Michael Tilson Thomas Quotes

I didn't have a philosophical understanding of music until I came to New York. I didn't understand how it applied to my kind and my generation. I thought it was just old people talking.

I really want younger audience members to see kids in their early 20's playing Frank's music and to be inspired to take things to a higher level themselves.

I went to school for folk music back when I was a teenager and learned hundreds of songs.

I am permanently a student of people who make great songs, but besides sort of learning by absorption, I just love listening to music, hearing what's going on, hearing new things or new old things.

Naturally, no one knows more about music than musicians. They talk about their own work all the time, but they rarely get to talk about other people's music.

The reality of music itself, which is the fabric of life for me, is where most of my attention is.

In the United States, we spend millions of dollars on sports because it promotes teamwork, discipline, and the experience of learning to make great progress in small increments. Learning to play music does all this and more.

I studied classical music for a year. Then, I studied jazz for a year at the New School, and then I got kicked out. You had to go to your class, so I don't know if that counts as studying. I didn't study jazz. I was supposed to.

Music is an element that should be part and parcel of every child's life via the education system.

I don't have any hobbies. Music is my hobby.

I have to say I have an incredible musical education because of my father.

And my career, the things that have happened have happened because of my music education background.

I have always been into music. That's my number one passion.

First of all I listen to music. I like music.

My husband is a former rocker and in charge of our humungous music collection, and I've recently been asking him for classical music.

My father was the proprietor of a music shop on Forty-third Street, where many of the finest performers and musicians of the day would come to shop. He knew the classical repertoire inside out.

Musicians like to converse. There's always interesting conversation with musicians - with classical musicians, with jazz musicians, musicians in general.

I came through folk music simply because it was easy to get into it.

When I was a teenager, I learned to play the trumpet. Music became my passion.

Just so people know, the Silverlake Conservatory of Music is not at all about celebrity or fame or being a star. It's an academic music school.

My dad always played a lot of music, so I heard him playing all the time, and then I decided that I wanted to learn to play guitar, so I got an acoustic and started taking lessons. I wanted to be able to shred like Yngwie Malmsteen.

The British may not know much about music, but they certainly loves the noise it makes.

I wasn't very aware of pop music because I attended an arts school. For me, it was all about jazz.

The more I got into playing guitar, the more I enjoyed music, and the broader my listening became. The instrument itself became important to me, and I started messing around with classical guitar and took classical lessons.

I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.