Quotes on Music

I think the idea is now for blacks to write about the history of our music. It's time for that, because whites have been doing it all the time. It's time for us to do it ourselves and tell it like it is.

That's what my music does for me. It makes people happy. When I play, I thank the Lord I've never seen someone walk away from a Dick Dale dance not having a good time. That's what it's all about.

If people would like to come to my concerts I'd love them to come. And if they like the music that I make, I love that too. But I do not make music for other people. I make it to please myself.

Our species uses music and dance to express various feelings: love, joy, comfort, ceremony, knowledge, and friendship. And each one is distinct and widely recognized within cultures. Love songs cause us to move slowly and fluidly, for example, while songs of joy inspire us to dance in a full-body aerobic way.

I would like to be a terrorist for music education - to make a complete reform, all over the world.

Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism.

I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there.

In a way, I feel it might be ill-mannered to try and top myself. The music I play is a ritual. Something that matters to people in a special way. I wouldn't want to interfere with that.

Music reflects the time that it's being made in, and so certainly, the music that's being made in 1986 by a 14-year-old kid will reflect some magic of 1986 for him if he's an inspired and creative musician.

I enjoy playing the band as the band. I 'be' the whole band and I'm playing the drums, I'm playing the guitar, I'm playing the saxophone. To me, the most wonderful thing about playing music is that.

I think there's enough room in country music for everybody.

Ever since I was a kid, this was all I wanted to do. I've wanted to do music. I wanted to sing. It's all I know.

When I started working on ambient music, my idea was to make music that was more like painting.

Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

I don't know how to function without music. When I'm not making it, I'm listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.

I can only think of music as something inherent in every human being - a birthright. Music coordinates mind, body and spirit.

I live in a country where music has very little success, though, exclusive of those who have forsaken us, we have still admirable professors and, more particularly, composers of great solidity, knowledge, and taste.

I would pass this music store on the way to school, and there was a clarinet in the window, a second-hand one. And I kept asking my parents to buy it, and eventually they did. I still have it now.

I'm trying to do music which inspires the desire to transcend politics, which has a limited and selfish and egoist and unknowledgable end about what anyone knows about existence.

It is important for the musician to learn as much about the composer as possible and to study the music he has written. Then, even a short piece by Brahms or Chopin can be played with much more understanding.

My mother had no idea that her daughter would turn out to be a writer, but she would not let me go through a day of my childhood without music.