I owe very, very much to Mozart; and if one studies, for instance, the way in which I write for string quartet, then one cannot deny that I have learned this directly from Mozart. And I am proud of it!
Interpretation
Schoenberg acknowledges his debt to Mozart's influence on his compositional style.
In this quote, Arnold Schoenberg expresses his deep admiration and respect for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, admitting that much of his own work, particularly in writing for string quartet, has been shaped by Mozart's techniques and artistry. He takes pride in this influence, highlighting the importance of studying and learning from great masters in the field of music.
In practice
During a lecture on musical influences, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of learning from the great composers.
I never was very capable of expressing my feelings or emotions in words. I don't know whether this is the cause why I did it in music and also why I did it in painting. Or vice versa: That I had this way as an outlet. I could renounce expressing something in words.
There is still plenty of good music to be written in C major.
I am the slave of an internal power more powerful than my education.
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.
My music is not modern, it is merely badly played
My songs speak for themselves. The musicians who play on them and the way they sound and where they were recorded and the way they were recorded is the old Nashville way ... they sound as country or more country than a lot of things that are on country radio.
I never made beats to make beats; I only made them when there was a record to make them for. That's one of the things that has changed in hip-hop that's made me like it less. It feels much more like it's a producer-driven medium, where there are all these tracks that are completely interchangeable.
I don't really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I've done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgement with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose perspective on what you're doing and why you're doing it.
My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it.
So I asked him to play "Trav'lin' All Alone." That came closer than anything to the way I felt. And some part of it must have come across. The whole joint quieted down. If someone had dropped a pin, it would have sounded like a bomb. When I finished, everybody in the joint was crying in their beer, and I picked thirty-eight bucks up off the floor. . . . When I showed Mom the money for the rent and told her I had a regular job singing for eighteen dollars a week, she could hardly believe it.
I've never missed a gig yet. Music makes people happy, and that's why I go on doing it - I like to see everybody smile.
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