Music

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."