Quotes on Music

Life is not logic, life is not philosophy. Life is a dance, a song, a celebration! It is more like love and less like logic.

I try to make clothes the way Lou Reed does music, with minimal chord changes. It's about giving everything I make a worn, softened feel. It's about an elegance being tinged with the barbaric, the luxury of not caring.

The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.

I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.

Well, the way I play, I try not to be a 'repeater pencil', ya dig? Originality's the thing. You can have tone and technique and a lot of other things but without originality you ain't really nowhere. Gotta be original.

The score is not a bible, and I am never afraid to dare. The music is behind those dots.

O soul, be patient: thou shalt find A little matter mend all this; Some strain of music to thy mind, Some praise for skill not spent amiss.

Technically, I'm not a guitar player, all I play is truth and emotion.

I used to play flute and clarinet at school, and although I wasn't thinking about making a living or getting a pay cheque, I already knew I was going to play music all my life.

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.

Lenny Breau is one of the true geniuses of the guitar. I suppose he is a musician's musician. His knowledge of the instrument and the music is so vast, and I think that's what knocks people out about him. But he's such a tasty player too. I think if Chopin had played guitar, he would have sounded like Lenny Breau.

I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.

When I saw Jimi Hendrix I knew immediately that this guy was the real thing ... and when he played it was like a rough sketch of what he was going to become ... this guy was our generation, and he wasn't in a suit .. he played a Howlin' Wolf song 'Killing Floor', and then we (The Cream) had to carry on the set. It was pretty hard to follow.

There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.

We didn't have music videos. You weren't an overnight sensation. You had to work at it and learn your craft: how to take care of your voice, how to pace your concerts, all that trial and error.

I wanted to emulate music from America - young punks playing rock n' roll is what it was. I read part of Keith Richards' autobiography, and it was totally parallel with me, learning from American records.

"Music, for me, has always been a place where anything is possible--a refuge, a magical world where anyone can go, where all kinds of people can come together, and anything can happen. We are limited only by our imaginations.

Joao Gilberto on guitar could read a newspaper and sound good.

You have to open the music, so to speak, and see what's behind the notes because the notes are the same whether it is the music of Bach or someone else.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.