Musical Theory Quotes

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.

I had classical training but I don't consider myself an opera singer though.

I started out being quite an eclectic composer, not quite sure where to fit in. I tried my hand a bit at everything, except perhaps music with lyrics.

I was always into classical music and opera because I played the piano as I went through school and was very interested in Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and stuff like that. That changed into heavy metal at around the age of 14 or 13, and I dropped the piano and started to play the guitar.

Music, also, the architect ought to understand so that he may have knowledge of the canonical and mathematical theory, and besides be able to tune ballistae , catapultae, and scorpiones to the proper key. For to the right and left in the beams are the holes in the frames through which the strings of twisted sinew are stretched by means of windlasses and bars, and these strings must not be clamped and made fast until they give the same correct note to the ear of the skilled workman.

It took me five years to learn how to sing.

I learned tabla for three years when in school, then started picking up the basics of the acoustic guitar when in college.

Studying music involves a lot of mathematics and a lot of exercises of memory. Or you've got to be able to be like somebody, to play like somebody, to play Mozart's music the way he played it and how he intended it. You've got to make it perfect, and that's not what I want to do. Although it is beautiful.

My dad had a guitar that he gave me. I went to Walmart and bought a chord chart and hung it up in my room, and I was just trying to figure out how to play the guitar and put words with what I was learning.

I've never been much of a guitarist. I mean, I've played forever, but I was always more of a rhythm kind of guy. I don't read music.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

When I think of music, I think of music in totality, complete.

To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.

I did a lot of engineering things, like taking apart my brother's model car when I was 10. I also played the piano for about 10 years. I auditioned for Juilliard but didn't get in.

I usually think in terms of music.

The key to longevity is to learn every aspect of music that you can.

The thing about music is it's not an obscure pursuit, it's a very natural thing for human beings to do. Once you put in the effort, the learning curve is very fast.

I was always playing the Hammond Organ back to front even during the days of the Nice, going back to 1968. Really what I was doing there, was choosing notes at random and trying to make some sense of them, improvising back to front.

After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument.

Everyone to me has to pick a subject to talk about in music if you're going to be a writer.

When you make music, you're forming these invisible vibrations in the air into different shapes and consistencies and speeds in order to create music, and understanding how the math of that works just gives you more colors to paint with, and allows you to get to what you want quicker.

I think I'm a songwriter. I grab an instrument to make my body a song, but I'm not a player as such, maybe a little more on guitar, but certainly not piano.

I am pretty well versed in the knowledge of music.

Business logic and musical logic are utterly incompatible.

I am certain that most composers today would consider today's music to be rich, not to say confusing, in its enormous diversity of styles, technical procedures, and systems of esthetics.