Musicians Quotations

Year after year, we see a new crop of musicians who do their best to look tough in lipstick and makeup. Maybe it's a cry for help, an admission of their strong feminine side, or the realization that they don't look so good any other way. Whatever the reason, makeup is as rock n' roll as a Marshall stack.

We didn't have lawyers and accountants. No one was watching out for our money. We'd go to the office and get money and go on our way. I was 19-20 years old then. I was stupid. I didn't know any better. We weren't getting our fair share of the money. That happens to young musicians all the time. It makes me mad when I think how stupid we were.

There's a lot of good musicians who are unheard of. Get it down before they pass away.

Musicians are often asked to answer for an entire culture, or for an entire movement. It's a process of commodification. It becomes packaged and summarized in a word like 'emo' or 'grunge'... or 'folk music.' I think that's just language itself, trying to understand the mysteries of the world.

For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.

I love music and I love musicians and when I hear something that's great, I always say it's like you go to a movie and you can't wait to tell your friends about it.

There's pride on Bourbon Street for the musicians that work there. They take it very seriously. I've never worked there or played in band there, but it's a part of the city. They play for the tourists and represent a whole different side of the culture of our city.

I'm sure there's a subconscious 'go for it' thing with turning 50. You want to do as much as possible and there are thoughts of how little time we have on the planet. For a lot of musicians in their 50s, the best days are behind them. I'd like to try and show that there is a future.

I think musicians have always been drinking and sharing a good wine. It is, I hate to say this, another form of vice.

Hamp would ask me about tempos in the band: 'Jacquet,' he'd say, 'knock off that tempo.' A lot of jazz musicians didn't prefer to play for dancers, which was their loss, really. But good jazz has always had that dance feel.

It's not an accident that musicians become musicians and engineers become engineers: it's what they're born to do. If you can tune into your purpose and really align with it, setting goals so that your vision is an expression of that purpose, then life flows much more easily.

It still amazes me how many musicians aren't really interested in engaging with their audience at all. Alfred Brendel, a pianist for whom I have the greatest respect, has described performance as a sacred communion between the artist and the composer. But what about the audience? Music is communication, a two-way street.

I record all night and sleep all day. It started because you're excited about the music and you want to stay up longer, but over 15 years, it's become a habit. In my circle, I think a lot of musicians operate like this. When the place is quiet, you're more creative. I have plenty of people I can call at 4 A.M. and know they'll be up.

I was raised in Topanga Canyon. It's an eclectic community up in the Santa Monica mountains. A lot of musicians lived there - Joni Mitchell, Neil Young - as well as artists and craftspeople.

When I'm on stage, it's such a spiritual moment that I hope, even when we hit 'Fallon,' you can feel that through the TV. I have this whole horn section that's part of New Power Generation; I have an amazing crew of musicians behind me. It's their energy, too.

From chain gangs to folk songs to intelligent soul, America has created musicians dedicated to truth, justice, and a better American Way.

It was physically difficult, adjusting to wheelchair life, but I remember a great relief and happiness that I was finally getting somewhere, finding musicians to work with that were sympathetic.

The Yankees, the first mechanicians in the world, are engineers - just as the Italians are musicians and the Germans metaphysicians - by right of birth. Nothing is more natural, therefore, than to perceive them applying their audacious ingenuity to the science of gunnery.

Being from Israel and a Jew is complex already, but with France, there is a freedom and a mix of culture. I have met musicians from all over the world.

I originally had opened the studio in New York to combine my two loves, music and design. And we created videos and packaging for many musicians that you know, and for even more that you've never heard of. As I realized, just like with many, many things in my life that I actually love, I adapt to it. And I get, over time, bored by them.

This weird thing that musicians have... it's got something to do with approval, and not feeling good enough, and therefore going out and being great somehow makes your life valid.

I've followed the lives of great musicians and have learned that you don't have to always write in pain. You have all of your past experiences, feelings, and thoughts that you can turn on when you need them and turn off when you don't.

Musicians play music because you love... I loved to play drums since I was five. It's all I ever wanted to do. Rock stars, or as we call them, posers, guys who want to just look great, dress great. They're not musicians; they're looking for the fame.

Sometimes being a musician has little to do with viability and everything to do with survivability. Many musicians start out great, and they wind up out of the business in 10 years.

A lot of musicians put diamonds on things to show they had money. I on the other had felt that Daytona showed I had style and I didn't need to be flashy.

I actually love Twitter and Instagram. I do think it's so strange to think that 20 years ago, people would never have known personal stuff about musicians and actors, but I like it. As long as I don't obsessively overshare, it's OK. And when I do overshare, it's just, like, me saying, 'I've got $7 in my bank account!'

I grew up in a house that was always happy, and my family was always music, music. I started playing percussion very young, because I had some uncles who were musicians and all my aunts were singers.

There are a lot of musicians in my life. But movies came first for me. That was my original passion.

A lot of young musicians in Stockholm are about keeping tradition alive and moving it forward at the same time.

I don't know what's more embarrassing, these musicians and actors talking about politics in interviews or the media actually giving them credibility about it. It's absurd that a celebrity could speak out on the economy or politics with no more justification than a hit album or a movie.

I enjoy seeing other Indian musicians - old and young - coming to Europe and America and having some success. I'm happy to have contributed to that.

When I was a kid, I used to listen to my Emerson radio late at night under the covers. I started by listening to jazz in the late 1940s and then vocal harmony groups like the Four Freshmen, the Modernaires and the Hi-Lo's. I loved Stan Kenton's big band - with those dark chords and musicians who could swing cool with individual sounds.

There are musicians who want to make a living making music. There are listeners who want to listen to music. Complicating this relationship is a whole bunch of history: some of the music I want to listen to was made a while ago in a different economy. Some of the models of making a living making music are no longer valid but persist.

With pop music and pop musicians, you know everything about everyone all the time, particularly their physical appearance. With female musicians, that's made a big thing of, and I think people, certainly with me, have appreciated a bit of mystery.

My brother had a house in Paris. To it came many Western classical musicians. These musicians all made the same point: 'Indian music,' they said, 'is beautiful when we hear it with the dancers. On its own, it is repetitious and monotonous.'

If you look at anyone at the top of their profession, there has to be something a little bit different. Some of the top musicians are quirky aren't they, to say the least. You have to be driven, cold, hard and mentally tough as iron. My missus thinks I'm a bit weird.

Marvin Gaye is an inspiration to me. He was one of the first Motown musicians that my mom and dad introduced me to, and I always thought it would be a good idea if I was ever an artist, and now I am, to make a record called 'Marvin Gaye.'

Musicians like James Blake were a big influence on me. How he uses his vocals is amazing. And then Yeasayer and Animal Collective, who aren't pop bands exactly, but they do something that is so catchy and undeniable and so much fun.

James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they're fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together.

My parents are both musicians and made sure we all played music. My brothers and sisters all play instruments, so we'll get together whenever we can and play. We play a lot of classical music - you know, the good stuff.

Some artists and indie musicians see Spotify fairly positively - as a way of getting noticed, of getting your music out there where folks can hear it risk-free.

Culture changes because of musicians and actors and actresses. There's a responsibility there. You may ignore the responsibility. You may choose to be a bad role model. But, you are a role model nonetheless.

The studio is really fun because I don't make it into the studio unless I've got something I really like. I love working with different musicians in the studio; that's a real joy, working with someone for the first time.

Same with anyone who's been flying for years and loves it still... we're part of a world we deeply love. Just as musicians feel about scores and melodies, dancers about the steps and flow of music, so we're one with the principle of flight, the magic of being aloft in the wind!

American musicians are very giving - they have the highest standard in the world - but they are also very demanding in their conditions.

If you ever go to a music session, you'll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they're reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.

Technology has given us convenience, but at the same time it's making musicians work harder in that if you really want to make money making music and selling albums, you have to go out there and perform. And hope you sell stuff like merch, and get on YouTube, and all the other ancillary sort of things that go along with that.

Performing live on stage is such a community, whether it's my musicians or a cast of a show that I'm in. And then when you're in the studio or on set, it's a much more solitary experience. Both can serve me at different times in my life. And when I go back and forth from one to the other, it helps me appreciate all of them much better.

My father was a painter. There was a lot of singing. We hung around with a lot of folk musicians. My family knew a lot of great folk musicians of the time, like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Leadbelly. They were all people we knew.

I actually started playing in little cafes around New York, and I have a lot of good friends of mine who are musicians who are struggling in New York.

Music and jazz musicians would develop into my repertoire. Jazz standards like these had great melodies written by great composers.

Musicians by and large make a living with a relationship with an audience that is economically harnessed through performance and ticket sales.

Musicians in New Orleans and the Central Gulf Coast need our help. And beyond the professional musicians, there are hundreds of churches, schools and community groups that lost their instruments and gear and simply do not have the funds to replace them. ... Together with the artists and with Gibson Guitars, we are able to make a real difference--not just for those individuals and groups whose instruments we replace, but for the health of the whole region.

Musicians know how special he was. There was never anyone else like him.

Musicians know that this area has been an amazing hotbed for singers and players.

Musicians never retire. We play every month for Bay Pines, and we play at the Sunshine Center near the Coliseum and at the Palladium.

Musicians today have gotten used to Protools, which I hate. You can go into the studio and not even be a musician, just start beating on stuff and they can take parts out of it, move it around and then you can sound like Slash. If you want some kind of weird feedback effect in the middle of a guitar solo, now they can just fly it in. You don't have to sit there and work at it like you did back in the day.

I was hanging out with Shooter, running the streets with the musicians who were really into their music. That's what made me feel good.

I would practice while listening to records or learn from musicians who were better than I was.

On Eye of the Zombie, I just got some studio musicians who were competent, but some of them weren't right for what I was trying to do.

New Orleans has been a musician's paradise. But if musicians start leaving, that cool vibrant music scene could be gone.

New Orleans musicians are also great entertainers. They bring excitement, and their music is definitely loosening up our town.

I got that same feeling ... the same kind of energy that we created with the original Return to Forever, but now we are more experienced as musicians and as human beings ... so we are much more aware of what we are playing now.

I'd like trios and quartets actually, but I like duos because a lot of musicians who I like playing with like playing duos.

I don't have words for this. The letters and notes I'm getting from around the country - the musicians in this country are shocked. They are floored by this decision. It upsets the world that we live in.

Maestro Behr was a dynamic conductor who worked so well with soloists, the chorus and the musicians of the orchestra, all of whom respected him greatly. He will be deeply missed.

Many of the artists and musicians were already committed to family gatherings or other concert appearances, ... All of us involved want to put on the best show possible, so we decided to reschedule.

Knight's performance will entertain the entire family. It may even inspire a few budding musicians to practice more.

has offered our musicians an extremely fair contract proposal. ... The contract includes increases in salary and benefits and fully protects the existing overtime system. They have rejected that proposal and walked away from the table.

I couldn't hear much, but didn't care. Until I saw the Beatles play live, I had no idea that musicians could generate that kind of adoration. I was transformed by the whole experience.

Funny, even though we're known as Philly musicians and our sound is predicated on that, I lived in Philly just four years, ... Then we both moved to NYC and lived there throughout the '70s and '80s.

I give it six months to a year before it starts swinging hard enough to bring tourists in so that (musicians) can make a living. I'm quite sure all of the musicians can't wait to get back to New Orleans and make that progress.

Certainly more experimentation was allowed or demanded in the past by both musicians and audiences. But music meant something different then, I think.

CBGB always gave musicians a platform to say important things, ... It's time we did something to save one of New York's great institutions.

I love art, and it plays a huge role in my life. It's definitely one of my greatest joys, and I'm a bit fanatical about certain painters and poets and musicians and sculptors.

He was listening to a lot of jazz and a lot of horn players. He was just real open with his playing and went places musically that other musicians weren't going. He would break out a whole vocabulary of licks that nobody else was doing on the fiddle.

He contributed to a new soundscape - a legacy that we will continue in his honour. He was a musical pioneer for the love of it and musicians everywhere have had the opportunity to expand their own creative horizons with Bob's inventions.

I always liked Tulsa music for its no-compromise attitude, as if the musicians were making it just for themselves, without regard to what other people would think of it.

He has a reputation of always surrounding himself with world-class musicians. Even if you don't play piano, no matter what instrument you play, there will be a bunch of world-class musicians on stage.

He was an entrepreneur. He was the one who hired the musicians and booked the sessions and he had the ear. He heard the Mamas and Papas and said yes, immediately, yes! And so he did have, I guess, that producer's gift.

I'm always trying to think of something clever and fun to do with the music. There's so many cool things musicians and artists can do with their products.

History's most treasured musicians were believed in and cultivated to reach their potential. Today, it would be difficult for those musicians to get deals. We have the insight and the tools to identify and bring to fruition the dormant talent that our artists possess.

If income was directly proportional to technical proficiency and education, classical and jazz musicians would be some of the most affluent people in the world

He is able to expose artists to a diverse crowd, and he gives many musicians of different styles and levels a chance.

We travel with musicians ranging in age from 18 to 70. When it comes to gospel music, they can do anything.

My son does not appreciate classical musicians such as the Stones; he is more into bands with names like "Heave" and "Squatting Turnips.

My manager and I had been talking about trying to do a TV show. There was a series of shows back in the '50s, where they'd get a bunch of musicians together and they'd jam.

London has changed since Pup started Annabel's, ... It was all terribly English, but now London is multicultural and we have tried to reflect that. Every six weeks we have a concert. We tend to have African musicians and that's brought in a more European crowd. We don't actually want it to become a celebrity haunt, though. There were all these stories that Jude and Sienna used to come here, but I don't think they ever have.

Martina had this inspiration. The musicians were really excited about it because they were getting to play a bunch of music that hasn't been recorded in 30 or 40 years. She really knows what she wants and how to get it.

I said, 'You're a good songwriter. It's not June with Spoon that you write. You're a good singer, and most musicians are probably a little bit nervous about covering your songs,'

Stealing another person's property is theft, it's against the law and breaking the law must carry consequences or no one will think twice. Theft undermines the ability of the music companies to invest in the new bands of tomorrow and deprives labels, songwriters and musicians of their hard-earned royalties.

Organizational improvisation ... Research on jazz musicians shows that people don't just pull stuff out of the air when they're improvising. These are people with an extremely wide knowledge of musical genres. They have always practiced and practiced and practiced. Similarly, improvising involves a deep understanding of the resources you have at hand in your community.

Our marvelous musicians will be ably guided into the magnificent new theatre under David's leadership.

Our musicians really wanted to help in some way.

People have their set impressions about the trumpet. It's either part of an orchestra, or it's played by one or two famous jazz musicians who are doing traditional music. But people are doing very creative things.

Kolkata is a musical city. What I like about people here is the lack of diplomacy. Some of the best Indian classical musicians belong to this place. Kolkatans do not go by fashion, but by passion.

Jazz is a music that translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not only the musicians but for the listeners.

I think the reason he was so well known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel. He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge.

John was very human and sometimes in the middle of the night he would say, 'Are you awake ?' and I would say, 'Yes, yes' and he said, 'You know, they always cover Paul's songs and never mine and I don't know why'. I said, 'You're a good songwriter, it's not June with Spoon that you write. You're a good singer and most musicians are probably a little bit nervous about covering your songs'.

It is exciting to have these great musicians perform at a dynamic performance venue like Long Island University's Kumble Theater. I am grateful to the University for providing the central Brooklyn community with access to world-class productions at the Kumble Theater.