respect for the indicated rate of movement would be as intolerably monotonous, as absurdly pedantic, as to recite Gray's famous Elegy to the beating of a metronome."

"The mechanical is never art; the metronome must never take the place of the guiding brain and understanding heart."

"The most mechanical playing imaginable can proceed from those who make themselves slaves to this little musical clock, which was never intended to stand like a ruler over every minute of the student's practice time."

"That a conductor or performer may lose sight of the expression of a piece and be unconscious that he is so doing, is a commonplace. This may arise not so much from lack of artistic perception as from his giving undue attention to some particular aspect or aspects of the work in hand – correctness of music, rigid regard to tempo, literal performance of the p's and f's of the copy – so that it or they crowd out the poetic element of expression, and instead of his being an emotional artist he is merely a human metronome."

"Do not sing Mozart in metronome rhythm. ... Never divest word and note of their soulful accents of emotion so as to condemn them to a monotony which some would designate as classical."

"Never play with a metronome: ... The keeping of absolutely strict time is thoroughly unmusical and deadlike."

"The habitual use of the metronome should be avoided, since it nips in the bud any possibility of a rubato suggested by the player's fancy, and his whole manner of playing takes on a machine-made cast. Not without reason is it regarded as a reproach when an artist is said to play like a metronome."

"The metronome has no value whatsoever as an aid to any action or performance that is musical in intention. ... Musicians ought to distinguish between (1) the sort of timing that results from dull, slavish obedience to the ticking of a soulless machine, and (2) that noble swing and perfect control of pulsation which comes into our playing after years of practice in treating and training the sense of time as a free, creative human faculty. Now for the idea that strict metronomic pulsation is the normal basis of music. Nobody could persuade me that this is true. If I believed it I would give up music tomorrow."

"There is an immense amount of metrical playing and singing in the world ... : there is too little rhythmic reality. And if you habitually play or sing thousands of metrical phrases without transmuting them into your own rhythms, you will become a metronomical musician."

"One of the most stubborn modern misconceptions concerning baroque music is that a metronomic regularity was intended."

"The feeling and perception of rhythm are conveyed much more by the performer's choice of emphasis or "pulse" than by strict adherence to any absolute metronomic rhythm."

"Dozens of critics have explained why metronome marks are more problematic than early-music enthusiasts used to acknowledge. Composers, to begin with, often take their own music faster or slower than the speeds they imagined when setting numbers to the page. Changes of mood can lead anyone (including a composer) to different tempos at different times. Besides, what sounds right inside the composer's head often needs adjustment to work with real instruments in real places. ... Insisting that there is something essential about following a metronome mark imposes a meaningless limit on performance."

"Many recent recordings of pop music demonstrate how music is killed by a metronome, for they are as square as a draftsman's T."

"Metrical exactitude ... is the embodiment of slavishness in music, i.e., the music is the slave of the beat when it should be its master, exactly the opposite of what C.P.E. Bach suggested, in his Essay on the "True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments," when he wrote that one should "endeavor to avoid everything mechanical and slavish. Play from the soul, not like a trained bird." Like the beating of the heart, the musical pulse needs to fluctuate in speed as the emotional content of the music fluctuates. Like the natural shifting accents in speech, musical accents need to shift according to the meaning being expressed. To feel perfect, music must be metrically imperfect."

"I'm against the metronome. If you own one, burn it please. The problem with the metronome is, that even when you don't play with the metronome, subconsciously it's still ticking in your mind. As a musician, it doesn't do a darn thing for you. It actually destroys the music. You don't discover the music, because the metronome is still ticking in your head."

"Correct time is considered indispensable; then why not use the Metronome. Hummel has recommended it in the strongest terms. My regard for it is such, that for twenty-five years or more I never taught a pupil without it."

"The objection, sometimes heard, that using a metronome tends to make a player mechanical, is not founded on facts. Indeed, the students who play the most artistically are those who have been the most faithful in the use of their metronome when learning their pieces."

"Everyone knows that after a piece has been thoroughly tested and stabilized with the metronome, the necessary rhythmic variations, the accelerandos, the ritardandos, the ad libs, the tempo rubatos may be introduced far more intelligently and artistically."

"The metronome is one of the greatest technique builders available to the teacher or the pupil."

"Harold Bauer once said that the most impressive performance of "Lohengrin" he ever heard was the time the Boston Symphony played it for rehearsal from beginning to end with the metronome."

"Because its beat is perfectly steady, the metronome is an excellent practice tool for musicians. Practicing with a metronome is extremely useful for developing and maintaining rhythmic precision, for learning to keep consistent tempos, for countering tendencies to slow down or speed up in specific passages, and for developing evenness and accuracy in rapid passages. Most music teachers consider the metronome indispensable, and most professional musicians, in fact, continue to practice with a metronome throughout their careers."

"Before a student can be persuaded to use a metronome, he or she has to know why it is important. The most obvious answer is to help keep rhythms even and clean. Another reason is to keep the meter consistent, placing beats in their proper positions in the music. Metronomes can also help a student to find and fix problems. ... The metronome quickly alerts the player to these problems by suddenly not clicking in time with the player's beats."

"Often, the metronome by itself may not be enough to learn complex rhythms. However, its importance for all types of practicing and all genres cannot be understated. The infallibility of the machine is a blessing since it removes guesswork; thus, the player can use the metronome to learn to play evenly and to resist the temptation to take extra time when playing a difficult passage. The player must begin with the premise that the metronome is mathematically perfect and categorically correct. From there, s/he must make a personal commitment to play exactly together with this perfect "chamber music partner.""

"I’ve got a metronome app on my phone because I often have riffs in my head that I think will go together but when I play them to a beat, one will work and the other will be a different tempo. I use the metronome so I know before I show Paul [Bostaph – Slayer’s drummer] the riffs work together."

"I'm not worried about the security particularly. If people have enough to do, there won't be trouble."

"The cream of the underground will be there. Everybody's coming from all over the country. There'll be drugs and psychedelics and music and riots."

"My parents knew there'd be drugs there, that it'll be a bit wild. They didn't want me to come. I know there'll be drugs everywhere and I wonder what it will all be like. I've never been away from home before. I wonder what will happen to all of us."

"Anybody who tries to comes here is crazy. Sullivan County is a great big parking lot."

"As far as I know the narcotics guys are not arresting anybody for grass. If we did there isn't enough space in Sullivan (county) or the next three (sic) "countries" to put them in."

"Stop Max's Hippie Music Festival. No 150,000 hippies here. Buy No Milk."

"Don't bother Max's cows. Let them moo in peace."

"Good morning! What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for four hundred thousand."

"It's about the quietest, most well-behaved 300,000 people in one place that can be imagined. There have been no fights or incidents of violence of any kind."

"If we had any inkling that there was going to be this kind of attendance, we certainly would not have gone ahead. … We've had a very averse situation here... Financially speaking, of course, the festival is a disaster."

"You aren't taking poison acid. The acid's not poison. It's just badly manufactured acid. You are not going to die. We have treated 300 cases and it's all just badly manufactured acid. So if you think you've taken poison, you haven't. But if you're worried, just take half a tablet."

"I hope David can hear it."

"We're vestiges of our former selves."

"The whole thing is a gas. I dig it all, the mud, the rain, the music, the hassles."

"I guess this was meant to happen, and everybody is still with us. We're going to go on all night with the music."

"Like wow, these people are really beautiful, the cops, the storekeepers, the army, everybody."

"Notwithstanding their personality, their dress and their ideas, they were and they are the most courteous, considerate and well-behaved group of kids I have ever been in contact with in my 24 years of police work."

"I think it was fantastic. I think the only way its been overdone was thinking it changed the world, politically and as far as the war went. It was only a part of things. It wasn’t it."

"We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn... ...there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud."

"And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: a quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic, and in the night I hear, 'Don't worry about it John. We're with you.' I played the rest of the show for that guy.""

"Men reached the moon in July 1969, and Woodstock began three weeks later. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that this was when the hippies took over the country, and when the true cultural war over Progress was lost. Today's aged hippies no longer understand that there is a difference between the election of a black president and the creation of cheap solar energy; in their minds, the movement towards greater civil rights parallels general progress everywhere. Because of these ideological conflations and commitments, the 1960s Progressive Left cannot ask whether things actually might be getting worse."

"[W]ant to bring it? Bring it. But, we ain't singing. We're bringing drama."

"I saw the people gather/I heard the music start/The song that they were singing/Is ringing in my heart"

"Debe ser la caricia de lo inútil,/la tristeza sin fin de ser poeta,/de cantar y cantar, sin que se rompa/la tragedia sin par de la existencia."

"The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow."

"Let's sing now because life is leaving"

"I suffer so much in this life, Doro. That is what they feeling when I sing, that is why they cry. People who felt nothing in this life cannot sing. Once I had a great suffering and from it came a new voice."

"The softer you sing, the louder you're heard."

"Come, sing now, sing; for I know you sing well; I see you have a singing face."

"Three merry boys, and three merry boys, And three merry boys are we, As ever did sing in a hempen string Under the gallow-tree."

"Be like the grasshopper and make night musical. Nightly wash your bed and water your couch with your tears. Watch and be like the sparrow alone upon the housetop. Sing with the spirit, but sing with the understanding also. 1 Corinthians 14:15 And let your song be that of the psalmist: Bless the Lord, O my soul; and forget not all his benefits; who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases; who redeems your life from destruction. Can we, any of us, honestly make his words our own: I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping? Yet, should we not weep and groan when the serpent invites us, as he invited our first parents, to eat forbidden fruit, and when after expelling us from the paradise of virginity he desires to clothe us with mantles of skins such as that which Elijah, on his return to paradise, left behind him on earth? 2 Kings 2:13 Say to yourself: What have I to do with the pleasures of sense that so soon come to an end? What have I to do with the song of the sirens so sweet and so fatal to those who hear it?"

"Urusvati has developed her musical talent beautifully. This proficiency is achieved as the result of much labor in other lives. According to the Teachings of Plato, music should not be understood in the narrow sense of music alone, but as participation in all the harmonious arts. In singing, in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, in architecture, in speech, and, finally, in all manifestations of sound, musicality is expressed. In Hellas a ceremony to all the Muses was performed. Tragedy, dance, and all rhythmic movement served the harmony of Cosmos. Much is spoken about beauty, but the importance of harmony is little understood. Beauty is an uplifting concept, and each offering to beauty is an offering to the equilibrium of Cosmos. Everyone who expresses music in himself sacrifices, not for himself, but for others, for humanity, for Cosmos. Perfection of thought is an expression of beautiful musicality. The highest rhythm is the best prophylaxis, a pure bridge to the highest worlds. Thus We affirm Beauty in Our Abode. Urusvati has noted that the music of the spheres is characterized by a harmony of rhythm. It is precisely this quality that brings inspiration to humanity. People usually do not think about the sources of inspiration, but if they did they would help Our work greatly. 42."

"You know about the special musical instruments that are in Our possession. Urusvati has heard them. The refined scale and rhythm of Sister Oriole should be acknowledged as the highest harmony. Often such singing has served to bring peace to the world... One should learn how to develop one’s own musicality by all possible means. The heart’s feeling is sensed not in the words themselves but in their sound. There can be no irritation in harmony. Malice cannot exist where the spirit ascends. It is not by chance that in antiquity the epic scriptures were sung, not only to facilitate memorizing but also for inspiration. Likewise, it is rhythm and harmony that protect us against fatigue. The quality of music and rhythm should be developed from infancy."

"Once, according to an old legend, there came a messenger from a distant world to give people equality, brotherhood and joy. Long since had people forgotten their songs. They remained in a stupor of hate. The messenger banished darkness and crowdedness, smote infection, and instituted joyful labor. Hatred was stilled, and the sword of the messenger remained on the wall. But all were silent and knew not how to begin singing. Then the messenger assembled the little children, led them into the woods, and said to them: “These are your flowers, your brooks, your trees. No one has followed us. I shall rest—and you fill yourselves with joy.” Thereupon, timidly they ventured into the forest. At last the littlest one came to a meadow and sighted a ray of the sun. Then a yellow oriole sounded its call. The little one followed it, whispering. And soon joyously he sang out, “The sun is ours!” One by one the children gathered upon the meadow, and a new hymn to Light rang out. The messenger said: “Man has again begun to sing. Come is the date!” 162"

"People feel sometimes something singing within them. Such a song is never disharmonious. One can rejoice when such vibrations stir one’s being. 18."

"Among one’s human incarnations there is invariably found an incarnation devoted to rhythmic labor. Whether this be some sort of craftsmanship or music, singing or farm work, every man infallibly will cultivate in himself the rhythm which fills all of life. Upon learning of certain incarnations, people frequently are astonished as to why they should have been so insignificant. But in them there was being worked out the rhythm of labor. One of the greatest of qualities, this must be acquired through conflict and patience. 49."

"She loves to laugh; she loves to sing. She does everything."

"Sing, sing a song Sing out loud, sing out strong Sing of good things not bad Sing of happy not sad. Sing, sing a song Make it simple to last your whole life long Don't worry that it's not good enough For anyone else to hear Just sing, sing a song."

"A singer … is no more than an actor set to music."

"If I cannot sing where there is death, then I cannot sing in life, because life is a continuous death."

"Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante."

"Quien canta, sus males espanta."

"At every close she made, th' attending throng Replied, and bore the burden of the song: So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note, It seemed the music melted in the throat."

"Y'ought to hyeah dat gal a-warblin' Robins, la'ks an' all dem things Heish de mouffs an' hides dey faces When Malindy sings."

"Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young And always keep us so."

"I see you have a singing face — a heavy, dull, sonata face."

"When I but hear her sing, I fare Like one that raised, holds his ear To some bright star in the supremest Round; Through which, besides the light that's seen There may be heard, from Heaven within, The rests of Anthems, that the Angels sound."

"Then they began to sing That extremely lovely thing, "Scherzando! ma non troppo, ppp.""

"So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit."

"He the sweetest of all singers."

"Sang in tones of deep emotion, Songs of love and songs of longing."

"God sent his Singers upon earth With songs of sadness and of mirth, That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again."

"Ils chantent, ils payeront."

"Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul And lap it in Elysium."

"Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek."

"O Carril, raise again thy voice! let me hear the song of Selma, which was sung in my halls of joy, when Fingal, king of shields, was there, and glowed at the deeds of his fathers."

"Sweetest the strain when in the song The singer has been lost."

"But would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain. The wond'ring forests soon should dance again; The moving mountains hear the powerful call, And headlong streams hang listening in their fall!"

"You know you haven't got a singing face."

"Every night he comes With musics of all sorts and songs compos'd To her unworthiness: it nothing steads us To chide him from our eaves; for he persists As if his life lay on't."

"Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung With feigning voice verses of feigning love."

"O! she will sing the savageness out of a bear."

"His tongue is now a stringless instrument."

"Nay, now you are too flat And mar the concord with too harsh a descant."

"But one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes."

"Sing again, with your dear voice revealing A tone Of some world far from ours, Where music and moonlight and feeling Are one."

"Sing, sing freely"

"If a singer knows only one song but makes the sound pleasant, he is indeed a singer! [...] When a singer's voice is sweet, he is indeed a singer."

"I knew a very wise man that believed that * * * if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."

"I have a passion for ballads. * * * They are the gypsy children of song, born under green hedgerows in the leafy lanes and bypaths of literature,—in the genial Summertime."

"I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew! Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."

"I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably."

"I've now got the music book ready, Do sit up and sing like a lady A recitative from Tancredi, And something about "Palpiti!" Sing forte when first you begin it, Piano the very next minute, They'll cry "What expression there's in it!" Don't sing English ballads to me!"

"The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, That wholly consisted of lines like these."

"Thespis, the first professor of our art, At country wakes sung ballads from a cart."

"Some people resemble ballads which are only sung for a certain time."

"For a ballad's a thing you expect to find lies in."

"More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as Ballads and Libels."

"A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer's joy."

"Ce qui ne vaut pas la peine d'être dit, on le chante."

"What is not worth saying sounds very well when it is sung."

"It is best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them."

"[M]aybe you will learn this when I'm gone: My song will carry on."

"The best days of the church have always been its singing days."

"And heaven had wanted one immortal song."

"Sing a song of sixpence."

"My songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls."

"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling. … I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think you've not any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow."

"Song opens a window to the secret places of the soul."

"I deeply felt that song should make One universal link, Uniting, for each other’s sake, All those who feel and think."

"Listen to that song, and learn it! Half my kingdom would I give, As I live, If by such songs you would earn it!"

"I want no more than to speak simply to be granted that grace. Because we've loaded our songs with so much music that they're slowly sinking and we've decorated our art so much that its features have been eaten away by gold and it's time to say our few words because tomorrow our soul sets sail. ...I think so much these days about the great river, that symbol which moves forward among herbs and greenery and beasts that graze and drink, and men who sow and harvest, great tombs even and small habitations of the dead. That current which goes its way and which is not so different from the blood of men..."

"Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we heard last night; Methought it did relieve my passion much, More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times: Come, but one verse."

"So tell me, am I wrong for trying to communicate through a song?"

"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."

"Tout finit par des chansons."

"I cannot sing the old songs Though well I know the tune, Familiar as a cradle-song With sleep-compelling croon; Yet though I'm filled with music, As choirs of summer birds, "I cannot sing the old songs"— I do not know the words."

"All this for a song."

"I can not sing the old songs now! It is not that I deem them low, 'Tis that I can't remember how They go."

"Unlike my subject now * * * shall be my song, It shall be witty and it sha'n't be long!"

"A song of hate is a song of Hell; Some there be who sing it well. Let them sing it loud and long, We lift our hearts in a loftier song: We lift our hearts to Heaven above, Singing the glory of her we love, England."

"Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound; She feels no biting pang the while she sings, Nor as she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things."

"He play'd an ancient ditty long since mute, In Provence call'd, "La belle dame sans merci.""

"We are tenting tonight on the old camp ground, Give us a song to cheer."

"In the ink of our sweat we will find it yet, The song that is fit for men!"

"The song on its mighty pinions Took every living soul, and lifted it gently to heaven."

"Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer."

"And grant that when I face the grisly Thing, My song may trumpet down the gray Perhaps Let me be as a tune-swept fiddlestring That feels the Master Melody—and snaps."

"She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pity: and when winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel), she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune … and fears no manner of ill because she means none."

"I think, whatever mortals crave, With impotent endeavor, A wreath—a rank—a throne—a grave— The world goes round forever; I think that life is not too long, And therefore I determine, That many people read a song, Who will not read a sermon."

"Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?"

"Etiam singulorum fatigatio quamlibet se rudi modulatione solatur."

"Builders, raise the ceiling high, Raise the dome into the sky, Hear the wedding song! For the happy groom is near, Tall as Mars, and statelier, Hear the wedding song!"

"Song forbids victorious deeds to die."

"The lively Shadow-World of Song."

"Songs consecrate to truth and liberty."

"Knitting and withal singing, and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work."

"Because the gift of Song was chiefly lent, To give consoling music for the joys We lack, and not for those which we possess."

"They sang of love and not of fame; Forgot was Britain's glory; Each heart recalled a different name, But all sang "Annie Laurie.""

"Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away."

"Cantilenam eandem canis."

"Cicala to cicala is dear, and ant to ant, and hawks to hawks, but to me the muse and song."

"Grasshopper to grasshopper, ant to ant is dear, Hawks love hawks, but I the muse and song."

"Swift, swift, and bring with you Song's Indian summer!"

"Martem accendere cantu."

"Soft words, with nothing in them, make a song."

"A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not mis-become a monarch."

"Bring the good old bugle, boys! we'll sing another song— Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along— Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong, While we were marching through Georgia."

"To me, the wonderful thing about music is a love affair between the performer and the composer, and between the composer and his audience. This love affair is a tripartite thing."

"Music directly represents the passions of the soul. If one listens to the wrong kind of music, he will become the wrong kind of person."

"What is called music today is all too often only a disguise for the monologue of power. However, and this is the supreme irony of it all, never before have musicians tried so hard to communicate with their audience, and never before has that communication been so deceiving. Music now seems hardly more than a somewhat clumsy excuse for the self-glorification of musicians and the growth of a new industrial sector."

"I saw the people gather/I heard the music start/The song that they were singing/Is ringing in my heart"

"Despite the fact that as an art, music cannot compromise its principles, and politics, on the other hand, is the art of compromise, when politics transcends the limits of the present existence and ascents to the higher sphere of the possible, it can be joined there by music. Music is the art of the imaginary par excellence, an art free of all limits imposed by words, an art that touches the depth of human existence, and art of sounds that crosses all borders. As such, music can take the feelings and imagination of Israelis and Palestinians to new unimaginable spheres."

"Ancient belief in a cosmos composed of spheres, producing music as angels guided them through the heavens, was still flourishing in Elizabethan times. ...There is a good deal more to Pythagorean musical theory than celestial harmony. Besides the music of the celestial spheres (musica mundana), two other varieties of music were distinguished: the sound of instruments...(musica instrumentalis), and the continuous unheard music that emanated from the human body (musica humana), which arises from a resonance between the body and the soul. ...In the medieval world, the status of music is revealed by its position within the Quadrivium—the fourfold curriculum—alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. Medieval students... believed all forms of harmony to derive from a common source. Before Boethius' studies in the ninth century, the idea of musical harmony was not considered independently of wider matters of celestial or ethical harmony."

"Our sensitivity to changes of pitch ... is underused in musical sound. Western music, in particular, is based on scales that use pitch changes that are at least twenty times bigger than the smallest changes that we could perceive. If we used our discriminatory power to full, we could generate an undulating sea of sound that displayed continuously changing frequency rather like the undersea sonic songs of dolphins and whales."

"Today’s music has all the variety of a jackhammer."

"Someday you will be a man, And you will be the leader of a big old band. Many people coming from miles around To hear you play your music when the sun go down Maybe someday your name will be in lights Saying Johnny B. Goode tonight."

"The ascetic Gotama … avoids watching dancing, singing, music and shows. He abstains from using garlands, perfumes, cosmetics, ornaments and adornments. … He refrains from running errands, from buying and selling."

"Monks, you should dwell with the doors to your senses well-guarded. ...On hearing a sound with the ear, do not grasp at any theme or details by which — if you were to dwell without restraint over the faculty of the ear — evil, unskillful qualities such as greed or distress might assail you. Practice for its restraint. Guard the faculty of the ear. Secure your restraint with regard to the faculty of the ear."

"Bhikkhus, you should train thus: 'We will guard the doors of our sense faculties. On hearing a sound with the ear, we will not grasp at its signs and features. Since, if we left the ear faculty unguarded, evil unwholesome states of covetousness and grief might invade us, we will practice the way of its restraint, we will guard the ear faculty, we will undertake the restraint of the ear faculty.'"

"Oh, that I were The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, A living voice, a breathing harmony, A bodiless enjoyment—born and dying With the blest tone which made me!"

"Our music has sprung from the patient, incessant, and progressive penetration into the law of resonance, that is to say, from the successive exploitation of the octave, the fifth and the fourth (ninth to twelfth century), the third (thirteenth to sixteenth century), the seventh (seventeenth and eighteenth century), the major ninth, the augmented fifth, and the perfect eleventh (nineteenth and twentieth centuries) . . . . this evolution . . . . constitutes, at the same time, the only true justification of the musical art."

"Music is mere beauty; it is beauty in the abstract, beauty in solution. It is a shapeless and liquid element of beauty, in which a man may really float, not indeed affirming the truth, but not denying it."

"We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps through any other thing except prayer."

""Music" includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats."

"Since the accordion has so many attributes that are conducive to chamber music, it is particularly suitable for this medium of expression. In essence, the accordion has all of the prerequisites essential to small ensemble involvement: sustaining power, dynamic sensitivity, articulated response, timbre, and texture variance, and compatibility of sound with string and wind instruments."

"In order for music to free itself, it will have to pass over to the other side — there where territories tremble, where the structures collapse, where the ethoses get mixed up, where a powerful song of the earth is unleashed, the great ritornelles that transmutes all the airs it carries away and makes return."

"Dick Grayson: What's so important about Chopin?"

"One of my friends whom I hold in high esteem admitted to me the other day that when he wants to work nowadays … he has to turn on his radio. The droning of the loudspeaker—so he says—puts him in a favorable frame of mind and ideas pour out. I cannot help but thinking that this is not the act of a true musician. For thought has a rhythm of its own, which must either clash with the rhythm from outside and lose energy, or else submit to the outer impulse in restless slavery."

"Better to listen to a wise man’s rebuke than to listen to the song of fools."

"Music is like a mirror in front of you. You're exposing everything, but surely that's better than suppressing. … You have to dig deep and that can be hard for anybody, no matter what profession. I feel that I need to actually push myself to the limit to feel happy with the end result."

"It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of 12-tone rows just don't happen. They must be constructed. … To demonstrate any formal idea in music, whether structure or stricture, is a matter of construction, in which the methodology is the controlling metaphor of the composition... Only by 'unfixing' the elements traditionally used to construct a piece of music could the sounds exist in themselves—not as symbols, or memories which were memories of other music to begin with."

"Music is something everyone on Earth can share. Music is meant to heal us, to bring us together, to make us happy."

"The emphasis of study upon a particular aspect of music is in itself ideological because it contains implications about the music's value."

"Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound."

"The most complete knowledge of tonal material cannot create a composer any more than the memorizing of Webster's dictionary can produce a dramatist or poet. Music is, or should be, a means of communication, a vehicle for the expression of the inspiration of the composer. Without that inspiration, without the need to communicate, without— in other words— the creative spirit itself, the greatest knowledge will avail nothing."

"My music springs from the soil of the American midwest. It is music of the plains rather than of the city and reflects, I believe, something of the broad prairies of my native Nebraska.""

"We must ask whether a cross-cultural musical universal is to be found in the music itself (either its structure or function) or the way in which music is made. By 'music-making,' I intend not only actual performance but also how music is heard, understood, even learned."

"If there's one thing the US military enjoys more than keeping our womenfolk in silk stockings during the second world war, it's bombarding its enemies with objectively terrible music. Just last week a report crept out about a group of special psychological operations officers who drive around Afghanistan in an armoured vehicle and blast the locals with Taliban-peeving music like Metallica, Thin Lizzy and the Offspring at earth-shaking volume. The technique is called acoustic bombardment and – along with sensory deprivation and good old-fashioned sexual humiliation – is one of the military's favourite non-lethal coercion techniques. The music itself tends to be exactly the type of aggressively macho fare you'd expect. Metallica are always near the top of the pile, along with Eminem, Dr. Dre, Bruce Springsteen's Born In The USA – presumably because officers are experimenting with torture by profound lyrical sarcasm – and nonsense like Fuck Your God by gormless death metal quartet Deicide. David Gray's Babylon used to be on the playlist but it's fallen out of favour, either because Gray expressed his outrage, or because top brass realised that no crime is serious enough to warrant being made to listen to it more than once within a single lifetime. The problem with acoustic bombardment, though, is that it plainly doesn't work. Just because I'd confess to hundreds of atrocities the second that someone started flapping a copy of St Anger in my face, chances are that the Taliban probably wouldn't."

"The human attitude of which classical music is the expression is always the same; it is always based on the same kind of insight into life and strives for the same kind of victory over blind change. Classical music as gesture signifies knowledge of the tragedy of the human condition, affirmation of human destiny, courage, cheerful serenity."

"We consider classical music to be the epitome and quintessence of our culture, because it is that culture’s clearest, most significant gesture and expression. In this music we possess the heritage of classical antiquity and Christianity, a spirit of serenely cheerful and brave piety, a superbly chivalric morality. For in the final analysis every important cultural gesture comes down to a morality, a model for human behavior concentrated into a gesture."

"A chord is by no means an agglomeration of intervals. It is a new unit which, although dependent on the formative power of the single interval, is felt as being self-existent and as giving to the constituent intervals meanings and functions which they otherwise would not have."

"Elected Silence, sing to me"

"We can no longer maintain any distinction between music and discourse about music, between the supposed object of analysis and the terms of analysis."

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

"Love is the only bow on Life's dark cloud. It is the morning and the evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart — builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody — for music is the voice of love. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods."

"Itaque sine Musica nulla disciplina potest esse perfecta, nihil enim sine illa. Nam et ipse mundus quadam harmonia sonorum fertur esse conpositus, et coelum ipsud sub harmoniae modulatione revolvi."

"And they are singing as if a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one was able to master that song but the hundred and forty-four thousand, who have been bought from the earth."

"Our study adds relatively little to the volumes that have been written about the digital transition in the music industry - often held up as the "canary in the coal mine" for other media markets. We share the increasingly consensual view that the situation is better understood as a crisis of the high-margin CD business-and of the "big four" record labels (EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, the Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group), which have relied nearly exclusively on it for their profits - rather than a crisis of the music business in general. The decline in this side of the business had, without doubt, been precipitous (see figure 1.3). According to the IFPI, global recorded music sales dropped from $33.7 billion in 001 to $18.4 billion in 2008 - almost entirely attributable to the decline of CD sales. In the United States, CD sales fell from $7 billion in 2004 to $3.1 billion in 2008 - a situation somewhat mitigated by the rise in digital sales from zero to $1.8 billion in that period. Recorded music sales in most other countries have been in similar free fall. Between 2004 and 2008, Brazilian recorded music sales shrank from $399 million to $179 million; Russian sales dropped from $352 million to $221 million; sales in Mexico from $ 237 million to $145 million. In South Africa, considered a bright spot in international sales, sales grew through 2007 - peaking at $129 million before falling to $199 million in 2008."

"The CD's sharp decline in the United States has been offset by the growth in digital sales and concert revenues: the latter more than tripled, from $1.3 billion in 1998 to $4.2 billion in 2008. Such numbers point to a shift from a high-margin industry dominated by CD sales, the album format, and the big four labels to a lower-margin business with more emphasis on performance and related rights. They do not, in our view, point to an existential threat to the music business, much less to music culture. Developing countries share in these trends including the fall in CD sales and the growth of the live-performance market. But the structure of the global marketplace also creates important points of divergence. In broad terms, this structure is relatively simple, marked by (1) the near complete dominance of the big four labels in most developing markets - some 84% of the market in Brazil, 82% in Mexico, and 78% in South Africa, for example, (2) the concentration of 80% - 85% of revenues in the United States, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, and Canada, and (3) the absence, in most developing countries, of strong domestic competitors capable of building viable alternative distribution strategies, such as Apple and other digital distributors are doing in the United States. In practice, these factors reinforce the high-price, very-small-market dynamic visible in most developing countries. They create a context in which the big four labels have every incentive to protect high-income markets but little incentive to change their pricing strategies in low- and middle-income markets. Compared to high-value markets like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, the emerging markets are simply inconsequential. Price cuts to expand the market in Brazil, South Africa, or Mexico would have a very limited upside in this context and a potentially serious downside if they began to undermine pricing conventions in the high-income markets. The major's evaluation of this tradeoff is clear: none have significantly lowered prices in emerging markets."

"Recent IIPA reports cite rates of music piracy in excess of 90% in China, India, Mexico, and Brazil. Less and less of this traffic takes place on the street, as physical piracy shifts toward the narrower stock and higher margins of DVDs."

"The limit case, in our studies, is Bolivia, where the impasse of high prices, low incomes, and ubiquitous piracy shuttered all but one local label in the early 2000s and drove the majors out altogether. The tiny Bolivian legal market, worth only $20 million at its peak, was destroyed. But Bolivian music culture was not. Below the depleted high-end commercial landscape our work documents the emergence of a generation of new producers, artists, and commercial practices much of it rooted in indigenous communities and distributed through informal markets. The resulting mix of pirated goods, promotional CDs and low-priced recordings has created, for the first time in that country, a popular market for recorded music. For the vast majority of Bolivians, recorded music has never been so prolific or affordable."

"Music is the Language of Love."

"Improvise like a composer; compose like an improviser."

"Musical virtuosity is not the ability to play something fast, but to learn it slowly."

"We are the composers of the music of our lives."

"If only dissonance and its resolution were as beautiful in life as they are in music..."

"One of the best things about practicing music is that it is so challenging and demanding that it makes you completely forget all your troubles."

"Language addresses itself to the ear. No other medium does this. The ear is the most spiritually determined of the senses. That I believe most men will admit. Aside from language, music is the only medium that addresses itself to the ear. Herein is again an analogy and a testimony concerning the sense in which music is a language. … Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element. Music is the only other one that takes place in time. … Music exists only in the moment of its performance, for if one were ever so skillful in reading notes and had ever so lively an imagination, it cannot be denied that it is only in an unreal sense that music exists when it is read. It really exists only being performed. This might seem to be an imperfection in this art as compared with the others whose productions remain, because they have their existence in the sensuous. Yet this is not so. It is rather a proof of the fact that music is a higher, or more spiritual art."

"Urusvati has developed her musical talent beautifully. This proficiency is achieved as the result of much labor in other lives. 42."

"According to the Teachings of Plato, music should not be understood in the narrow sense of music alone, but as participation in all the harmonious arts. In singing, in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, in architecture, in speech, and, finally, in all manifestations of sound, musicality is expressed. In Hellas a ceremony to all the Muses was performed. Tragedy, dance, and all rhythmic movement served the harmony of Cosmos. Much is spoken about beauty, but the importance of harmony is little understood. Beauty is an uplifting concept, and each offering to beauty is an offering to the equilibrium of Cosmos. Everyone who expresses music in himself sacrifices, not for himself, but for others, for humanity, for Cosmos. 42."

"Perfection of thought is an expression of beautiful musicality. The highest rhythm is the best prophylaxis, a pure bridge to the highest worlds. Thus We affirm Beauty in Our Abode. Urusvati has noted that the music of the spheres is characterized by a harmony of rhythm. It is precisely this quality that brings inspiration to humanity. People usually do not think about the sources of inspiration, but if they did they would help Our work greatly. 42."

"You know about the special musical instruments that are in Our possession. Urusvati has heard them. The refined scale and rhythm of Sister Oriole should be acknowledged as the highest harmony. Often such singing has served to bring peace to the world, and even the servants of darkness have retreated before its harmonies. One should learn how to develop one’s own musicality by all possible means. 42."

"The heart’s feeling is sensed not in the words themselves but in their sound. There can be no irritation in harmony. Malice cannot exist where the spirit ascends. It is not by chance that in antiquity the epic scriptures were sung, not only to facilitate memorizing but also for inspiration. Likewise, it is rhythm and harmony that protect us against fatigue. 42."

"The quality of music and rhythm should be developed from infancy. 42."

"But music moves us, and we know not why; We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source. Is it the language of some other state, Born of its memory ? For what can wake The soul's strong instinct of another world, Like music?"

"We would liken music to Aladdin’s lamp — worthless in itself, not so for the spirits which obey its call. We love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings, it can summon with a touch."

"What a change will come over our conceptions of art and music also for the artist of that day there will be many more colors and many more shades of color than those of which we now know, for the knowledge of the higher planes brings as one of its earliest results the power of appreciating all these different hues. The music of that day will be accompanied by color, just as the color studies will be accompanied by harmonious sound; for sound and color are simply two aspects of every ordered motion, so that a magnificent piece played upon the organ will be accompanied by a splendid display of glowing color, and thus another interest will be added to the delight of glorious music, and an additional advantage will in this way be enjoyed by the students of music and art. p. 344"

"He sat still a long time. Music will not save us, Otto Egorin had said. Not you, or me, or her, the big golden-voiced woman who had no children and wanted none; not Lehmann who sang the song; not Schubert who had written it and was a hundred years dead. What good is music? None, Gaye thought, and that is the point. To the world and its states and armies and factories and Leaders, music says, “you are irrelevant”; and, arrogant and gentle as a god, to the suffering man it says only, “Listen.” For being saved is not the point. Music saves nothing. Merciful, uncaring, it denies and breaks down all the shelters, the houses men build for themselves, that they may see the sky."

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad Take a sad song and make it better Remember to let her into your heart Then you can start to make it better"

"Musica est exercitium arithmeticae occultum nescientis se numerare animi."

"The story of your brain on music is the story of an exquisite orchestration of brain regions, involving both the oldest and newest parts of the human brain, and regions as far apart as the cerebellum in the back of the head and the frontal lobes just behind your eyes. It involves a precision choreography... between logical prediction systems and emotional reward systems. ...it reminds us of other music we have heard, and it activates memory traces of emotional times of our lives. Your brain on music is all about... connections."

"So much of the research on musical expertise has looked for accomplishment in the wrong place, in the facility of the fingers rather than the expressiveness of emotion."

"Music, or any art form... has to strike the right balance between simplicity and complexity."

"Music is one of the fairest and most glorious gifts of God, to which Satan is a bitter enemy; for it removes from the heart the weight of sorrow, and the fascination of evil thoughts."

"We're blues people. And blues never lets tragedy have the last word."

"Music is reflection of self, we just explain it, and then we get our checks in the mail."

"Most people have music in the center of their lives. I believe my work sheds light on how music affects us and why it is so influential."

"Of what use is musical knowledge? Here is one idea. Each child spends endless days in curious ways; we call this play. A child stacks and packs all kinds of blocks and boxes, lines them up, and knocks them down. … Clearly, the child is learning about space! ... how on earth does one learn about time? Can one time fit inside another? Can two of them go side by side? In music, we find out!"

"Listening to music engages the previously acquired personal knowledge of the listener."

"We must see that music theory is not only about music, but about how people process it. To understand any art, we must look below its surface into the psychological details of its creation and absorption."

"Music makes things in our minds, but afterward most of them fade away. What remains? ...perhaps what we learn is not the music itself but a way of hearing it."

"All aspects of musical practice may be disengaged, and privileged, in order to give birth to new forms of variation: variations on the relationships between the composer and the performer, between the conductor and the performer, between the performers, between the performer and the listener, variations upon gestures, variations on silence that end in a mute music that is still music because it preserves still something of the musical totality of the tradition...all elements belonging to the total musical fact may be separated and taken as a strategic variable of musical production. This autonomization serves as true musical experimentation: little by little, the individual variables that make up a total musical fact are brought to light. Any particular music then appears as one that has made a choice among these variables, and that has privileged a certain number of them. Under these conditions, musical analysis would have to begin by recognizing the strategic variables characteristic of a given musical system: musical invention and musical analysis lend each other mutual aid."

"Being in a band is really great when you're 20. When you're 30, it's kind of 'Spinal Tap,' and when you're 40, it's just pathetic."

"Pure music helps the transmission of the current. We pray by sounds and by symbols of Beauty. The heart and mind do not conflict when they sail the Ocean of Creative Labor. And the wings of the bird of the spirit, atremble, will soar upon the breeze of harmony. 181."

"People feel sometimes something singing within them. Such a song is never disharmonious. One can rejoice when such vibrations stir one’s being. 18."

"Once, according to an old legend, there came a messenger from a distant world to give people equality, brotherhood and joy. Long since had people forgotten their songs. They remained in a stupor of hate. The messenger banished darkness and crowdedness, smote infection, and instituted joyful labor. Hatred was stilled, and the sword of the messenger remained on the wall. But all were silent and knew not how to begin singing. Then the messenger assembled the little children, led them into the woods, and said to them: “These are your flowers, your brooks, your trees. No one has followed us. I shall rest—and you fill yourselves with joy.” Thereupon, timidly they ventured into the forest. At last the littlest one came to a meadow and sighted a ray of the sun. Then a yellow oriole sounded its call. The little one followed it, whispering. And soon joyously he sang out, “The sun is ours!” One by one the children gathered upon the meadow, and a new hymn to Light rang out. The messenger said: “Man has again begun to sing. Come is the date!” 162"

"Among one’s human incarnations there is invariably found an incarnation devoted to rhythmic labor. Whether this be some sort of craftsmanship or music, singing or farm work, every man infallibly will cultivate in himself the rhythm which fills all of life. Upon learning of certain incarnations, people frequently are astonished as to why they should have been so insignificant. But in them there was being worked out the rhythm of labor. One of the greatest of qualities, this must be acquired through conflict and patience. 49."

"All music is just performances of 4'33" in studios where another band happened to be playing at the time."

"If we compel the composer to write in terms of what the listener is able to hear, we flirt with the danger of freezing the evolution of musical language, whose progressive development comes about through transgressions of a given era's perceptual habits.""

"Without music, life would be a mistake."

"While music has long been recognized as an effective form of therapy to provide an outlet for emotions, the notion of using song, sound frequencies and rhythm to treat physical ailments is a relatively new domain, says psychologist Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, who studies the neuroscience of music at McGill University in Montreal. A wealth of new studies is touting the benefits of music on mental and physical health. For example, in a meta-analysis of 400 studies, Levitin and his postgraduate research fellow, Mona Lisa Chanda, PhD, found that music improves the body's immune system function and reduces stress. Listening to music was also found to be more effective than prescription drugs in reducing anxiety before surgery (Trends in Cognitive Sciences, April, 2013)."

""We've found compelling evidence that musical interventions can play a health-care role in settings ranging from operating rooms to family clinics," says Levitin, author of the book "This is Your Brain on Music" (Plume/Penguin, 2007). The analysis also points to just how music influences health. The researchers found that listening to and playing music increase the body's production of the antibody immunoglobulin A and natural killer cells — the cells that attack invading viruses and boost the immune system's effectiveness. Music also reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol."

"One recent study on the link between music and stress found that music can help soothe pediatric emergency room patients (JAMA Pediatrics, July, 2013). In the trial with 42 children ages 3 to 11, University of Alberta researchers found that patients who listened to relaxing music while getting an IV inserted reported significantly less pain, and some demonstrated significantly less distress, compared with patients who did not listen to music. In addition, in the music-listening group, more than two-thirds of the health-care providers reported that the IVs were very easy to administer — compared with 38 percent of providers treating the group that did not listen to music."

"There is growing scientific evidence showing that the brain responds to music in very specific ways," says Lisa Hartling, PhD, professor of pediatrics at the University of Alberta and lead author of the study. "Playing music for kids during painful medical procedures is a simple intervention that can make a big difference." Music can help adult patients, too. Researchers at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Singapore found that patients in palliative care who took part in live music therapy sessions reported relief from persistent pain (Progress in Palliative Care, July, 2013). Music therapists worked closely with the patients to individually tailor the intervention, and patients took part in singing, instrument playing, lyric discussion and even song writing as they worked toward accepting an illness or weighed end-of-life issues. "Active music engagement allowed the patients to reconnect with the healthy parts of themselves, even in the face of a debilitating condition or disease-related suffering," says music therapist Melanie Kwan, co-author of the study and president of the Association for Music Therapy, Singapore. "When their acute pain symptoms were relieved, patients were finally able to rest."

"The main thing is not to lose your identity and to continue working ... You have a quartet. That is such joy! You can forget everything else in the world. I'm playing a lot of chamber music these days. Tomorrow we were going to give the first performance of two trios, but because of the mourning, all concerts have been canceled."

"You never meet anything mean or cruel in music."

"The talk about the poets seems to me like a commonplace entertainment to which a vulgar company have recourse; who, because they are not able to converse or amuse one another, while they are drinking, with the sound of their own voices and conversation, by reason of their stupidity, raise the price of flute-girls in the market, hiring for a great sum the voice of a flute instead of their own breath, to be the medium of intercourse among them: but where the company are real gentlemen and men of education, you will see no flute-girls, nor dancing-girls, nor harp-girls; and they have no nonsense or games, but are contented with one another’s conversation, of which their own voices are the medium, and which they carry on by turns and in an orderly manner, even though they are very liberal in their potations. And a company like this of ours, and men such as we profess to be, do not require the help of another’s voice, or of the poets whom you cannot interrogate about the meaning of what they are saying; people who cite them declaring, some that the poet has one meaning, and others that he has another, and the point which is in dispute can never be decided. This sort of entertainment they decline, and prefer to talk with one another, and put one another to the proof in conversation. And these are the models which I desire that you and I should imitate. Leaving the poets, and keeping to ourselves, let us try the mettle of one another and make proof of the truth in conversation."

"Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul; on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful."

"In this day and time you can't even get sick; you are strung-out! Well by God, I'll tell you something, friend: I have never been strung-out in my life, except on music!"

"As a society built upon the very ideals of ecumenicalism and catholicity, as the leading technological and industrial nation of our time, and as the principal nexus between European high art and the musics of other classes and cultures, America stands at the forefront of the music of tomorrow."

"Composers have different ways of getting their message out. So, when my teacher told me not to be a snob, this is what he did that put me right in my place. I mean, man, I was such a jazz snob, and he said to me, when I cracked on him about "Sugar, Sugar", he said, "Let me tell you something little brother, any song that makes it into the Top 40 is a great composition." And I said, "Why would you call it a great composition?", Ted. And he said, "Because it speaks to the souls of a million strangers." I was like, "Whoo!" I was like "Pap, smack little kid, now go sit down, and write 'Do-do-do-do' -- punk. Huh huh. Go sit down and write that." I did..."

"Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic far beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!"

"It's not about your music. It's about what makes your music your music. You've got to have a feeling like that. You have to have a reason for your music. Have something besides the technical. Make it for something. Make it for kindness, make it for peace, whatever it is. You know what I mean?"

"Music is a kind of harmonious language."

"I might as well endeavour to perswade, that the Sun is a glorious, and beneficial Planet; as take pains to Illustrate Musick with my imperfect praises; for every reasonable Mans own mind will be its Advocate. Musick, belov'd of Heaven, for it is the business of Angels; Desired on Earth as the most charming Pleasure of Men. The world contains nothing that is good, but what is full of Harmonious Concord, nor nothing that is evil, but is its opposite, as being the ill favour'd production of Discord and Disorder. I dare affirm, those that love not Musick (if there be any such) are Dissenters from Ingenuity, and Rebels to the Monarchy of Reason."

"Music is essentially useless, as life is."

"Music is the birthplace of the word, but only the words that come to light in this house recognise it as their birthplace and as the evocation of the cry."

"The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence."

"This art is music. It stands quite apart from all the others. In it we do not recognize the copy, the repetition, of any Idea of the inner nature of the world. Yet it is such a great and exceedingly fine art, its effect on man's innermost nature is so powerful, and it is so completely and profoundly understood by him in his innermost being as an entirely universal language, whose distinctness surpasses even that of the world of perception itself, that in it we certainly have to look for more than that exercitium arithmeticae occultum nescientis se numerare animi [exercise in arithmetic in which the mind does not know it is counting] which Leibniz took it to be."

"The term 'chromatic' is understood by musicians to refer to music which includes tones which are not members of the prevailing scale, and also as a word descriptive of those individually non-diatonic tones."

"Seventy-five percent of everything done throughout your life is the result of habit. Think of it! The way you walk, the way you eat, the clothes you wear, the places you go and...last, but not least, the way you play your accordion."

"If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die."

"My job is to play music, not politics, and my only obligation is to the people who pay to listen to me. I don't attempt to ram hackneyed, insipid tunes down the public's throat just because they've been artificially hypoed to the so-called 'hit' class. This policy of trying to maintain some vestige of musical integrity has, naturally, earned me enemies, people who think I'm a longhair, impressed with my own ability."

"Music is the brandy of the damned."

"Music—the language of the immortals, disclosed to us as testimony of their existence..."

"Language is its own music."

"We give our souls to our music. We put our lives on the fucking wax and the labels treat us like shit."

"Sometimes even in the habitual course of life, the reality of this world disappears all at once, and we feel ourselves in the middle of its interests as we should at a ball, where we did not hear the music; the dancing that we saw there would appear insane."

"[S]o far as music ever had a "meaning" beyond the immediate and exquisite value of the sound-pattern itself, its "meaning" must be simply an emotional attitude. It could never speak directly about the objective world, or "the nature of existence"; but it might create a complex emotional attitude which might be appropriate to some feature of the objective world, or to the universe as a whole."

"It was music, more than anything else, that led the Pythagoreans to believe that the universe is a harmonious place governed by numbers."

"I was ... attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing “simple” music, blamed for deserting “modernism,” accused of renouncing my “true Russian heritage.” People who had never heard of, or cared about, the originals cried “sacrilege”: “The classics are ours. Leave the classics alone.” To them all my answer was and is the same: You “respect,” but I love."

"The day you open your mind to music, you're halfway to opening your mind to life."

"Our musical alphabet is poor and illogical. Music, which should pulsate with life, needs new means of expression, and science alone can infuse it with youthful vigor. Why, Italian Futurists, have you slavishly reproduced only what is commonplace and boring in the bustle of our daily lives. I dream of instruments obedient to my thought and which with their contribution of a whole new world of unsuspected sounds, will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm."

"I feel very strongly that all individuals, regardless of age, race, creed or sexual preference, should have the freedom to exercise their rights as human beings to enjoy life, pursue what they want and feel comfortable about who they are. I guess I tend to find the darker sides of life more attractive than the yellows and oranges. I know it's something that I relate to when I listen to music."

"Steven Pinker … advances interesting ideas about understanding human mind in terms of “reverse engineering”: we see that adaptations to our environment have been achieved, and define our task as explaining the means by which these have come about. … But Pinker finds music making—universal in all cultures—to be anomalous. Which means there must be something basically wrong or missing in his view. James could have told him what it is: To miss the joy is to miss all. … The fusion of reality and ideal novelty excites and empowers us, and does so because we are organisms which, to be vital, must celebrate our being."

"Die Menschen heute glauben, die Wissenschaftler seien da, sie zu belehren, die Dichter und Musiker, etc., sie zu erfreuen. Daß diese sie etwas zu lehren haben; kommt ihnen nicht in den Sinn."

"One day I said to myself that it would be better to get rid of all that—melody, rhythm, harmony, etc. This was not a negative thought and did not mean that it was necessary to avoid them, but rather that, while doing something else, they would appear spontaneously. We had to liberate ourselves from the direct and peremptory consequence of intention and effect, because the intention would always be our own and would be circumscribed, when so many other forces are evidently in action in the final effect."

"Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand. With an equal opportunity for all to sing, dance and clap their hands."

"Books! ‘tis a dull and endless strife: Come, hear the woodland Linnet, How sweet his music! on my life, There’s more of wisdom in it. And hark! how blithe the Throstle sings! He, too, is no mean preacher: Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher."

"Perfect is not the point. Music isn’t a math problem with one correct answer — it’s a captured moment, feeling translated into sound. Often its charm lies in idiosyncrasies: the raw edge, the human quiver in a voice. Those ‘flaws’ are sometimes what make it compelling."

"Music is the only religion that delivers the goods. All music is good. It fulfills a social function. It's like wallpaper to your lifestyle. It defines what you are."

"A composer's job involves the decoration of fragments of time. Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."

"Music religious heat inspires, It wakes the soul, and lifts it high, And wings it with sublime desires, And fits it to bespeak the Deity."

"Music exalts each joy, allays each grief, Expels diseases, softens every pain, Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague."

"That rich celestial music thrilled the air From hosts on hosts of shining ones, who thronged Eastward and westward, making bright the night."

"Music tells no truths."

"Rugged the breast that music cannot tame."

"If music and sweet poetry agree."

"Gayly the troubadour Touched his guitar."

"I'm saddest when I sing."

"God is its author, and not man; he laid The key-note of all harmonies; he planned All perfect combinations, and he made Us so that we could hear and understand."

"The rustle of the leaves in summer's hush When wandering breezes touch them, and the sigh That filters through the forest, or the gush That swells and sinks amid the branches high,— 'Tis all the music of the wind, and we Let fancy float on this æolian breath."

""Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast," And therefore proper at a sheriff's feast."

"And sure there is music even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument; for there is music wherever there is harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres."

"Yet half the beast is the great god Pan, To laugh, as he sits by the river, Making a poet out of a man. The true gods sigh for the cost and the pain— For the reed that grows never more again As a reed with the reeds of the river."

"Her voice, the music of the spheres, So loud, it deafens mortals' ears; As wise philosophers have thought, And that's the cause we hear it not."

"For discords make the sweetest airs."

"Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto Wished him five fathom under the Rialto."

"Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell."

"There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears: Their earth is but an echo of the spheres."

"And hears thy stormy music in the drum!"

"Merrily sang the monks in Ely When Cnut, King, rowed thereby; Row, my knights, near the land, And hear we these monkes' song."

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels."

"When music, heavenly maid, was young, While yet in early Greece she sung, The Passions oft, to hear her shell, Throng'd around her magic cell."

"In notes by distance made more sweet."

"In hollow murmurs died away."

"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. I've read that things inanimate have moved, And, as with living souls, have been inform'd, By magic numbers and persuasive sound."

"And when the music goes te-toot, The monkey acts so funny That we all hurry up and scoot To get some monkey-money. M-double-unk for the monkey, M-double-an for the man; M-double unky, hunky monkey, Hunkey monkey-man. Ever since the world began Children danced and children ran When they heard the monkey-man, The m-double-unky man."

"Water and air He for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Base, the Treble Flame arose, To th' active Moon a quick brisk stroke he gave, To Saturn's string a touch more soft and grave. The motions strait, and round, and swift, and slow, And short and long, were mixt and woven so, Did in such artful Figures smoothly fall, As made this decent measur'd Dance of all. And this is Musick."

"With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave; Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies."

"The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute."

"Music sweeps by me as a messenger Carrying a message that is not for me."

"'Tis God gives skill, But not without men's hands: He could not make Antonio Stradivari's violins Without Antonio."

"The silent organ loudest chants The master's requiem."

"Our 'prentice, Tom, may now refuse To wipe his scoundrel master's shoes; For now he's free to sing and play Over the hills and far away."

"But Bellenden we needs must praise, Who as down the stairs she jumps Sings o'er the hill and far away, Despising doleful dumps."

"Tom he was a piper's son, He learned to play when he was young; But all the tune that he could play Was "Over the hills and far away.""

"When I was young and had no sense I bought a fiddle for eighteen pence, And all the tunes that I could play Was, "Over the Hills and Far Away.""

"Blasen ist nicht flöten, ihr müsst die Finger bewegen."

"Jack Whaley had a cow, And he had nought to feed her; He took his pipe and played a tune, And bid the cow consider."

"Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise."

"He stood beside a cottage lone, And listened to a lute, One summer's eve, when the breeze was gone, And the nightingale was mute."

"Why should the devil have all the good tunes?"

"Music was a thing of the soul—a rose-lipped shell that murmured of the eternal sea—a strange bird singing the songs of another shore."

"From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn."

"Citharœdus Ridetur chorda qui semper oberrat eadem."

"Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells! Ply all your changes, all your swells, Play uppe "The Brides of Enderby.""

"When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."

"Ere music's golden tongue Flattered to tears this aged man and poor."

"The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide."

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone."

"I even think that, sentimentally, I am disposed to harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune."

"A velvet flute-note fell down pleasantly, Upon the bosom of that harmony, And sailed and sailed incessantly, As if a petal from a wild-rose blown Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone, And boatwise dropped o' the convex side And floated down the glassy tide And clarified and glorified The solemn spaces where the shadows bide. From the warm concave of that fluted note Somewhat, half song, half odour forth did float As if a rose might somehow be a throat."

"Music is in all growing things; And underneath the silky wings Of smallest insects there is stirred A pulse of air that must be heard; Earth's silence lives, and throbs, and sings."

"Writ in the climate of heaven, in the language spoken by angels."

"Yea, music is the Prophet's art Among the gifts that God hath sent, One of the most magnificent!"

"When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music."

"He is dead, the sweet musician! * * * * He has moved a little nearer To the Master of all music."

"Music is the universal language of mankind."

"Who, through long days of labor, And nights devoid of ease, Still heard in his soul the music Of wonderful melodies."

"Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie."

"Who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers?"

"Can any mortal mixture of earth's mould Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment?"

"Ring out ye crystal spheres! Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the base of Heaven's deep organ blow, And with your ninefold harmony, Make up full consort to the angelic symphony."

"There let the pealing organ blow, To the full voiced quire below, In service high, and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes."

"Untwisting all the chains that tie the hidden soul of harmony."

"As in an organ from one blast of wind To many a row of pipes the soundboard breathes."

"And in their motions harmony divine So smoothes her charming tones, that God's own ear Listens delighted."

"Mettez, pour me jouer, vos flûtes mieux d'accord."

"La musique celeste."

"If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover, Have throbb'd at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone; I was but as the wind, passing heedlessly over, And all the wild sweetness I wak'd was thy own."

"This must be music," said he, "of the spears, For I am cursed if each note of it doesn't run through one!"

"The harp that once through Tara's halls The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls, As if that soul were fled."

"If thou would'st have me sing and play As once I play'd and sung, First take this time-worn lute away, And bring one freshly strung."

"And music too—dear music! that can touch Beyond all else the soul that loves it much— Now heard far off, so far as but to seem Like the faint, exquisite music of a dream."

"'Tis believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee Was a siren of old who sung under the sea."

"She played upon her music-box a fancy air by chance, And straightway all her polka-dots began a lively dance."

"Apes and ivory, skulls and roses, in junks of old Hong-Kong, Gliding over a sea of dreams to a haunted shore of song."

"There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street In the city as the sun sinks low; And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet And fulfilled it with the sunset glow."

"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

"We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, Of whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems."

"One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown And three with a new song's measure Can trample a kingdom down."

"How light the touches are that kiss The music from the chords of life!"

"He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced, As some vast river of unfailing source, Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed, And opened new fountains in the human heart."

"Music resembles poetry: in each Are nameless graces which no methods teach And which a master-hand alone can reach."

"As some to Church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there."

"What woful stuff this madrigal would be In some starv'd hackney sonnetteer, or me! But let a Lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!"

"Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n."

"By music minds an equal temper know, Nor swell too high, nor sink too low. * * * * * Warriors she fires with animated sounds; Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds."

"Hark! the numbers soft and clear, Gently steal upon the ear; Now louder, and yet louder rise And fill with spreading sounds the skies."

"In a sadly pleasing strain Let the warbling lute complain."

"Music's force can tame the furious beast."

"Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, And my fingers wandered idly Over the noisy keys. I do not know what I was playing, Or what I was dreaming then, But I struck one chord of music Like the sound of a great Amen."

"We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof."

"Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges."

"Musik ist Poesie der Luft."

"Sie zog tief in sein Herz, wie die Melodie eines Liedes, die aus der Kindheit heraufklingt."

"The soul of music slumbers in the shell, Till waked and kindled by the Master's spell; And feeling hearts—touch them but lightly—pour A thousand melodies unheard before!"

"Give me some music; music, moody food Of us that trade in love."

"I am advised to give her music o' mornings; they say it will penetrate."

"And it will discourse most eloquent music."

"You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass."

"How irksome is this music to my heart! When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?"

"Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain-tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing: To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers, There had made a lasting spring."

"Everything that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by; In sweet music is such art: Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or, hearing, die."

"The choir, With all the choicest music of the kingdom, Together sung Te Deum."

"One whom the music of his own vain tongue Doth ravish like enchanting harmony."

"Though music oft hath such a charm To make bad good, and good provoke to harm."

"Let music sound while he doth make his choice; Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music."

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night Becomes the touches of sweet harmony."

"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

"Therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature."

"The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils."

"Music do I hear? Ha! ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is, When time is broke and no proportion kept!"

"Wilt thou have music? hark! Apollo plays And twenty caged nightingales do sing."

"Preposterous ass, that never read so far To know the cause why music was ordain'd! Was it not to refresh the mind of man, After his studies or his usual pain?"

"This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury and my passion With its sweet air."

"Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows!"

"If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour."

"Song like a rose should be; Each rhyme a petal sweet; For fragrance, melody, That when her lips repeat The words, her heart may know What secret makes them so. Love, only Love."

"Musick! soft charm of heav'n and earth, Whence didst thou borrow thy auspicious birth? Or art thou of eternal date, Sire to thyself, thyself as old as Fate."

"See to their desks Apollo's sons repair, Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair! In unison their various tones to tune, Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon; In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute, Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute, Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp, Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp; Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in, Attunes to order the chaotic din."

"So dischord ofte in musick makes the sweeter lay."

"Music revives the recollections it would appease."

"The gauger walked with willing foot, And aye the gauger played the flute; And what should Master Gauger play But Over the Hills and Far Away."

"How her fingers went when they moved by note Through measures fine, as she marched them o'er The yielding plank of the ivory floor."

"It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all."

"Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies."

"Music that gentlier on the spirit lies Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes."

"I can't sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am."

"Strange! that a harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long."

"And with a secret pain, And smiles that seem akin to tears, We hear the wild refrain."

"I'm the sweetest sound in orchestra heard Yet in orchestra never have been."

"Her ivory hands on the ivory keys Strayed in a fitful fantasy, Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees Rustle their pale leaves listlessly Or the drifting foam of a restless sea When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze."

"What fairy-like music steals over the sea, Entrancing our senses with charmed melody?"

"Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand!"

"Where music dwells Lingering, and wandering on as loth to die: Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality."

"Bright gem instinct with music, vocal spark."

"Soft is the music that would charm forever: The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly."

"Sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance made more sweet."

"The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more."

"Thank you. If you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you'll enjoy the playing more."

"The possession of a reliable musical memory is valuable to all musicians, is important to some and is an absolute necessity to others. The composer who can retain his own musical ideas, wherever and whenever they may occur to him, without the use of his cuff or a scrap of paper, may well rejoice in his independence of material aids. The critic who is able when placed face to face with the first performance of a novelty to hold in his mind's ear the subject matter of importance as the work develops will be in a position to write an intelligent account of what he has heard."

"Nervousness in playing from memory in public is largely a result of the mental defect of lack of concentration, when it is not directly caused by a run-down physical condition."

"Piano music may be memorized in three ways: by ear, by visual memory, either of the notes on the printed page or the notes on the keyboard, and by finger memory or reflex action."

"The shadows in the courtyard grew longer, and finally the hot day gave way to slate- gray dusk and a moonlit night. The talk was still going on when, quite suddenly, a young violinist appeared on a balcony above the courtyard. There was a hush as, high above us, he struck up the first great D minor chords of Bach's Chaconne. All at once, and with utter certainty, I had found my link with the center. The moonlit Altmuhl Valley below would have been reason enough for a romantic transfiguration; but that was not it. The clear phrases of the Chaconne touched me like a cool wind, breaking through the mist and revealing the towering structures beyond. There had always been a path to the central order in the language of music, in philosophy and in religion, today no less than in Plato's day and in Bach's. That I now knew from my own experIence. We spent the rest of the night around campfires and in our tents on a meadow above the castle, giving full rein to our romantic and poetic sentiments. The young musician, himself a student, sat near our group and played minuets by Mozart and Beethoven interspersed with old folk songs; I tried to accompany him on my guitar. Otherwise, he proved a very gay young fellow and was reluctant to discuss his solemn rendering of the Chaconne. When pressed, he came back at us with "Do you know the key of the trumpets of Jericho?" "No." "D minor [d-moll] also, of course." "Why?" "Because they d-moll-ished the walls!" He escaped our wrath only by taking to his heels."

"ARE my eyes deceiving me, or is this a string quartet topping the US classical charts? Hmm, depends on whom you believe. The instruments - two violins, cello, viola - may be the same as Haydn's, but the players are four near-naked girls, gyrating to an amplified backing track. Bond, as the band are called, have been barred from the UK charts as inadequately classical. On the other hand, they have been booked to curtain-raise the Classical Brits awards. Make of that muddle what you will, in an industry that has lost the confidence to tell high art from low, good art from bad, real art from clone. The Bond girls are not bad players. They are simply living in a bad time for practising the intimate, introspective art of the string quartet."

"From tentative beginnings, the string quartet has evolved for over 240 years, serving as a medium for some of the most profound and personal musical expression. At first it was a medium that allowed four gentlemen amateurs to converse musically, an aspect of its function that has retained its significance throughout the years. But this aspect has long been interconnected with a view of the genre as one that is appropriate for music of the deepest personal expression, as well as sophisticated humour and wit."

"We were working on a long and complex song called ‘The End,’ which is hard-driving jazz played simultaneously with a baroque string quartet. I wanted the hard hitting music to also have a layer of quiet restraint from the classical music. To me it made complete sense. I thought it was beautiful."

"We consider classical music to be the epitome and quintessence of our culture, because it is that culture’s clearest, most significant gesture and expression. In this music we possess the heritage of classical antiquity and Christianity, a spirit of serenely cheerful and brave piety, a superbly chivalric morality. For in the final analysis every important cultural gesture comes down to a morality, a model for human behavior concentrated into a gesture."

"Nothing conduces so emphatically to the harmony of sounds as perfect classical piano play."

"There is very little dispute about the principal constituent elements of music, though experts will differ on the precise definitions of each aspect. Most central are 'pitch' (or melody) and 'rhythm'...next in importance only to pitch and rhythm is 'timbre', the characteristic qualities of tone."

"Just as parameters within a culture are distinguished from one another because they are governed by somewhat different constraints, so it is with the parameters of music: melody, harmony, timbre, etc., are more or less independent variables."

"Melody, rhythm, timbre, harmony, and the like."

"Melody, harmony, rhythm, dynamics, tessitura, timbre, tempo, meter, texture, and perhaps others"

"Two aspects of each of these parameters should be taken into consideration: the quality of each parameter at any given moment and the way in which each parameter changes as the music progresses"

"Musical research since the late twentieth century has given greater consideration to certain social and embodied aspects of music."

"Any element belonging to the total musical fact can be isolated, or taken as a strategic variable of musical production."

"Sound is a minimal condition of the musical fact."

"Writing of her own Igbo music, the Nigerian musicologist Chinyere Nwachukwu maintains that the 'concept of music nkwa combines singing, playing musical instruments, and dancing into one act'. Whatever concept of 'music' is held by members of western society, it is highly improbable that, apart from forward-looking scholars and composers, it will contain all three elements. Nkwa in fact is not 'music' but a wider affective channel that is closer to the karimojong mode of expression than to western practice. The point of interest here is that Nwachukwu feels constrained to use the erroneous term 'music': not because she is producing a 'musical dissertation,' but because the 'one act' the Igbos perform has no equivalent in the English language. By forcing the Igbo concept into the Procrustean bed of western conceptualization, she is in effect surrendering to the dominance of western ideas—or at least to the dominance of the English language! How different things would have been if the Igbo tongue had attained the same 'universality' as English!."

"I have one idea about this whole interpretation problem as it relates to orchestral music — too many of our conductors start with old music. What they should do is interpret the music of our time and then go backwards. They would be much better off because if you interpret a contemporary work, where the composer is still alive and have contact with the compositional mind, you will also play older music as looked at from the perspective of the composer, instead of an interpretive kind of idea. I hate the performer that says, “Did you ever hear my Beethoven?” I don’t want to hear his Beethoven! I want to hear Beethoven."

"Numerous important conductors and composers were (and are) players of instruments other than the piano or organ over the course of their careers (Hans Richter, Edric Cundell, Daniel Jones, Edward Downes, Cedric Thorpe Davie and Norman Del Mar were hornists, Malcolm Arnold and Elgar Howarth trumpeters, Gustav Holst and George Alexander Macfarren trombonists, Simon Rattle a percussionist, Christian Darnton a bassoonist, Arthur Nikisch, Basil Cameron, Eugène Goossens and George Lloyd violinists, John Barbirolli, Charles Lucas, Havergal Brian and Arturo Toscanini cellists, and Benjamin Britten and Frank Bridge were violists). The intimate knowledge of the orchestra one gleans as a player is very valuable for conducting a symphony orchestra or writing orchestral compositions."

"I guess I originally got the bug for performing when I was in choirs and school stuff and all that. I don't know when. I guess I decided to do it because a lot of people said I was good, and I liked the attention."

"It’s singing and rugby. And I don’t do the rugby. I always sang in school choirs and went on tours to other countries. I have always loved it. It’s a very communal thing, and you really connect with people."

"Once the Mass is restored to its rightful place, we will again see choirs being developed. New compositions will be written because the composers, like their forebears, will see the setting of the Mass text to music as a means of possibly expiating their sins and assuring their music's immortality. Musicians will fight for the chance to become organists and choirmasters. The faithful will clamor for it. It will again become part of a living tradition."

"I had always sung in choirs. Even when it was something to be laughed at or made fun of, you know, in school. And I was always the kid who was picked at the Christmas concert to sing the solo, you know, while the other kids snickered in the front few rows."

"Although the origins of punk rock, as we know it today, undoubtedly include artists like Patti Smith, The Velvet Underground, and The Stooges, the origins of punk as an attitude can be traced back much further. In essence, punk is about the rejection of societal and musical norms, pursuing something entirely original and often revolutionary. In that sense, punk could be traced back to the original wave of jazz stars, who sought to tear down the boundaries of traditional music to create something modern and rebellious."

"According to one theory, punk rock all goes back to Ritchie Valens's "La Bamba." Just consider Valens's three-chord mariachi squawkup in the light of "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen, then consider "Louie Louie" in the light of "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, then "You Really Got Me" in the light of "No Fun" by the Stooges, then "No Fun" in the light of "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones, and finally note that "Blikskrieg Bop" sounds a lot like "La Bamba.""

"The Sex Pistols were still rock'n'roll ... like the craziest version of Chuck Berry. Hardcore was a radical departure from that. It wasn't verse-chorus rock. It dispelled any notion of what songwriting is supposed to be. It's its own form."

"It would be possible to write the whole history of punk music without mentioning any male bands at all – and I think a lot of [people] would find that very surprising."

"Hippies were rainbow extremists; punks are romantics of black-and-white. Hippies forced warmth; punks cultivate cool. Hippies kidded themselves about free love; punks pretend that s&m is our condition. As symbols of protest, swastikas are no less fatuous than flowers."

"Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock."

"But I was a rebel in the usual, rather superficial, ways that teenagers in the late 1970s were. I mean, I went fairly quickly from punk rock to Thatcherism. The two had much in common. The urge to challenge the consensus was very powerful in me at the age of 15, 16, 17, and the Sex Pistols and Margaret Thatcher alike were rebarbative and critical of what seemed to me a rather stagnant country."

"Girls invented punk rock, not England."

"...punk rock had to come along because the rock scene had become so tame that [acts] like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music."

"...rock and roll by people who didn't have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music."

"That was the beauty of the punk thing: [sexual] discrimination didn't exist in that scene."

"[punk] was the first musical genre to spawn fanzines in any significant numbers."

"On TV, if you watched cop shows, Kojak, Baretta, when the cops finally catch the mass murderer, they'd say, 'you dirty Punk.' It was what your teachers would call you. It meant that you were the lowest."

"In its initial form, a lot of [1960s] stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll."

"Punk was meant to be of the voice of the dole queue, and in reality most of them were not. But Oi was the reality of the punk mythology. In the places where [these bands] came from, it was harder and more aggressive and it produced just as much quality music.""

"Punk was a total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way."

"...punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England."

"During the Pistols era, women were out there playing with the men, taking us on in equal terms ... It wasn’t combative, but compatible."

"Punk rock is meant to be our freedom. We're meant to be able to do what we want to do."

"....attaining authenticity in the punk identity can be difficult."

"What made punk rock so exciting in its early years was that everything felt like an accident. Those albums became artifacts, the kind that saw a bunch of (usually) teenagers articulating things based on impulse instead of know-how."

"“It was narrated from Abu Malik Ash’ari that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: ‘People among my nation will drink wine, calling it by another name, and musical instruments will be played for them and singing girls (will sing for them). Allah will cause the earth to swallow them up, and will turn them into monkeys and pigs.’” (Sunan Ibn Majah 4020)"

"Narrated Aisha: Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) came to my house while two girls were singing beside me the songs of Buath (a story about the war between the two tribes of the Ansar, the Khazraj and the Aus, before Islam). The Prophet (p.b.u.h) lay down and turned his face to the other side. Then Abu Bakr came and spoke to me harshly saying, "Musical instruments of Satan near the Prophet (p.b.u.h) ?" Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) turned his face towards him and said, "Leave them." When Abu Bakr became inattentive, I signalled to those girls to go out and they left. It was the day of 'Id, and the Black people were playing with shields and spears; so either I requested the Prophet (p.b.u.h) or he asked me whether I would like to see the display. I replied in the affirmative. Then the Prophet (p.b.u.h) made me stand behind him and my cheek was touching his cheek and he was saying, "Carry on! O Bani Arfida," till I got tired. The Prophet (p.b.u.h) asked me, "Are you satisfied (Is that sufficient for you)?" I replied in the affirmative and he told me to leave."

"Narrated Aisha: Abu Bakr came to my house while two small Ansari girls were singing beside me the stories of the Ansar concerning the Day of Buath. And they were not singers. Abu Bakr said protestingly, "Musical instruments of Satan in the house of Allah's Apostle !" It happened on the 'Id day and Allah's Apostle said, "O Abu Bakr! There is an 'Id for every nation and this is our 'Id.""

"Narrated 'Urwa on the authority of 'Aisha: On the days of Mina, (11th, 12th, and 13th of Dhul-Hijjah) Abu Bakr came to her while two young girls were beating the tambourine and the Prophet was lying covered with his clothes. Abu Bakr scolded them and the Prophet uncovered his face and said to Abu Bakr, "Leave them, for these days are the days of 'Id and the days of Mina." 'Aisha further said, "Once the Prophet was screening me and I was watching the display of black slaves in the Mosque and ('Umar) scolded them. The Prophet said, 'Leave them. O Bani Arfida! (carry on), you are safe (protected)'.""

"Narrated Aisha: That once Abu Bakr came to her on the day of 'Id-ul-Fitr or 'Id ul Adha while the Prophet was with her and there were two girl singers with her, singing songs of the Ansar about the day of Buath. Abu Bakr said twice. "Musical instrument of Satan!" But the Prophet said, "Leave them Abu Bakr, for every nation has an 'Id (i.e. festival) and this day is our 'Id.""

"Narrated Abu 'Amir or Abu Malik Al-Ash'ari: that he heard the Prophet saying, "From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, 'Return to us tomorrow.' Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection.""

"'A'isha reported: The Messenger of Allah (way peace be upon him) came (in my apartment) while there were two girls with me singing the song of the Battle of Bu'ath. He lay down on the bed and turned away his face. Then came Abu Bakr and he scolded me and said: Oh! this musical instrument of the devil in the house of the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him)! The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) turned towards him and said: Leave them alone. And when he (the Holy Prophet) became unattentive, I hinted them and they went out, and it was the day of 'Id and negroes were playing with shields and spears. (I do not remember) whether I asked the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) or whether he said to me if I desired to see (that sport). I said: Yes. I stood behind him with his face parallel to my face, and he said: O Banu Arfada, be busy (in your sports) till I was satiated. He said (to me): Is that enough? I said: Yes. Upon this he asked me to go."

"Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Angels do not accompany the travellers who have with them a dog and a bell."

"Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The bell is the musical instrument of the Satan."

"Narrated Umm Habibah: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: The angels do not go with a travelling company in which there is a bell."

"Narrated Umar ibn al-Khattab: Ibn az-Zubayr told that a woman client of theirs took az-Zubayr's daughter to Umar ibn al-Khattab wearing bells on her legs. Umar cut them off and said that he had heard the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) say: There is a devil along with each bell."

"Anas reported that the Prophet said: In this Ummah there will be punishments of earthquakes, showers of stones and deformity; that will be when the people drink khamr, listen to female singers and play musical instruments."

"r40.2 (Nawawi:) It is unlawful to use musical instruments—such as those which drinkers are known for, like the mandolin, lute, cymbals, and flute—or to listen to them. It is permissible to play the tambourine at weddings, circumcisions, and other times, even if it has bells on its sides. Beating the kuba, a long drum with a narrow middle, is unlawful (Mughni al-muhtaj ila ma'rifa ma'ani alfaz al-Minhaj (y73), 4.429-30). SINGING UNACCOMPANIED BY MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS r40.3 (Ibn Hajar Haytami:) As for listening to singing that is not accompanied by instruments, one should know that singing or listening to singing is offensive except under the circumstances to be mentioned in what follows. Some scholars hold that singing is sunna at weddings and the like, and of our Imams, Ghazali and 'Izz ibn 'Abd al-Salam say that it is sunna if it moves one to a noble state of mind that makes one remember the hereafter. It is clear from this that all poetry which encourages good deeds, wisdom, noble qualities, abstinence from this-worldly things, or similar pious traits such as urging one to obey Allah, follow the sunna, or shun disobedience, is sunna to write, sing, or listen to, as more than one of our Imams have stated is obvious, since using a means to do good is itself doing good (Kaff al-ra'a' 'an muharramat al-lahw wa al-sama' (y49), 2.273)."

"It is not lawful to listen to things like lutes and singing."

"(1) “Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance.” (2) “On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.” (3) “Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage.” (4) “This community will experience the swallowing up of some people by the earth, metamorphosis of some into animals, and being rained upon with stones.” Someone asked, “When will this be, O Messenger of Allah?” and he said, “When songstresses and musical instruments appear and wine is held to be lawful.” (5) “There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful ….”"

"As far as I’m concerned, Motown was a once-in-a-lifetime musical event. Nothing like that happened before. I seriously doubt anything like that will ever happen again..."

"[C]ritics usually disparage Motown as watered-down blues or lesser soul music, but they ignore the essence of Motown’s urbane soulfulness. ... What people respond to in a Motown song, after the rhythm, wit, and piquancy, is the sound — the ethos — of the love of freedom. Only in America could a company like Motown Records exist."

"On artistic merit alone, as encapsulated in the film and LP, the Concert for Bangladesh perhaps holds up better than Woodstock in showcasing the best of its era in terms of music, optimism, and goodwill."

"I got tired of people saying "But what can I do?" Also, the reluctance of the press to report the full details created the need to bring attention to it. So the song "Bangla Desh" was written specifically to get attention to the war prior to the concert."

"The money we raised was secondary. The main thing was, we spread the word and helped get the war ended ... What we did show was that musicians and people are more humane than politicians."

"In the Oval Office, Nixon grumpily told Kissinger, “I see now the Beatles are up raising money for it. You know, it’s a funny thing the way we are in this goddamn country, is, we get involved in all these screwball causes.”"

"Even now I still meet waiters in Bengali restaurants who say, "When we were in the jungle fighting, it was great to know somebody out there was thinking of us.""

"The Concert for Bangladesh was the first rock event for humanitarian relief—the precursor for shows like Live Aid in 1985, with all the attendant sincerity, vapidity, and showy self-righteousness... Under the spotlights, in a cream suit with a hideous orange shirt, sporting shaggy hair and a huge scraggly beard, Harrison was a fervid countercultural figure to dumbfound the generals in Rawalpindi... Of course, the eager young crowd came mainly for the music. But many of them knew about the horrors, and Shankar explained to the audience the misery of the Bengalis. In between freewheeling sets, the musicians showed devastating films of the refugee camps, with corpses and starving children."

"The Indian government was delighted by this unexpected windfall, scrambling to get copies of Harrison’s record. For its part, Pakistan’s military regime was flummoxed by the power of rock and roll. The Pakistani authorities were humorlessly wrong-footed by Harrison and his hirsute musician friends. A Pakistani official warned all Pakistani embassies about an “Anti-Pakistan gramophone record entitled ‘Bangla Desh,’ ” which was “sung by George Harrison, a member of the Beatles’ Trio” (undercounting the Beatles by one). “It contains hostile propaganda against Pakistan.” This official, considering banning the song in Pakistan, ordered all of Pakistan’s embassies to somehow try to prevent its broadcast worldwide."

"To the utter consternation of [US President] Nixon and [Secretary of State] Kissinger, George Harrison's 'Bangla Desh' hit the chart. It was a thrilling moment in the midst of all the sad news emanating from the battlefront. Even the Western journalists covering the civil war in East Pakistan were not yet using the word 'Bangladesh'."

"I got tired of people saying "But what can I do?" Also, the reluctance of the press to report the full details created the need to bring attention to it. So the song "Bangla Desh" was written specifically to get attention to the war prior to the concert."

"The money we raised was secondary. The main thing was, we spread the word and helped get the war ended ... What we did show was that musicians and people are more humane than politicians.[140]"

"On artistic merit alone, as encapsulated in the film and LP, the Concert for Bangladesh perhaps holds up better than Woodstock in showcasing the best of its era in terms of music, optimism, and goodwill."

"Listen here Now that ain't workin', that's the way you do it You play the guitar on the MTV That ain't workin' That's the way you do it Money for nothin', and your chicks for free."

"I want my MTV."

"The video of 'paranoid' has been censored by MTV. They took all nipples out of the cartoon, but they had no problem with the scene in which a man cuts off his own arms and legs."

"I don't think MTV would let us play that. (After an audience member requests "Rape Me.")"

"Africa is the continent of drums and percussion. African peoples reached the pinnacle of achievement in that sphere."

"Usually around here people that look different or don’t belong to the stereotyped image of a person from this region are frowned upon and often not feel at home. By trying to get to know the Slavic region, and I still have much to learn about it, I discovered that it had beautiful tradition which is often forgotten by new generations, so I wanted to give it light and ask people to join me in learning about our customs and tradition and incorporate them into modern day and age. I also wanted to show that you can be a person from this region and yet have different interests to those that are expected from you. It is a new way of looking at things and a modern way of keeping our tradition, that’s why I thought #neoslavic would be the best way of describing it."

"Singing is a very crucial tool for delivering the art I create, but it is not the main one. All the words and melodies that come to me have a need to be sung out so that’s how I got into it and I’ve been working hard on upgrading my skills over the past couple of months. I don’t want to be the world’s best singer though, I believe the feels are more important in a piece of music."

"Belgrade will always be my #1 city in the world, so much of who I am stems from there. It’s a beautiful ruin I love exploring. London is much better for my craft though. As soon as I stepped there I got instantly recognised by the underground industry and got down to business quickly. I had an idea of completing the music game in Belgrade, but there was a glitch in the process so unfortunately I had to move on. London’s scene really resonates with me, while in Belgrade as an artist you only have certain venues where you can possibly do something, the UK’s capital is swarmed with opportunities. Both are quite difficult but quite exciting."

"I could do Western vocalisation techniques, but I feel like sparks of Serbian ethno style infused with pop is a good mix."

"The EP represents a story telling journey in the realm of interrupted perception of reality I was diagnosed with throughout the uneasy times of the pandemic battling with heartache and finding any means to escape. (EP 'F23.8')"

"Et in Arcadia ego."

"Even in Arcadia, there am I [i.e. Death]"

"Polonius: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men."

"In time of yore when shepherds dwelt Upon the mountain rocks, And simple people never felt The pain of lovers’ mocks; But little birds would carry tales ’Twixt Susan and her sweeting, And all the dainty nightingales Did sing at lovers’ meeting: Then might you see what looks did pass Where shepherds did assemble, And where the life of true love was When hearts could not dissemble.Then yea and nay was thought an oath That was not to be doubted, And when it came to faith and troth We were not to be flouted. Then did they talk of curds and cream, Of butter, cheese and milk; There was no speech of sunny beam Nor of the golden silk. Then for a gift a row of pins, A purse, a pair of knives, Was all the way that love begins; And so the shepherd wives.But now we have so much ado, And are so sore aggrievèd, That when we go about to woo We cannot be believèd; Such choice of jewels, rings and chains, That may but favour move, And such intolerable pains Ere one can hit on love; That if I still shall bide this life ’Twixt love and deadly hate, I will go learn the country life Or leave the lover’s state."

"O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!"

"There was certainly a party aspect to their video and that time was the height of all the gay clubs in Chelsea. [The YMCA] did have some overlapping of gay cruising. But it was a serious gym for people who really wanted to go and work out every day, and a nice place to live for working-class people."

"MSNBC’s Lawrence O'Donnell describes how Donald Trump’s behavior refusing to take questions and swaying for 39 minutes to music that included the gay anthem YMCA (October 15, 2024) ~5:00 on Youtube video"

"Some weird music, which has been likened to that of Scotch bagpipes, is heard from the direction of the city gates, and the traveller, who is still threading the streets to his abode, feels thankful that he has arrived in time, for now the massive gates are closed, and none may enter without royal permission."

"The EP, short for extended play, is more than a single but less than an album. The format really came into its own in the late-’70s/early-’80s with punk, post-punk and independent labels, offering an affordable sampler for new and exciting music."

"For lovers of the ear-bleeding, the ugly, the wyrd and deranged, there might be a case for 1986 being the most formative year since the beginning of rock."

"Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and the Minutemen all disbanded during this year, and most of the significant figures had cast themselves out through ambition – if not of stardom and cash, then of making art that challenged expectations and pushed personal boundaries."

"If you have a working knowledge of hair metal, thrash metal, jangly indie or hardcore punk, you’ll hear me on this one, I daresay – every genre has its genre exercises, its cookiecutter outfits."

"The so-called “wrong notes” people might tell you to not play are sometimes the ones that sound amazing against the riff and really make your playing stand out. Take Marty's playing on Megadeth's "Rust In Peace." He is throwing in all kinds of exotic scales and interesting note choices all over the place."

"Don’t forget the different modes of the major scale. These can be very helpful. Learn them and practice how to apply them all over your fretboard."

"I don’t even think about it. I just do it. I think Gary [Holt – Slayer’s other guitarist] has a harder vibrato than I do. It’s your own personal style, and how it evolves depends on how much you want to make it sing on its own. It has a lot to do with muscle development and getting calluses at the end of your fingers. When we are rehearsing for tours, we go from working on new material with no leads at all to live show stuff that has lots of leads. Sometimes I have to call time on practice because my fingers are dust; I have to just go home. You’ve got to build up the stamina."

"Historically, the trill has acquired associations with doom, gloom, and even the occult. More specifically, two noteworthy composers, Guiseppe Tartini and Franz Schubert, adopted the trill to express a sense of melancholy in some of the most definitive pieces of their oeuvre. While these composers were certainly not the only ones to use the trill in incisive ways, their use of the classic embellishment distinguished their work."

"The trill [is] a technique that early composers used due to its rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic properties. By rapidly alternating between two adjacent notes—usually a half-step or whole-step apart—composers could create a brief sense of dissonance and tension that clashed with the tonality of the respective piece. The trill naturally creates a sense of tension, and when used properly, it lends itself well to somber moods and melodies. Metal musicians picked up on this early on and, by passing it down through the airwaves, have made it a hallmark of heavy music today."

"When Tony Iommi deified himself in 1970 by unleashing upon the world that seminal riff from Black Sabbath’s infamous title track, he not only laid the groundwork for the future of heavy metal music, he also single-handedly executed one of the most noteworthy trills in rock ‘n’ roll history. Combined with the sound of pouring rain and the ominous ringing of the bell, his use of the trill on “Black Sabbath” demonstrated the latent power the classical embellishment has always held, but had hitherto never been actualized with proper amplification."

"Metallica’s crunch sound is often cleaner than people expect. [...] Don’t get me wrong, distortion is great, but there’s definitely a point where having too much turns your tone to mush. The low end loses its tightness and your overall tone gets flabby, with no definition or cut. When you’re first starting out, there’s always the temptation to hide behind distortion because it lets you get away with murder. But, when it comes to rhythm work, you’ve gotta back off that gain control a bit, especially if you’re playing with another guitarist. Actually, over the years, James and I have found that besides giving our tone more definition and cut, backing off the gain makes us play our riffs better because we can’t get away with being sloppy."

"When you pick the string just right, a higher pitch other than the fretted note is sounded. This higher pitch is an overtone, or harmonic, that stems from the overtone series related to that note. Indicated by the abbreviation P.H., the pinch harmonic is a fantastic expressive device to use when playing a solo or melody. Much beloved by rock, blues, country and metal guitarists alike, the pinch harmonic has been used to great effect by such legendary axemen as Roy Buchanan, Billy Gibbons, Eddie Van Halen and Zakk Wylde."

"There has always been a good deal of mystery surrounding the pinch harmonic, or, as hip players like to call it, “pick squeal.” A pick squeal is simply an artificial harmonic, or high-pitched sound, produced by choking up on the pick and allowing the thumb or thumbnail to catch the string in just as it is picked. The result, of course, resembles a squeal. Or a squawk. Or a scream. (It could take several tries before you get the desired "s" word.) Anyhow, what was once the domain of blues-rock string benders is now a staple for most metal guitarists."

"In short, pick squealing, or pinch harmonics is part of the reason why a lot of people started using copious amounts of hairspray and dressing in very tight clothing during the '80s. However, pick squeals, or, in less cool words, pinch harmonics, can be used in a much broader spectrum of ways than just heavy metal, and the technique was originally probably first used by blues players of old."

"The way I and most guitarists produce a pinch harmonic is to grasp the pick close to its pointed tip with your thumb and index finger. You then pick a downstroke, intentionally allowing a bit of the fleshy part of the thumb to graze the string at the same time."

"More than 40 years after the release of Van Halen, the opening riff in “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love” - an arpeggiated Am-F-G5 passage played with palm-muted downstrokes - is still a favorite among beginning and intermediate pickers."

"In the ’80s, Peter Buck’s clean, chime-y arpeggios defined the sound of alt-rock to come."

"Dominant 9th chords figure prominently in Van Halen’s early rhythm work. As with the previously discussed triads, these more complex chords sound like crap when played with too much distortion."

"In the Seventies, stateside hard-rock acts like Aerosmith, Kiss and Ted Nugent played tunes heavily rooted in blues and boogie riffs. As fans of blues-based rock acts like Led Zeppelin and Cream, Van Halen certainly weren’t immune to this influence."

"The origin of using feedback as a tactful play is admittedly blurry. But one thing Davies and Townshend can agree on is how their use of it differed. Davies was more animalistic. Townshend’s art school background, meanwhile, saw him longing for a more musical application."

"Other people stumbled on feedback at the same time as me. Jeff Beck was using it when Roger [Daltrey] went to see the Tridents rehearsing. He said, 'There's a shit-hot guitar player down the road and he's making sounds like you.' Then later, when we supported the Kinks, Dave Davies was adamant: 'I invented it, it wasn't John Lennon and it wasn't you!'"

"I believe it was something people were discovering all over London. These big amps that Marshall were turning out — you couldn't stop the guitars feeding back!"

"On 'Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,' during the solo, on the note A I would flick a harmonic, get it feeding back, and then go 'dit-dit-dit-dar-dar' with the switch. And by standing at certain angles I could get incredible sounds out of it, some of which were just characteristics of the Rickenbacker body, which I stuffed with paper. You could control it and it could be very musical. Certainly that sort of thing where you hit an open A chord and then take your fingers off the strings... the A string is still banging away but you're hearing the finger-off harmonics in the feedback. Then the vibrating A starts to stimulate harmonics in other strings, and it's just an extraordinary sound, like an enormous plane. It's a wonderful, optimistic sound and that was something that happened because I was posing — I'd put my arms out, let go of the chord then find that the resulting noise was better."

"From around 1600 to 1750, the Baroque period witnessed the creation of some of the greatest musical masterpieces ever composed."

"The wah pedal (which in many cases is probably the award-winning Cry Baby by Dunlop) is one of the most original and easily identified guitar effects in the world. Nothing sounds cooler, and few sounds transcend genres so easily as the wah pedal."

"It's just that when you're playing in standard tuning all the time, you're sounding pretty...standard."

"From Keith Richards's ratty distorted guitar on The Rolling Stones's “Satisfaction” to T-Pain's Auto-Tuned vocals on Lil Wayne's “Lollipop,” music technology has often defined the sound of popular music."

"When I was growing up people would always say, and it was meant in the kindest possible way, ‘You’re really good for a girl,’ because there weren’t a lot of girls or women playing. Out of this small pond of people, it was surprising to them. In my opinion, you’d have to be pretty unworldly to make a comment like that anymore. Nobody had the success that Alison Krauss had. So, when that happened, I think it started to make it difficult for people to look at women in bluegrass as some kind of exceptional thing. Here was a woman who really blew out the boundaries for the music and really expanded the potential for the music and brought in new listeners."

"In 1995, I was lucky enough to get a job traveling with a busy, all-male band. I was only 19 years old, and I’ve stayed employed ever since. It wasn’t until years into my career that I realized my experience could be considered rare. As a teenager, I was just happy to be playing my banjo and I didn’t dwell on any gender-specific issues. If they don’t have to play with an all-female band, a group led by another woman, or be the bandleader themselves, the number of job opportunities drastically increases. I believe that, eventually, gender won’t be an issue. One day, female musicians will just be musicians and that’s the ultimate goal."

"If we’d like to be honest about gender in the music world, we need to address all parties. Women need to invest in themselves, hustle for gigs, network, and do the work of forming bands and cultivating their own talents if they would like to be taken seriously. The industry pretty much always rewards women who do these things. I’m not interested in any special handout just for being a woman. But on the other hand, if a woman is doing these things, yet she’s told ‘We already have enough women on the bill, so we’ll call you next year’—now that’s an issue. No one says to a male artist, ‘We already have enough men on the bill!’"

"Napster affected rock CD sales disproportionately when it first came out in the late ’90s, because rock was what a lot of college students were listening to, and they were early MP3 adopters (and early pirates.) They figured out quickly how to download MP3s for free, so rock sales were the first to decline. It would take a while before piracy/the Internet/MP3s/downloads would cut into other genres, because it took old people a long time to figure out the Internet. [...] Everyone would suffer, but those artists and labels would feel it first and worst. After all the good times, this one-two punch at the turn of the millennium left indie — and rock music in general — reeling."

"Bon Jovi did it in "Livin' on a Prayer," Michael Jackson in "Man in the Mirror," and Celine Dion in "My Heart Will Go On." Taking a verse or a chorus up a notch by modulating the key was a way for pop stars to give their songs extra oomph for decades. We loved it because it made us feel things. And some of us are realizing just how much we miss the chills and thrills those modulations gave us."

"Over centuries of music, composers have used modulations and changes in the key of the music to express emotion, drama and excitement. In pop and rock music a shift up a semitone is always a memorable moment, as a song clicks into an upper gear."

"Many of the biggest hits in pop music used to have something in common: a key change, like the one you hear in Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." But key changes have become harder to find in top hits."

"Someone killed the key change in pop music, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to find the perpetrator."

"Changing the key – or shifting the base scale of a song – is a tool used across musical genres to "inject energy" into a pop number."

"Musically, one of the most interesting things about [Sabrina Carpenter's] "Please Please Please" is the key change at the start of the second verse - not a songwriting trick that’s often pulled."

"One thing I always encourage everyone to do is just try modulating in any direction. Just try it. Use the things you have - it’s so easy to just try and modulate. Even if it sounds like shit; even if you just do it really quickly just to see if you can pull yourself somewhere."

"The 1970s was arguably the single decade of the 20th century when recorded music was most central to culture. There were, of course, fewer kinds of media competing for the average consumer’s time—television meant just a handful of channels, video games were the size of refrigerators and could be found in arcades. As the used vinyl bins of the world are still telling us, records were the thing. Labels were flush with cash, sales of LPs and singles were brisk, and record stores were everywhere. Home stereos were a standard part of middle-class culture. Analog recording technology was at its zenith, FM radio was ascendant, and the AM dial still focused on music. The children of the baby boom were coming into their late twenties and thirties—young enough to still be serious music consumers, but old enough to have their own generation of children who were starting to buy music. And then there was the music itself. Disco, an entire cultural movement fueled by a genre of music—with massive impact on fashion, film, TV and advertising—was utterly ubiquitous. Rock music emerged from the ’60s as to go-to choice of white youth culture. Soul and funk were reaching new levels of artistry. Punk, the first serious backlash against the rock mainstream, came into its own. Records from Jamaica were making their way to the UK and, eventually, the U.S., changing sounds and urging a new kind of political consciousness. As culture moved in every direction at once, there were more great songs than anyone could count."

"The 1970s: It was the decade that punk and disco landed like a bludgeon against the bourgeoise stronghold on the arts as virtuosity made way for music of attitude and individualism. It was the decades that saw David Bowie unleash a constant swirl of singular masterpieces and inspire millions with his creative character studies. It saw Joni Mitchell make everybody cry with the folk explosion’s last hurrah on Blue, Californian rock ‘n’ roll went out in style with LA Woman, and the emergence of new masters on albums like London’s Calling, Marquee Moon, Paranoid, Horses, Rumours and an endless string of others. In short, it was the great decade of art in history."

"The 1970s saw a number of genres flourish apart from just rock and disco. Everything from funk, soul and R&B to country, folk and reggae music emerged during the decade, and more importantly several artists within these styles established the “gold standard” for what exceptional music should sound like in these genres. And the same can be said about both rock and disco music, as many consider the pinnacle of these genres to come from artists of the ‘70s."

"One hit single is one more than most bands ever achieve. That said, more often than not throughout music history, we tend to remember them as one-hit wonders. There were plenty of them in the 1970s."

"Arguably one of the best decades of music, the 1970s saw the rise of disco, long shaggy hair, the continuation of the free love movement, and, of course, Rock and Roll at its height of fame."

"Shaking off the naturalism, daisy chains, and acid tabs of the 1960s was easier than expected. The 1970s unfurled as a paradox of both striking diversity and remarkable coherence: From high-concept prog nerds and high-octane guitar solo to high-heeled glam-rockers and rough-and-ready punks, the decade saw the rise and dominance of the album-as-unified-statement."

"At this point in heavy-music history, the breakdown is as much a building block of metal as the thrash gallop, the blast beat and the rippin' solo. Many of the biggest and most influential bands of the last 25 years have sections in their songs that elicit violent mosh moves, and in fact there are entire subgenres dedicated to crafting the heaviest, gnarliest breakdowns imaginable."

"As legendary bands in the scene continued to mature musically and grow away from the genres that they became known for, newly established musicians were creating blends that sparked new categories for scene music. In 2008, Fall Out Boy released their last album before their hiatus, and I Set My Friends On Fire popularized crunkcore. It was a landmark year in alternative music, as scene music expanded beyond its foundation of pop punk, punk, emo and hardcore. By 2008, electronic elements seeped into the scene, and party anthems became essential in nearly every album. At this particular time, fans steered toward bands who featured screamo vocals, any genre with the suffix -core and themes of moving forward toward a future beyond the emotional torment of emo music. These scene albums from 2008 created an all-new meaning to both the genre and community."

"To give an idea of how extraordinary a six-part fugue is, in the entire Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach, containing forty-eight Preludes and Fugues, only two have as many as five parts, and nowhere is there a six-part fugue! One could probably liken the task of improvising a six-part fugue to the playing of sixty simultaneous blindfold games of chess, and winning them all. To improvise an eight-part fugue is really beyond human capability."

"A fugue is like a canon, in that it is usually based on one theme which gets played in different voices and different keys, and occasionally at different speeds or upside down or backwards. However, the notion of fugue is much less rigid than that of canon, and consequently it allows for more emotional and artistic expression."

"You have to let music take you over, put ego aside, be a clean conductor – in the electrical sense."

"When I tell people I’m a trumpet soloist, there are three kinds of response I usually get: “Wow, what a great job!”, “Isn’t that unusual for a woman?” And “That’s jazz, right?”"

"I believe the emergence and explosion of jazz in the last century is one of the pinnacles of human achievement."