Roger Scruton Quotes

Music is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune.

Music is a reservoir... of sounds.

The hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of.

What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.

If music leaves any impression at all, it does so without regard to stylistic issues.

My musical knowledge is so bad it's embarrassing. When composers discuss music with someone as primitive as myself, they have to talk about it in terms of senses and emotion, rather than keys and tempo.

The moment at which music reveals its true nature is contained in the ancient exercise of the theme with variations. The complete mystery of music is explained right there.

Music has a poetry of its own, and that poetry is called melody.

With few exceptions, music has been for some centuries the art which has devoted itself not to the reproduction of natural phenomena, but rather to the expression of the artist's soul, in musical sound.

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.

Music is real; it's something you can touch and feel.

From a very early period of my life I have derived the highest enjoyment from listening to music, especially to melody, which is to me the most pleasing form of composition.

Music, of almost any kind, always made sense to me.

Here's how I understand music. If you can play the same bunch of noise twice, it's music. To go beyond that is supercilious and pontificating.

The real architecture happens within the works themselves, and that was done by the composer. That's where the real skill is. In putting together a program, you're more a curator, but that's important as well. And then the interpreting of it is where our big job is.

Trying to describe something musical is like dancing to architecture, it's really difficult.

Many, many composers have only found their way to a certain form, through familiarizing themselves with texts.

Composers are the only people who can hear good music above bad sounds.

The relation between practical and spiritual spheres in music is obvious, if only because it demands ears, finger, consciousness and intellect.

Music is intended and designed for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions.

The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.

Music has a lot in com­mon with math­e­mat­ics. But in music, two and two need not make four: they add up to what­ever you wish.

When it comes to songs and music, yeah, people love to sing and dance and play music and tunes, and that stream of consciousness that exists in music, nobody knows where that comes from.

There's a song", I say. "There's always a song", he says.

Some people think a song without words isn't a real song. Tell that to Beethoven and he'll kick your ass!