Top 676 Musical Quotes

In this post, you will find great Musical Quotes from famous people, such as Steve Vai, Rod Stewart, Alan Lightman, James Young, Russell M. Nelson. You can learn and implement many lessons from these quotes.

Most people are fascinated to see someone play an instr

Most people are fascinated to see someone play an instrument in an inspired way. We are moved by witnessing musical brilliance, and it was this notion that led me to purchase the GuitarTV domain 10 years ago.
My musical taste has always been wide. I started out as a folky before I moved on to blues and soul.
I still will sit down at the piano and play when I am wrestling with something emotionally or just want to move into the musical world.
And I saidStyx – as a musical group it is our place to reflect the light that is shining on us back onto this place and say – this is where so much great stuff started.
While musical experts of the world focus on what choir members can do, I would like to focus on what choir members can be.
I would love to do a big-budget movie musical – I feel like there is one big musical movie a year. And I’m always there at the theater to see them – I love them.
Autumn Reeser
I definitely wasn’t cool in high school. I really wasn’t. I did belong to many of the clubs and was in leadership on yearbook and did the musical theater route, so I had friends in all areas. But I certainly did not know what to wear, did not know how to do my hair, all those things.
By 1969, when I celebrated 45 years in the music business, I also had 45 people in our musical family.
Running is very rhythmic, and I have written a lot of lyrics while out running. It’s a very musical exercise, and sometimes I like to sing when I run. Your whole body is doing the same thing.
To me, music shouldn’t be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you’re sitting in a room, writing songs, it’s a completely different process. It’s a completely different place. It’s a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.
I have been portrayed by actors in three television documentaries, two plays, one musical and a film. It’s no fun watching yourself being traduced and imitated by an actor.
I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He’s not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.
On the musical side, I always wanted to kind of carry on Pink Floyd‘s sound. You know, Pink Floyd always had such an original, creative and masterful sound, but there are no new albums. My thought was that there’s a way to keep their sound alive.
The blues is a mighty long road. Or it could be a river, one that twists and turns and flows into a sea of limitless musical potential.
Billy Gibbons
One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture – some might say the supremely important aspect – is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past.
George Crumb
I was a jazz major in high school, in an all-jazz band. No matter what I do, it features my musical influences.
I have intentionally not pursued musical theater.
But I mean, again, Zappa’s far more musical than the Bonzos ever were.
Neil Innes
My musical career was an accident.
When I was younger, I had a much better connection between words and music. Somewhere along the way, I had kind of an aspiration to disconnect them, to just kind of go into a totally musical world.
Edgar Meyer
I have to say I have an incredible musical education because of my father.
I’m asthmatic. I was a lot bigger back then, and I still get winded on stage today. But I’ve learned how to pace it now. I have musical breaks in there.
Meat Loaf
I remember seeing the first Astaire-Rogers musical on television, and I couldn’t believe how beautiful it was. It dawned on me that you don’t have to wear a cowboy hat to be a man.
Edward Herrmann
First and foremost, play what you love to play. Don’t try to jump on a bandwagon or a trend or a popular musical craze.
I can go out raw with nothing, and my fans would still be happy, but I feel that I owe it to them to give them almost like a Broadway musical at this point in my life. I have to give them something more, so I do have to think of different ways to do it.
Perhaps two million years ago the creatures of a planet in some remote galaxy faced a musical crisis similar to that which we earthly composers face today.
George Crumb
I don’t regret any of the musical decisions I have made.
In the course of transferring all my CDs to my iPod, I have found myself wandering the musical hallways of my past and reacquainting myself with music I haven‘t listened to in years.
There’s a bunch of cities I’m not crazy about, but I love Chicago. I love the musical history – the mid-’90s indie rock scene, Chicago house music. It’s a great town.
Lyrics can’t do what they do – or should do – when you’re creating a musical with rock lyrics. There’s plenty of room for rock musicals, just not all rock musicals.
The designs were based on quite a lot of research of what a movie musical is, filtered through the eyes of today. If we’d gone strictly with the ’20s, the movement would have been impaired.
I teach musical theater three days a week at the school

I teach musical theater three days a week at the school that my wife and I graduated from.
Drew Lachey
I’ve made three musical movies which is pretty good considering that not many are made but I was lucky in other ways. I came along when independent movies were starting to boom.
I got the regular call, that they were doing a Broadway musical of Hairspray, and would I come and audition. I was familiar with the movie, because at the time it came out my lover wrote for Premiere magazine, and we had to see everything.
And the invention of transformations of certain figures has become the most important in musical composition.
When I was in high school, I was a bad singer. I mean, all my early acting was musical theater, and my first ever show was ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’ Everyone’s familiar with it. I played priest number 3 and sang so out of tune that it’s not even funny.
Then when I got to Hollywood, the first musical I did was Festival in 1977.
I went into musical theatre, which I’m not really cut out for – I’m not as skilled at it as other people.
Well I had a musical background, but I still didn’t know a lot about drums at the time.
We all love musical architecture; there’s no doubt about that.
My skills are musical, not lyrical.
In college, I actually majored in Musical Theater. I was pursuing a BFA in Musical Theater.
Grant Gustin
The world must be filled with unsuccessful musical careers like mine, and it’s probably a good thing. We don’t need a lot of bad musicians filling the air with unnecessary sounds. Some of the professionals are bad enough.
What’s missing in the musical theater is producers willing to nurture new work, raise the money and put it on.
Our live shows are a visual as well as a musical experience.
The way I look at it, they’re all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.
John Mayall
Everybody in our family studied a musical instrument. My father was really big on that. Somehow I only took a year or two of piano lessons and I convinced my father to let me take dancing lessons.
Back when I was in theater school, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, ‘Sweeney Todd’ was a huge touchstone for me, my favorite musical for sure.
I wanted to pay tribute to my musical influences: Buffalo Springfield, Lightfoot, the Beatles, the Hollies.
Dan Fogelberg
‘The Sound of Music’ is one of my favourite old musical films.
Hiromi Uehara
I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt mass production, just like most of my movies were.
But I love how people who are musical, they know how to dress.
I’m trained in musical theatre and ‘Pitch Perfect’ is the first movie where I get to really belt out. I beat Adele for that role.
I know, it’s weird that I’ve never done a musical. I turned down two of them. ‘The Lion King’ and ‘The Producers.’ I turned two of the biggest Broadway musicals down, am I a mess?
Mario Cantone
Music is my passion, singing, performing. I play piano and musical theater is my background.
Janel Parrish
How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.
So many people have told me that ‘Wicked‘ is their first musical ever and that they’re hooked for life. I’m like, ‘Wow, you really got it right when you picked this show to be your first one.’
Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.
When was the last time you saw a musical about people at war with each other?
I grew up listening to Steve Martin and Robin Williams, so I didn’t ever intend to be a musical comedian. I sort of stumbled into it.
Wherever your musical interest takes you, whether it’s just in your garage or in your shower, never forget why you started. Keep that first and foremost in your mind.
I totally love to act. I don't care if it's a musical,

I totally love to act. I don’t care if it’s a musical, a comedy. I just like to work and interact with other people.
I don’t think the Bonzo Dog could have evolved in America, nor could the old Nice: because of their musical discipline. This is one thing that British groups do have, a sort of discipline. Sometimes it can get a bit soulless, but on the whole I think it’s preferable to the American alternative.
Jon Lord
The late 20th century had just enough communication abilities to allow superstar-ness and communality to happen. It was a musical renaissance that rivals the visual one that happened in the 1400s.
To her audience, Janis Joplin has remained a symbol, artifact and reminder of late Sixties youth culture. Her popularity never derived from her musical ability, but from her capacity to link her fantasies of freedom and immortality with ours.
I feel that I speak the musical language.
Marsha Norman
Musical auditions are always the worst because you have to sing and act, and that’s so stressful.
When you hear someone from the very north of Scotland speaking, I think its nice, very musical and harmonious.
I don’t want to do something unproductive with my time, so I decided to do something musical. So it felt good to say, ‘Yeah, I’m producing.’ It gave me a fresh vibeinspiring in a different way.
The issue I had with the Lightspeed albums was that usually the main purpose with them was to fulfil really dorky musical goals, like, ‘I wonder if I can do that,’ and it was all very personal. It was more that once I’d finished the goal of what the song was, I was kind of done. It was like ticking boxes.
You know when you throw a party, you think people will show up and no one will like each other. It’s like that with music – parts of your musical psyche have never met other parts. You wonder if you should get them together.
I studied Shakespeare at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City, and ‘Orange‘ was my first audition ever for TV or film.
As we get older… I don’t know a single person who has devoted their life to musical theatre who hasn’t had a couple of misses as well as a bunch of hits. The misses, we learn a great deal from them.
Maury Yeston
The musical heritage of Yorkshire is deep and wide.
Lesley Garrett
People who take risks like Amy Winehouse and Norah Jones take a second to catch on, but eventually they do because they’re different and honest in a musical landscape that’s not always like that.
I’ve had offers for Broadway and Hollywood musicals, but I do not want to take just any musical. I want the musical that’s right for me when I’m right for it.
I thought my life would seem more interesting with a musical score and a laugh track.
Musical theatre is something I’m familiar with, I’ve been doing that.
David Naughton
Digital music boils down the actual musical experience.
Simon Le Bon
I had an edge in ‘Andhadhun’ because, being a musician, I knew how to play a guitar, so it was not difficult for me to learn a musical instrument.
I had a teacher senior year in high school. He was a theater teacher, and he basically was a little bit like ‘High School Musical.’ He kind of encouraged the jocks to get involved with the plays. I did it as kind of a senior year lark.
I love ‘Guitar Hero’ because I love music, but I have no musical ability whatsoever. So I love a game that makes you feel like you’re a rock star.
Searching for music is like searching for God. They’re very similar. There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable, all those things, comes into being a composer and to writing music and to searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.
The blues is like a planet. It’s an enormous topic. You can’t ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It’s a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don’t know where I would be. It’s indelible and indispensable.
It’s easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.
Johann Sebastian Bach
I’d love to do a film like ‘Chicago.’ Something musical because I’ve obviously come from that background.
I grew up doing musical theatre in Orlando, Florida. When I was 14, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time – a deliveryman heard me singing and offered to deliver my demo tape to Sony Music. I was just really lucky.
I have thought about some kind of musical involving my music. That would be kind of interesting. I have thought of it in that way, as a creator of something, not so much a performer. So that’s in my head.
The problem is that I don’t want to add another record to the world that is not necessary to be published, except to make some business. There has to be a musical reason.
School was pretty good about letting me take up music and that’s where I had my first musical ideas and first said, ‘Yeah, I’m going to be a musician.’ I just had to do a quick stop gap in the army first.
I play a percussion instrument, not a musical saw; it needs no amplification. Where it’s needed, they put a microphone in front of the bass drum. But, I don’t think it’s necessary to play that way every night.
I think there’s something strangely musical about noise.
Don't know about a cabaret act right now, would actuall

Don’t know about a cabaret act right now, would actually prefer a role in a broadway musical.
Julia Barr
I really feel confident about my dancing now, so I hope there could be a place for me in the West End or on Broadway – maybe a musical, maybe my own show.
I wanted to be an actor because I wanted to be onstage. I wanted to do musical theater, and from that I realized I was interested in plays. I never imagined myself on television. I was so lucky to be onstage my whole life.
My musical roots and inspiration lie not in rock n’ roll or metal music, but first and foremost in classical music, balalaika, and in underground house music.
My mom was an amazing singer and music was a big part of my life, so I grew up listening to Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini; I used to watch ‘The Andy Williams Show’ on TV. I was very musical, so I was watching stuff that most kids my age wouldn’t be interested in.
Basically, I’m a musical vocalist, but I do voiceover stuff as a sideline, like plumbing or something.
I grew up in a musical family, but nobody was a professional musician.
Quality is timeless: It will clearly define itself. And so I make reference to and acknowledge things that I feel have been dismissed, trying to restate those musical and cultural elements clearly and vehemently.
Some are blessed with musical ability, others with good looks. Myself, I was blessed with modesty.
I’ve never considered musical equipment very sacred.
I wouldn’t succeed at musical theater.
I’m a Mexican girl from California, and I never grew up thinking I could be in a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. I didn’t really see myself in that. Not that I didn’t grow up loving Rodgers and Hammerstein, but I don’t know – I just never put myself there.
My dream artists to collaborate with are probably Cee Lo Green and Imogen Heap. They’re completely out of my genre but they’re both musical geniuses.
Kina Grannis
I try not to get trapped in any one musical or visual style at all.
Physical comedy and musical theatre were never actually in my main focus at school. I was more of a dramatic actor. I always thought I was better at that.
Pop managers are fixed in the dramatic stock character repertoire too, ever since the first British pop film musical, Wolf Mankowitz’s ‘Expresso Bongo’ of 1959, with Cliff Richard as Bongo Herbert and Laurence Harvey as his manager. The key components were cast as X parts gay, X parts Jewish and triple X opportunistic.
I would love to do a musical. I would love that. I would have to find the right book, the right story, but some day I’m going to make one. I would really like to go off and direct a musical. That’s what I would really like to do when I grow up.
Nobody else in the world has a form like the Native American musical, and Americans should be very proud.
I would do a movie musical.
We decided we didn’t want to do a musical for TV because the idea of writing a musical that would be seen on television once seems insane.
My musical director, Mark Cherry, is the most wonderful person who ever lived on God’s good green Earth. He’s my director, he does the arrangements. Really, he does everything – including certain janitorial chores!
Brett Somers
Revolt is designed to be a home for the next generation of musical artists, and we are investing in the artists and fans of the future. Revolt is for artists, by artists. This won’t just be the P. Diddy network.
The band is a living, breathing thing. It grows in the same way we do as human beings and if it doesn’t, it dies. It’s important to feed the organism, and one way of doing that is to set musical challenges that keep it alive.
I did musical theatre for about four years. One time, I did six shows in one year whilst juggling school.
Musical theater is one of my passions.
I’ve studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.
Tony Williams
I used to do puppet theatre and also mime and musical theatre in Florida for competitions and festivals, which was great. I was very much involved in theatre when I was in college.
To me, the musical is best when it’s a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that’s what the musical does best.
I had an older brother who was very interested in literature, so I had an early exposure to literature, and and theater. My father sometimes would work in musical comedies.
The first musical sound I ever heard was from a banjo. My father played, and I was an infant in a crib, and something just stayed with me from those early days.
How many chances to you get to make a musical about a serial killer? The minute Tim Burton approached me, I was in.
Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images,

Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images, but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.
With Australian audiences, there’s a certain level of education – as far as how much access and exposure they have to music from various genres. So when you do ‘Big Day Out’ and there are all these different musical acts, you see the same people in your crowd that were there for a completely different artist.
Essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
Terry Riley
‘Evita’ was four pieces of slick paper and a record album. It’s the most scary, to sit down and dictate a musical scene by scene. It was a musical unlike anything I’d ever seen before myself.
Flying Down to Rio’ established RKO as a leader in musical film production throughout the 1930s. The film helped to rescue the studio from its financial straits and it gave a real boost to my movie career.
I worked on scores. I went to the musical library in Berlin which is very famous. I discovered that we had scores of Beethoven, printed scores of Beethoven, that are full of mistakes. Not the wrong or false notes, but the wrong dynamic, understandable things.
I had trouble fitting in, in a musical sense. A lot of drummers get sidetracked by the instrument. It can engulf you.
Tre Cool
I was drawing before I did music, but me, I’m a dilettante. I jump into everything until I find one thing that I enjoy more than others. Rap was something that was always there because my brother used to rap – piano and musical instruments is something I learnt on the way.
I can’t draw a stick person. I can’t play a musical instrument. But I’ve always had a knack for making money.
I’m no ethnomusicologist. There is a connection between the five-note scale used both in traditional Chinese music and the blues, but I don’t really understand it. All I know is, whenever I play with Chinese musicians, we seem to belong to the same musical gene pool.
I was surprised to find that I missed doing the musical.
Allegiance‘ is pretty much a book musical. You know, people talk and then they burst out into song.
Punk was more based on social change than on music, so it didn’t bother me too much. It wasn’t really a musical threat.
As a movie-goer, I really like to watch all different kinds of movies and, as an actor, I always feel like I could do pretty much anything but a musical.
There is a lot of musical pollution in the film industry.
I’m doing a play, a musical. The musical follows the Mamma Mia concept. It’s my first LA theater project.
Tatyana Ali
I would definitely say that I am a very big movie musical fan in general, and I try to see every one that I possibly can – and ‘Glee‘ every week.
I don’t want to work on a musical if I’m not the lyricist.
David Lindsay-Abaire
If I could play any role in any musical, it would be Desiree in ‘A Little Night Music’ – Oh my, it is perfection. The character gets to be funny, beautiful, sexy and smart all at the same time and have two men fighting over her. The show is Stephen Sondheim at his absolute best… need I say more?
Nancy Allen
My own musical ambitions were born when I was five, watching the Ed Sullivan Show on TV. When Elvis Presley burst on to the screen, singing ‘Don’t Be Cruel,’ I felt my first sexual thrill, though I didn’t know what it was at the time.
The musical has always been in jeopardy – until – or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.
I’ve been reading scripts where they’ve been doing a lot of singing now, but within the dark, realistic story line. I would love, love, love, love to do that. But not a musical on Broadway, I don’t have that kind of energy or stamina.
Whenever Disney asks if you want to do a fairy tale musical, you say yes.
The south is very focused on family… the musical heritage of Muscle Shoals especially and the bands from the region.
I kind of go for the MGM version of every musical style.
Musical shows are really popular because there are lots of talented kids out there that can sing and dance.
Justin Chambers
It really surprises me that people in this day and age still write such busy music and fill up every space with layer upon layer of sound… it’s like musical landfill.
James Blake
My musical tastes change every week.
If there is a good musical reason, I think it might draw more attention and sell, though it is not guaranteed. To make a record without a musical reason, you have to either be a pop star who sells automatically or just be lucky.
Actually John, Paul Rutherford, and Trevor Watts, and several other rather well known English jazz musicians had got their training by joining the Air Force, which was a pretty standard way for people to get some kind of musical education in those days.
I didn’t start auditioning until my 10th birthday when I auditioned for ‘Matilda’ The Musical in London! It was actually the first time I realized that it was a career I could pursue.
The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly Americ

The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly American innovation in the history of theater.
If you’re dealing with a musical in which you’re trying to tell a story, it’s got to sound like speech. At the same time it’s got to be a song.
My grandad’s a gospel singer, and his children were singers, too. But I don’t believe in God in the same way… not religion; it breaks us up too much. The same with musical styles – it breaks people up. I believe they are all one thing – why not put them together?
Being in a different band always brings great musical experiences to be able to draw on.
There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.
Phil Ochs
And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.
I regard myself as a beautiful musical instrument, and my role is to contribute that instrument to scripts worthy of it.
I don’t care if Margot is a Dame of the British Empire or older than myself. For me she represents eternal youth; there is an absolute musical quality in her beautiful body and phrasing. Because we are sincere and gifted, an intense abstract love is born between us every time we dance together.
Rudolf Nureyev
Education is more than Pisa. Particularly musical education. We also need education and training for more than reasons of usefulness and marketability.
Johannes Rau
You know, my family is very musical, I was surrounded by it. And from four years old I was the one that asked my mother could I take piano lessons.
To my mind and ear, there is simply nothing that compares to the musical sophistication of a late Beethoven, Bartok, Schubert or Brahms work for minimal forces.
At one point when I was very young, when I was first starting out, I thought, ‘Well, one day I’ll be able to put all the music away and become a real comedian.’ But then I realized there are amazing musical comedians out there, that musical comedy is probably something I’ll always want to pursue.
I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridised.
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.
Art Blakey
I’m always looking for a kind of new musical entity to sort of move into a motion picture venue.
I’m very interested in music, but I was not born musical. I honestly do think some people have the knack. I can’t play an instrument. I’m a terrible singer. I’m not about to launch my album!
I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.
I love musical theatre because I love doing a live performance eight times a week.
I’ve never really been a confident person, except from a musical standpoint. I had to push myself early on, but it got easier with each gig.
Speaking purely from a musical standpoint, I think I am a great performer.
In no instance is there to be a musical or opera of Inherit the Wind because it doesn’t sing. It’s an intellectual play.
Jerome Lawrence
No one should be allowed to make music as if he were made of wood. One must reproduce the musical text exactly, but not play like a stone.
Olivier Messiaen
I just know so many people who have six or seven foreign languages and have read everything and have musical training and they are still dorks.
Joseph Epstein
I got started as an actress doing musical theater, and I always loved ‘Grease‘ and ‘West Side Story,’ and all those kind of movies.
There are two kinds of success. One is musical or artistic and the other is commercial.
My mom thought I could dance because I used to dance to this Janet Jackson song she’d play when I was a baby. Then she would take me to a Saturday dance school. I used to go every week and got spotted by a scout, who suggested I audition for the role of Billy in ‘Billy Elliot the Musical.’
It’s nice to stay up nights worrying about the material, and not about the investors who gave you $10 million to do your musical.
Whether it be personal or musical, I just think I’m a walking art piece, just a ball of creativity.
But I feel music has a very important role in ritual activity, and that being able to join in musical activity, along with dancing, could have been necessary at a very early stage of human culture.
My dad is a very quick-witted, sarcastic, dry, humorous guy, whereas my mom’s very silly, and that side of the family is very musical.
When I was at Stratford, the very first thing that I was commissioned to work on was trying to make a musical out of the documentary material about the General Strike, which was the next big historical event in England, after the First World War.
The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesn't

The true self seeks release, not constraint. It doesn’t want to be corseted in a sonnet or made to learn a system of musical notations. It wants liberation, which is why very often it fastens on the novel, for the novel seems spacious, undefined, free.
Yes, indeed, in fact I would tell you that we go out of our way to be true to the original feeling and sort of sonic and musical pallet that we painted with back then.
I went through my adolescence having this revelatory experience – I can have any music I want, and I can get it immediately. For me and for a lot of people I know, there’s this musical eclecticism that happened.
We’ve got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater.
I don’t like rock. Honestly, I like to listen to it, but it’s not for me. There’s a lot of musical genres that I find interesting, but they don’t suit me. It’s one thing to listen to different genres, but to perform a genre that isn’t yours is counterproductive.
Luis Miguel
Jazz is a very democratic musical form. It comes out of a communal experience. We take our respective instruments and collectively create a thing of beauty.
Max Roach
I’ve always been singing. Since day one. I started doing musical theater and you have to sing in musical theater and so that’s where I got most of my training. So singing on stage, you just inevitably, when you’re around other vocal artists, you get better at singing.
I thought about going onto the first one, Pop Idol. My mum was saying, ‘Go on!’ But I decided not to. ‘The X Factor,’ though, doesn’t really seem to be a show about musical talent anymore.
I believe that the brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to different kinds of content in the world. Language content, musical content, spatial content, numerical content, etc.
I think I was affected quite a bit by musical and creative influences that go all the way back to my childhood.
Stand-up is my heart and now I get a chance to do that and the music altogether. That’s going to be great. I’m trying to be the Sammy Davis Jr. of 2005. I’m planning on going out with Cedric the Entertainer because he’s got that musical bone, too.
To be recognized and accepted by my musical peers is truly an honor.
A lot of people told me that I’m committing musical suicide with my sound.
There will always be a part of me that wants to do a movie musical. I feel like you’re doing yourself a disservice when you say something like that, because you never know if that thing is gonna come along and be right, but I’d be lying if I said that that wasn’t true.
I believe in using the entire piano as a single instrument capable of expressing every possible musical idea.
Oscar Peterson
How do I put this? ‘Glee’ is like ‘High School Musical’ if ‘High School Musical’ had its stomach punched and its lunch money stolen.
I enjoyed acting growing up; I did musical theater. I had a secret desire to be a television and movie actress, but it wasn’t something I admitted to myself that I wanted to do, I guess.
Every year I go to Broadway to see a musical – I like the music. I saw ‘Mamma Mia;’ I saw ‘Les Miserables;’ I saw ‘Phantom of the Opera’ like six, seven times.
My father always wanted me to play a musical instrument, and I never had that type of skill.
I like to work with artists who are as wide in their musical taste as I am.
Jim Sullivan
I’d love to do a musical. I have a little list of them in my head.
Swoosie Kurtz
I tried singing. I tried playing a musical instrument. I really wanted to be a musician, but I never could quite pull that off. I liked entertaining, but I was always drawn to some kind of technical work – some kind of honest labor.
Bill Cobbs
First of all, I think that is true, if you are a musician, particularly on the come, that you do have to end up in one of these musical centers, some way, to be viable, saleable and so on.
John Sebastian
Genius is a word too often tossed around in musical circles.
Stanley Jordan
With ‘Acid Rap,’ I allowed myself to be really open-minded and free with who I allowed into my musical space. I wanted to make a cohesive product, but I also just want to make a bunch of dope songs inspired by whatever sounds I liked.
It must have been an extraordinary time. I guess the worrying thing about musical theatre to me, is if you look at the London season this year, mine is actually the only one to have come in.
I ended up doing a local AmDram musical when I was nine or so. We had to sing and dance and act. It was probably terrible, but I loved it.
I actually have a decent singing voice, and I’ve never been able to sing onscreen. I’d love to do a musical.
Essentially a joke is creating an idea, whether sonic or visual, whether it’s something musical or a traditional joke.
For a director, a musical is a special kind of hell.
I’ve been chasing my music dream for a very long time and the acting dream just came up. But there are musical things I want to show the world, so that’s my next step.
Roshon Fegan
I remember Tim telling me that he had an idea for a mus

I remember Tim telling me that he had an idea for a musical and he said to me that he was hoping that ABBA would be writing the music, which I thought was a pretty wild idea because they were obviously known very much as pop writers.
Elaine Paige
I love the intimacy of making movies. The focus is deeper and much more intense than musical theatre.
I firmly believe that we have more latent musical talent in America than there is in any other country. But to dig it out there must be good music throughout the land, a lot of it. Everyone must hear it, and such a process takes time.
For your first musical in New York, to go to Broadway and be nominated for a Tony is a dream come true.
Jason Moore
Right when ‘High School Musical’ was taking off, one of my little cousins called and was really excited to tell me there was a huge ‘I Hate Zac Efron’ club at her school. I’m sure they’re doing great. More power to them.
Horror movies are here to stay, you know? It’s not a fad. Even the musical has gone in and out of style from time to time. Horror movies have always been around.
Jerry O’Connell
I love musical theater. That’s what I started off to do when I was 7, and my first show was ‘Peter Pan.’
I feel like so much of what we give on stage is a musical gift to our fans, but we also wanna bring more depth to our shows if we can and do something empowering.
We weren’t afraid to mix some crazy styles into the standard rockabilly look. We also took a lot of different musical influences that were part of that era.
The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.
William Shenstone
I always wanted to be a comedian but never thought I’d be a musical comedian.
Music is a very integral part of my life because I was born into a musical family, and it’s not just a passion… it’s everything for me.
I would like to involve myself in some black music. I would like to do some blues and some gospel music. I want to try stuff from other genres and try to widen my musical base.
I write plays, and I have a musical that’s starting to get produced now. That’s what I would love to do, but it’s so hard. The only reason people are reading my plays and musicals is because I’m in movies.
Look, I’m 40, I’m single, and I work in musical theater – you do the math!
No-one can replace Richard Wright – he was my musical partner and my friend.
I have a pretty good math mind, so I can see patterns, but I don’t have a great ear. It’s like a tragedy – I can see so much more natural musical ability in so many other people.
I want to change things with everything I do, not for the sake of changing things, but for the sake of taking greater and greater risks, or how minimalist I might be able to be, or how I can involve elements or ingredients in music videos that are not musical, for instance.
Jonathan Glazer
I like to say, jazz music is kind of like my musical equivalent of comfort food. You know, it’s always where I go back to when I just want to feel sort of grounded.
Molly Ringwald
I have absolutely no musical talent of my own!
Danny Strong
Jazz vision is a wordless conversation between musical notes and visual expressions.
Barbara Januszkiewicz
On the grounds of prestigious musical organizations that come and go, New York has the edge.
Jeffrey Tate
Do I want to write a musical? No. I like to do musicals.
I began thinking I would do musical theater because in high school that was really the only sort of curriculum they had as far as getting onstage and doing anything that anybody would see. So that’s what I did.
Gretchen Mol
Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent animals, musical and unmusical kinds, but they are mostly noisy about the breeding season.
There have been several television movies, ‘Carrie 2,’ two musicals! I remember thinking, the first time there was a musical on Broadway, ‘Oh my gosh! The people who ordinarily go to the theaters, that’s not really the audience.’
I enjoy roles that involve a task outside of my natural capabilities – for example, playing a number of musical instruments or sword fighting or cutting a suit. You have to look as though you can do it, without too much editing.
I’d love to do a musical. I’ve been known to have a good step or two. I’m half Samoan, you know, and part of our culture is singing and dancing daily.
I actually may do a musical next year… not one that I’ve written; one that I may star in. Plus my concert and other people’s work and all of a sudden you’ve got a very full life.
Musical practice is too young an art in America to warrant a search for men with a conductor‘s gift.
Anton Seidl
Musical theatre is something that I always wanted to be a part of, and my first ever role on the West End as Joseph in ‘Joseph And The Technicolor Dreamcoat’ gave me a taste for it.
I loved 'White Christmas' for the music aspect. I was i

I loved ‘White Christmas‘ for the music aspect. I was into musical theater.
I’m very delighted they didn’t choose to do the very musical episode of ‘Once Upon a Time’ when Ariel came in because I probably wouldn’t have been the best girl for the job!
Soul has no musical geographical or racial boundaries.
The GRAMMY was a huge deal. It’s the height of any musical career.
I think that if you’re doing a new musical, you want to have the opportunity to experiment and try things without the whole city of critics looking over your shoulder.
I’d rather have a hundred thousand or a million people saying I’m nuts and I’m crazy for my musical choices and what I’ve said lyrically, than a million people all raising their hand on the first day.
I really like the old stuff that I cut my musical teeth on, and I loved it when the industry was just like that, without really a genre. Today, country radio‘s more aimed at a demographic than a genre. It just softens everything.
I was a musical theatre geek in high school and college.
Toks Olagundoye
By denying its musical and artistic merit, hip hop’s critics get to have it both ways: they can deny the legitimate artistic standing of rap while seizing on its pervasive influence as an art form to prove what a terrible effect it has on youth.
I really had to think and learn about musical intervals.
I’ve held onto little musical sketches that I thought could be useful, and the more time that I spend doing them for each film, then the more I have to draw on.
I would do a musical, but I can’t sing.
My reading is always about musical biographies. I have an innate interest and passion for that.
Nina Blackwood
Musical theater is often seen as a lesser form of acting, although I don’t see it that way.
Christian Borle
The biggest musical influence on me was my mum. We were both enraptured by music.
If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process.
Cecil Taylor
I’m doing a new musical on Broadway, which opens in October called ‘The Boy from Oz,’ where I play Peter Allen. For those of you who don’t know, he became first famous in America for marrying Liza Minelli.
All musicians practice ear training constantly, whether or not they are cognizant of it. If, when listening to a piece of music, a musician is envisioning how to play it or is trying to play along, that musician is using his or her ‘ear’ – the understanding and recognition of musical elements – for guidance.
If my musical tastes are continuing to grow up, and I am not really too interested in the music that my kids listen to, then I assume that the audience is doing the same.
Rick Derringer
Once you’re in a musical, there is a huge opportunity for that, singing and dancing, ‘Aha!’ and ‘Tada’ at the end of the numbers; but it’s a different kind of discipline you have to go through to maintain that kind of performance.
I was the dork in high school who sang musical numbers up and down the hallways.
The way a musical can make us feel is unlike anything else, in song and particularly in dance. I think people fly through plate-glass windows when they get shot because movies don’t have dance scenes any more. This is what we do instead.
The Stones are a different kind of group. I realized that when I joined them. It’s not really so much their musical ability, it’s just they have a certain kind of style and attitude which is unique.
Rock guitarists usually do not wish to think trains of thought about anything but their own guitar playing during a long solo, and I could not play this way if I were not able to divide my attention between my ever changing musical environment and my instrument itself.
I know how to make it a great musical. I’ve got to. It’s like I’ve got to see it on stage.
Sometimes I write them down in musical notation as a trigger to remind me about certain directions to go. Or I can be specific about a sound I’m looking for.
Harold Budd
I’ve never had any feeling of disconnection between the classical theater, or the contemporary theater, or musical theater, or the thing that we call opera.
Nobody in my family was musical. I had no idea you could be a songwriter and make a living at it. It was all discovery. It was all just thrown at me.
Valerie Simpson
I could never overstate the importance of a musician’s need to develop his or her ear. Actually, I believe that developing a good ‘inner ear’ – the art of being able to decipher musical components solely through listening – is the most important element in becoming a good musician.
I’ve got so many musical personalities, I could probably get treatment for it.
Charlie Simpson
I began with dance, doing ballet at 3, then tap, jazz, modern. Then I sang in church choirs, learned how to play clarinet and drums, sang with rock bands and only then did I get into musical theatre.
Musical success depends on how much you enjoy it and ho

Musical success depends on how much you enjoy it and how much you are willing to put in. Luck must follow, too.
The Western musical canon came about not merely by accumulation, but by opposition and subversion, both to the ruling powers on whom composers depended for their livelihoods and to other musics.
Musical composition should bring happiness and joy to people and make them forget their troubles.
Horace Silver
I was so busy with my studies that I didn’t have a musical idol as a teenager. Later, around my 20s, I suddenly discovered the Beatles and the Rolling Stones but I guess my musical idol has always been Strauss.
After I left the R.S.C., I did a musical, ‘Masquerade,’ where I played a rabbit. I was the lead.
In recording, you’re trying to make something work sonically – getting the right inflection on the right guitar sound – and maybe a part that would be musically great doesn’t sound as cool. On paper, though, it’s all stripped back. The musical idea is the one that wins.
When I use the Internet, it’s pretty much strictly for music. Checking out other people’s web sites, what’s going on, listening to music. It’s pretty much a musical thing for me.
I get a different kind of lyric from someone else that might make me go in a different musical direction.
Barry Mann
I wouldn’t say I was bullied per se, but I did get a lot of unwanted attention because I was musical and stood out. In school you don’t want to stand out; you want to blend in.
Debbie Gibson
I was acting since I was a kid, going to drama classes and being involved in every school play and musical that I could get my hands on, so it was something that was a part of me from a very early age.
Because my musical training has been limited, I’ve never been restricted by what technical musicians might call a song.
My personal life, my musical life, my life as an artist – almost everything has pointed all these little arrows that make up which way I go as a person and what I feel comfortable as my identity.
A musical would be fantastic. The soundtrack would be great and I’d like to do acting.
Melanie Chisholm
Bluegrass has a very, very strict musical form. Once you start to dilute it, it disappears.
Our intent with Led Zeppelin was not to get caught up in the singlesmarket, but to make albums where you could really flex your muscles – your musical intellect, if you like – and challenge yourself.
Hopefully, I have a certain amount of what you call musical talent.
I had a vision how it should sound and I put all my knowledge into this product and it is a fantastic product. People still tell me that I have the best musical thing there.
I wore goofy hats to school and did musical theater. Most people thought I was a dork. But if you have a sense of humor about it, no one can bring you down.
The film was fair to his musical achievement and gave him every opportunity to explain himself.
Martin Bashir
Few occupations pass the solitary hours more fruitfully than the playing of a musical instrument.
Working with people, the musical part is one thing but the personal part is totally different and just as critical. If the friendship is there and it’s a lasting friendship, then it will take care of itself.
John Mayall
Learning a musical instrument is challenging, it demands fine motor skills and coordination. It develops children’s listening, thinking skills, imagination and perseverance. It brings out the very best in the children as they work collaboratively with their peers and teachers.
I went to School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, and we had a bunch of singing classes. My first job in New York was an Off-Broadway musical.
Anna Camp
Some musical directors have more chutzpah. They pick up the phone and talk people into giving. I prefer to call and say ‘thank you‘ after the money has been contributed.
I think that what we were doing with the live musical version of ‘Shrek’ was taking the ideas and the structure of the movie and not necessarily reinventing it but reimagining it. It is a very different medium to perform.
Daniel Breaker
I was there when the quote-unquote golden age of musical theater was flourishing. I met everybody who worked in theater or was famous in theater from the ’40s on.
I had been building electronic musical instruments since I was a kid.
Robert Moog
I think that if I had grown up and had been in show business and the movies twenty five, thirty years earlier, I think I would have made a lot more musical movies.
In contrast, traditional classical music starts from an abstract musical schema. This is then notated and only expressed in concrete sound as a last stage, when it is performed.
Pierre Schaeffer
I’ve come to realize that you live on through recordings; they’re like a musical diary, a window into somebody‘s soul.
I'm not a superstar, per se... but I'm a musical creato

I’m not a superstar, per se… but I’m a musical creator – a producer in the same vein as what Quincy Jones was, or Pharrell and Timbaland were.
I came to musical theatre from straight acting, and a lot of my friends have a real prejudice about musical theatre – one I probably shared.
Bertie Carvel
My 9-year-old daughter can recite every line from ‘Easy Rider,’ and that is not an easy song to do. She raps all of Nicki Minaj and everything; she’s dope. She has my musical ear for sure. She sings, and she’s beautiful. It’s very powerful.
There are certain sounds that I’ve found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.
I start with the subject matter I want to write about. Then I make a musical base for that and create an atmosphere with the music. Once I’ve done that, the lyrics come last.
Midge Ure
I’m a huge music fan. I usually say that if I had been born with a musical inclination, it would’ve been great. The Beatles changed everything for me, and I wanted to be a journalist for ‘Rolling Stone.’ I’m a big music fan in a Cameron Crowe way, kind of in a spectator way.
My biggest musical influences are probably my parents.
The human voice is the first and most natural musical instrument, also the most emotional.
Klaus Schulze
My family was musical on both sides. My father’s family had a famous flautist and a classical pianist. My mother won a contest to be Shirley Temple‘s double – she was the diva of the family. At 8, I learned how to play guitar. I used to play songs from the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s in the kitchen for my grandmother.
My musical education started in the limelight, because I found myself surrounded by real musicians, but after my career had taken off.
John Lurie
The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.
Paul Klee
I’d like to say I’m R&B’s savior. Whether that’s the truth or not, I’m definitely going out there with my mic and my shield to declare, ‘I am here to save R&B.’ I will have the people saying, ‘Sir, there is a man at the musical gates saying he is here to save R&B.’
When I was younger, in my living room, I used to put ‘Cats‘ the stage musical video on and I used to copy Victoria.
Hell is full of musical amateurs.
I don’t want to do free jazz! Because free jazz – which is the musical equivalent of free marketeering – isn’t actually free at all. It’s just constrained by what your muscles can do.
Scales played in the correct musical way are very exciting and rewarding.
James Galway
Musicians from the beginning of time have been there to express the mood and the musical feelings in the air for whatever’s going on in that particular culture. It’s the greatest joy as a musician to be able to translate that, be part of something and watch the scenery around you.
At one time musical theater, particularly in the ’40s and ’50s, was a big source of pop songs. That’s how musical theater started, really – it was just a way of linking several pop songs for the stage.
Hip-hop is rich in musical allusion. It takes something that already existed, respects it, and reuses it.
As for the symphonic activities… when I was a student at the Eastman School of Music, I became exposed to a lot more musical forms, elements, opportunities, and I fell in love with strings and their uses.
When ‘Catch Me If You Can’ was published back in 1980, I never dreamed that it would become a bestseller, much less a major motion picture and now a big Broadway musical. What’s amazing about the book is that it has never gone out of print.
Music is rhythm, and all theater is rhythm. It’s about tempo and change and pulse, whether you’re doing a verse play by Shakespeare or a musical.
My whole background, my whole life was just lots and lots of theater, a lot of that being musical theater.
Always I have lived with two sounds – one political, one musical.
My background is in musical comedy. I didn’t know I was going to be an actor. But all my points of reference have to do with musical comedy and in being kind of a showoff.
Being a purely instrumental album, it makes a musical statement, not a religious one, and I hope that people can feel the emotion of the great melodies, even without the words.
The fact is that great musical pieces take and hold the stage because they provide great emotional experiences.
Sarah Caldwell
I’m glad you asked that question, because of any musical situation I’ve been in, the communication feels great here with Russell. He really pays close attention to what I’m doing because he cares.
Mind you, I’ve always been musical… Mother used to sit me on her knee and I’d whisper, ‘Mummy, Mummy, sing me a lullaby do,’ and she’d say: ‘Certainly my angel, my wee bundle of happiness, hold my beer while I fetch me banjo.’
Some animals utter a loud cry. Some are silent, and others have a voice, which in some cases may be expressed by a word; in others, it cannot. There are also noisy animals and silent animals, musical and unmusical kinds, but they are mostly noisy about the breeding season.
I’m sick of all these labels and these manufactured subdivisions of music that don’t even exist. And even though I’m pierced myself, I’m sick of everyone equating body piercing with musical courage. If you ask me, it takes a lot more than that.
I'm not a huge musical fan. It's like when people just

I’m not a huge musical fan. It’s like when people just jump out singing; it’s not real.
There is nothing is more musical than a sunset. He who feels what he sees will find no more beautiful example of development in all that book which, alas, musicians read but too little – the book of Nature.
Claude Debussy
Music is a very integral part of my life because I was born into a musical family, and it’s not just a passion… it’s everything for me.
One of my biggest musical influences is definitely Ella Fitzgerald as a vocalist.
Elle Varner
Some are blessed with musical ability, others with good looks. Myself, I was blessed with modesty.
I’ve always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre, and that’s really where my training is.
Musical theatre is my first love.
To me, music shouldn’t be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you’re sitting in a room, writing songs, it’s a completely different process. It’s a completely different place. It’s a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.
Although my other ambition was to be a musical theater star (and I would attend college on a voice scholarship), writing was never far from my mind.
Alex Flinn
A voice expressing emotion in a musical way moves on. It’s like the finale of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – the world turns in on itself, as a universe unto itself, in the shape of one human being.
One has to draw upon one’s own musical thoughts and one’s own musical acumen, and not to be afraid to let that come into one’s work. Perhaps that comes with more experience, but perhaps it also comes with daring, and believing that you should.
America does not need gorgeous halls and concert rooms for its musical development, but music schools with competent teachers, and many, very many, free scholarships for talented young disciples who are unable to pay the expense of study.
Anton Seidl
All my momma‘s people were very musical. My grandpa, who was the Pentecostal minister, he was a great musician. He played the fiddle, he played the piano.
Some writers are curiously unmusical. I don’t get it. I don’t get them. For me, music is essential. I always have music on when I’m doing well. Writing and music are two different mediums, but musical phrases can give you sentences that you didn’t think you ever had.
I’m healthy, have a loving and adorable family, great hunting dogs, a gravity defying musical career and most importantly, fuzzy-headed idiots hate me.
The music that I make is built on layers upon layers of musical ideas. I want to keep it fun and fresh to where listeners won’t get everything from just one listen. They can go back to it months, weeks, or even years later and hear something that they didn’t ever hear before. That’s what it’s all about.
I was always stuck in a musical no man’s land.
Without a doubt, my richest relationships are my long-term friendships with musical partners, because we make music together. That’s what we love to do with our lives.
I want to write a play. I’d like to do an original musical. I should probably put together a poetry collection.
I own all the characters I created, thanks to the Writers Guild, so nobody can do anything without me. The way it works is: If the copyright owners instigate a project, like the movie, then I get a fee as creator. If I instigate a project, like the musical, I pay a percentage to the copyright owners.
Sherwood Schwartz
I’m trying to bring a new generation into the musical theater and to create a new audience.
Jerry Herman
I was trained classically in violin and voice, which led to musical theater. Then I left the music scene to chase acting, which is when ‘Neighbours‘ came along. It was a fantastic playground for actors, and the cast around me taught me a lot.
If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed, and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other’s problems.
What is jazz? It, It’s almost like asking, What is French? Jazz is a musical language. It’s a musical dialect that actually embodies the spirit of America.
I came from the musical stage. My first show was ‘110 In The Shade.’ I started as a ballet dancer and then sort of gravitated toward musical theater, so any time I got asked to sing or dance, it was a joy for me.
Lesley Ann Warren
I started out really into musical theater. So you can imagine I was super popular. I wasn’t awkward looking at all.
Negro music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential. Nothing is sacred. After a decade, a musical idea, no matter how innovative, is threatened.
Archie Shepp
I gladly accepted the commission but was uncertain about what the end result would be. On the one hand, Cuban music was conquering the world; being heard everywhere, and our small island was already producing one of the popular musical genres of the 20th century.
Alejo Carpentier
We have the insight and the tools to identify and bring to fruition the dormant talent that our artists possess. Favored Nations will be branded as the home base for inspired musical talent.
Seeing Taylor Swift live in 2013 is seeing a maestro at the top of her or anyone‘s game. No other pop auteur can touch her right now for emotional excess or musical reach – her punk is so punk, her disco is so disco. The red sequins on her guitar match the ones on her microphone, her shoes and 80 percent of the crowd.
We thought it would be great to see if you could put pop music back into musical theater.
The experience awakened 'my tremendous musical ambition

The experience awakened ‘my tremendous musical ambition, which has never subsided to this day.
Georg Solti
Sometimes just getting out of the house and doing something you haven’t done in a long time (or never done!) can open up the doors to musical inspiration.
Ken Hill
Due to irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences, I am permanently leaving the band Audioslave. I wish the other three members nothing but the best in all of their future endeavours.
I try to look at most of my solos as a musical piece within the song, not, say, showing off.
For a while we were chasing a book by Graham Greene to do Brighton Rock as a musical. We didn’t get the rights, so we decided to create something from scratch, with Jonathan. By that time we were big fans of his work.
I had to go and sing with the musical director of the film, Simon Lee, who is just incredible, and it went great. I sang with him about five things, things we’d worked on. And then I went to sing for Andrew Lloyd Weber.
Being a musician is very easy. My house is full of musical instruments. There’s a lot of music, always.
When movement isn’t enough, you dance, or when speaking isn’t enough, you sing. When it’s organic, and it’s earned like that in a musical, that’s when it works, and then there’s nothing like it because it’s this thing that takes you to a whole ‘nother level, you know?
If there’s any object in human experience that’s a precedent for what a computer should be like, it’s a musical instrument: a device where you can explore a huge range of possibilities through an interface that connects your mind and your body, allowing you to be emotionally authentic and expressive.
Music runs through everything I do – I even think musically; even when I was acting, but, especially, when I am directing. Directing is very musical.
Robby Benson
I was always super, super musical. So my parents recognized that and put me in choirs, piano lessons, and all that.
The pull between sound and syntax creates a kind of musical tension in the language that interests me.
We incorporate various electronic devices – the echo plugs and things like that. Actually, all we’re trying to do is make that sound musical. As opposed to just making sounds, we do musical things with them.
Chico Hamilton
I was creator and executive producer of ‘The Brady Bunch’ on TV. The stage version was done by others, but it was a repeat of the old scripts. The ‘Gilligan’ musical is a completely original work with all seven characters and 18 original songs.
Sherwood Schwartz
I would have to say I might do some stuff, but it’s the film that’s appealing. I was raised on film. My musical experience is all via film, it’s not from classical music.
I’d love to do movies and be on TV. But I think if I transitioned into TV/film completely, I would really miss singing and dancing. It would be ideal to be cast in a movie musical!
I consider my musical ability to be a gift from the Creator. It’s not that I try to work hard or nothing like that, it’s a gift, it was given to me, and I appreciate it.
I work very hard on all my poems, but most of the work consists of trying not to sound as if I had worked. I try to make them sound as natural as possible, but within a quite strict form, which to my ears has a lot to do with musical rhythm and sound.
I was like, ‘I’m only going to do musical theater for the rest of my life. I’m never going to do TV.’ And whenever I’d get auditions for TV, I’d be like, ‘Okay, whatever. I’ve got a lisp, so they’re not going to take me.’ And then I started doing this, and I guess it was my sister that got me into the acting thing.
Gaten Matarazzo
I don’t just come from a musical family, but from a musical community.
Lesley Garrett
But I wish they would make a musical of some kind. I miss musicals so much. You don’t see them anymore.
I did a theatrical musical, Annie Warbucks, when I was 11. We did a tour and we stopped by Los Angeles.
I came from somewhat of a musical family. I had an uncle on Broadway. My dad kind of knows how to play instruments. Although, I always find it annoying when he does play an instrument.
It’s a beautiful thing to have time in the world, as a singer and as a musician, to make friends with people of the musical caliber of a Tommy Smith, an Arturo Sandoval, a Richard Galliano, a Till Broenner.
If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they’ll respond to it.
I was a musical theater major at the University of Arizona. And I primarily trained with Marsha Bagwell. It was a classical program, so we did Chekov and Moliere and a lot of Shakespeare.
Christine Woods
My musical background is like almost every non classical musician in the world. One day a special record was heard and that was it. I was hooked, started trying to play various instruments and was off to bar land to become a rock star. What else?
Kevin Johnson
I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.
I was constantly, always and forever, trying to perform the musical ‘Annie’ for anyone who would listen, and I have a terrible singing voice. It was the first thing that made me think I wanted to be an actress.
I started acting when I was 10, doing musical theater. I was a brunette at that time. I was always cast in all the exotic parts.
My musical journey with A. R. Rahman is filled with personal milestones and realisations.
In musical theater you have to be very big and very ani

In musical theater you have to be very big and very animated, while film and television are more toned down.
I thoroughly enjoyed working on Enemy of the State. Tony Scott is an important director, and has an amazing ability to express himself, and he doesn’t do it in musical terms, he does it in emotional terms. I got along really well with him.
Architecture produces a musical mood in our inner being, and we notice that even though the elements of architecture and music appear to be so alien in the outer world, through this musical mood engendered in us, our experience of architecture brings about a reconciliation, a balance between these two elements.
Control of vibrato helps your musical expression.
James Galway
‘Evita’ obviously would always be very special to me because it was the first major musical that I did on stage and created in the U.K. with Hal Prince directing.
Elaine Paige
I have found my heaven in musicals. When I watch a musical, it makes me believe life is still beautiful.
John Woo
I never danced a step in my life so naturally. My first motion picture was a musical, and Bob Fosse was the choreographer. I didn’t exactly dance for Fosse, I just did the best that I could to do what he taught us to do.
Len and I had parted musical ways and this was one of the problems.
Andy Rourke and I had been playing together from 14 or 15, and we had a very great musical chemistry. Andy’s just a very respected and unusual musician.
I come from a place where there’s a lot of musical families.
Quality is timeless: It will clearly define itself. And so I make reference to and acknowledge things that I feel have been dismissed, trying to restate those musical and cultural elements clearly and vehemently.
The early Stones were adolescent rockers. They were self-conscious in an obvious and unpretentious way. And they were committed to a musical style that needed no justification because it came so naturally to them. As they grew musically the mere repetition of old rock and blues tunes became increasingly less satisfying.
I’m just glad that I’m the musical equivalent of a character actress, because blues singers can keep singing and having an audience at 35, and someone like Madonna‘s gonna have to find something else to do, ‘cos I don’t care how pointy those bras are that she wears, they’re still gonna look a little odd when she’s 55!
How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.
I came from a very musical family, so I grew up singing karaoke with the family. My family said ‘do this’ and brought me to singing lessons. I had always been writing poems and songs.
Cassie Steele
A lot of people ask me why I don’t expand and explore other musical areas, but I like the plain three- and four-chord rock-and-roll that I call the the semi-blues.
You know, they were returning to the language of the people and trying to use musical language, particularly as Copland did to create a musical language in which all Americans would feel that they had a stake.
The folk music definition has changed in this fast music world and musical styles are blending really quickly.
And my singing, I don’t think I could sing Wagner or opera, but I could probably carry a tune. I was in a musical once, but it was never performed.
I never knew I’d be in a musical, let alone win an award for one.
I was Danny Zuko in ‘Grease,’ and I was in the musical ‘Sweet Charity‘ and then in the musical ‘On the Twentieth Century.’ They were great. I mean, singing isn’t really my strong suit, but I just really enjoyed it.
I have a pretty wide range of musical tastes.
Lee DeWyze
Learning a musical instrument is challenging, it demands fine motor skills and coordination. It develops children’s listening, thinking skills, imagination and perseverance. It brings out the very best in the children as they work collaboratively with their peers and teachers.
One element of Madonna’s career that really takes center stage is how many times she’s reinvented herself. It’s easier to stay in one look, one comfort zone, one musical style. It’s inspiring to see someone whose only predictable quality is being unpredictable.
I never walked the streets of New York hoping to be a musical comedy star. For one thing, they would have thought I was too tall, because l was five feet eight and a half, and they were all little bitty things running around in the studio at that time.
I can’t express how wonderful it is to get feedback when you’ve been sort of in a bubble working on something and then you release it to the world and hope for the best. It’s like the birth of a musical baby.
Susanna Hoffs
Going through this musical experience really helped us to understand the core of the film.
When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.
Nick Lowe
I’d like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to their souls.
But it is equally necessary to consider the implications for a society if there are fewer and fewer young people making music because we are economising on music schools or musical education in schools.
Johannes Rau
I’ve always been really artistic. I went to an all-girls’ private Catholic school, and one of their biggest things was musical theater. I became obsessed with that.
Daniela Bobadilla
Johnny Cash was a rebel, not only just in the musical s

Johnny Cash was a rebel, not only just in the musical sense, but he was somebody who was for the people, and an advocate for labor, for workers, for prisoners, people who have been trapped by the criminal justice system.
Very often I suspend my musical sensibilities to enjoy music as a fan.
Billy Sheehan
I wouldn’t say no to other kinds of musical opportunities. I guess that it just depends on what it was or what it required me to do, and if I felt that it compromised my own soul.
I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n’ roll.
I’ve learned that in the theater the story is everything. Every lyric, every line and every musical gesture has to propel the journey of a given character or the overall plot.
What is beautiful enchants me. I mean not just physical beauty but a wider concept of beauty. There is beauty in poetry and in great musical or singing performances. There is beauty everywhere if you can just see it.
I think words operate like musical notes that the eyeball hears.
Music was in the air when I was growing up. My siblings Katy, Dave and Phil were musical; my dad worked in inner-city New York where a musical revolution was taking place – folk music, rock n’ roll, gospel music. My sister taught me to sing. My brothers taught me to play.
Sam Barry
I’ve gathered some of my close musical and comedian friends, and we’re going to see if we can’t bring a few laughs to these soldiers, raise some money, and hopefully lift their spirits. I consider it an honor and a privilege to give back however I can for the many sacrifices of these incredibly brave men and women.
A lot people hit the road trying to make some cash. We are out here trying to do something that we really believe in. That’s what all of our musical heroes always did.
Hall & Oates is one of the few musical groups as satisfying now as it was back then. There’s something incredibly musically satisfying about their songs. Nothing has diminished my love for them.
I believe there’s no reason why we couldn’t be entering a new age of musical theater if we continue to nurture young talent, take risks, and give them a playing field.
I would really love to do a musical, I don’t know in what capacity but something funny.
Billie Piper
I didn’t think of myself as a singer. I’m an actor who recites words, and sometimes that happens to be on musical notes.
When ‘We Will Rock You,’ the musical, launched, I was amazed at how successful it was. It attracted a new generation of fans. Freddie would have loved it. He was quite into that sort of stuff.
The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.
As an actor, you generally don’t get to choose what projects you are part of, so I’ve been very fortunate that ‘The Book of Mormon‘ was something I got to be part of. I don’t want to be lofty, but it was groundbreaking, in many ways, for musical theater, so that was really thrilling to be part of.
A song in a musical works best when a character has to sing – when words won’t do the trick anymore. The same idea applies to a long speech in a play or a movie or on television. You want to force the character out of a conversational pattern.
‘High School Musical’ is definitely the best thing that’s happened to my career and I walked away with great friends from it.
Monique Coleman
Musical harmony is based on physical principles, while in cooking, ingredients must be weighed out with precision. At the same time, you have to be able to invent because if one follows the same recipe all the time, you never create anything new.
When you shoot a musical, you’re shooting to lipsynch tracks, so we had to figure out our choreography and work out what we wanted to do with each number before we did it.
Believe me, I love commerce as much as the rest of the readers of ‘Businessweek.’ But in art, you have to be true to yourself and your musical vision. People have known me well for a long time, so if I was chasing a trend and doing something that wasn’t authentic to who I am, they would know it in just a few seconds.
I did a lot of musical theater when I was younger, and I really hope to get back there someday. I miss singing a lot. I listen to Broadway show tunes in my car and sing along to them.
Bridget Regan
But without the experience of actually singing or playing these things yourself, you don’t have the same kind of involvement or understanding of what these musical moves mean. And that is a very big problem in addressing the future of music.
I always felt a love for music, but I never got my nerve up enough to try a musical instrument in school.
Don Cornelius
India is a musical country, so it would appear obvious to use our collective passion for music to promote a book.
I wanted to play my violin and have my musical expression through the instrument. But then I was really young when I had my first opportunity to conduct.
After I retired and came off the road, I gathered up all my musical instruments and suddenly, I wanted them all to be perfect.
Tom T. Hall
People who are feeling bullied and people who feel like outsiders should talk to their parents and guardians about finding a place with likeminded people where they can feel accepted. That’s what I needed, and that’s what I found with musical theater.
You might say that Richard Wagner was the Queen Victoria of Europe. He had musical children everywhere!
My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.
Michael Tippett
It's clear on the one hand that an education enriches a

It’s clear on the one hand that an education enriches and informs a response to beauty, even makes it possible in esoteric cases. On the other hand, there’s no question that someone with no musical education whatsoever might wander into a concert hall and be overwhelmed by the ‘Beethoven Pastoral Symphony‘.
Denis Dutton
It is a process of discovery. It’s being quiet enough and undisturbed enough for a period of time so that the songs can begin to sort of peek out, and you begin to have emotional experiences in a musical way.
I’d love to do a modern-day musical that’s full of original music. To get your contemporaries to sing and dance without looking foolish and for it to be transformational and magical and all those things a musical is supposed to be.
The truth is I love musical theater and always have.
If I wrote a musical it wouldn’t be about me. Although I do some magic, so it would probably be about a magician who appeared and re-appeared all over the place.
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that’s it. No America, no jazz. I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Africa.
Art Blakey
I don’t let the children watch TV on weeknights. They practice playing musical instruments instead. Both my sons play piano, drums and guitar, so my husband and I listen to them in the evening.
One ends up relying on pure musical inspiration, and failing that, the music won’t lead to anything good, or it will alienate all but the most die-hard fans.
Boris Vian
The character I created, ‘Commissario Brunetti,’ who appears in all my books, shares similar reading, artistic and musical tastes with me. Subconsciously, I knew that if I was to spend however long it would take to write this book with him, this man would have to be someone I’d like to have dinner with.
People fall into patterns at fast speeds, when really, to have a clear musical thought – the kind of musical thought that makes a melody work – our brains just can’t think that fast. At a certain point, you’re going on automatic.
The Blind Boys are truly the deepest well of American musical heritage you can discover.
Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant.
I wish I could blame it on the choreography, but it’s not a musical. I just had a clumsy moment.
In the theater, it’s about taking time in a musical segment, a pause in a musical way and then moving on.
My mum raised us on classic movies and a lot of musical theatre.
The musical is the one area of the theater that can give you the biggest buzz of all.
From a young age, I had done a lot of theater and musical theater. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with my life, but every time I was away from acting, I just felt very incomplete and a little stir crazy.
Alexander Koch
I think ‘SNL‘ is so well-known for its musical performances, as well, and people really breaking into America through a really great performance on there. So I think me and Gotye are both really excited to be amongst such company. You know, it’s great.
I’m just a musical prostitute, my dear.
Think of a musical as a string of pearls. If you don’t have a string, you can’t put the pearls around your neck.
Marsha Norman
I play a musical instrument a little, but only for my own amazement.
From my time in ‘King Crimson,’ I’d describe a Progressive band as one that keeps trying to break musical barriers, and keeps trying to do new music.
Tony Levin
I love singing! I grew up in musical theater.
Juliette Goglia
If there’s any object in human experience that’s a precedent for what a computer should be like, it’s a musical instrument: a device where you can explore a huge range of possibilities through an interface that connects your mind and your body, allowing you to be emotionally authentic and expressive.
Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‘nirvanameans freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.
I mean, making art is about objectifying your experience of the world, transforming the flow of moments into something visual, or textual, or musical, whatever. Art creates a kind of commentary.
I sort of wrongfully judged ‘Mamma Mia!’ for so long. I thought of it as a jukebox musical that I wasn’t interested in. I was so wrong.
I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.
I’m a gigantic musical film fan.
Lesley Ann Warren
I believe that the brain has evolved over millions of years to be responsive to different kinds of content in the world. Language content, musical content, spatial content, numerical content, etc.
I have no restrictions, no limits, no musical history to live with.
Bill Wyman
Look, I'm 40, I'm single, and I work in musical theater

Look, I’m 40, I’m single, and I work in musical theater – you do the math!
Piano playing is a dying art. I love the fact that I can be one guy with one instrument evoking an emotional and musical experience.
When I used to do musical theatre, my dad refused to come backstage. He never wanted to see the props up close or the sets up close. He didn’t want to see the magic.
All my musical foundations go back to the age of 3. My family tell me that I used to listen to the old crystal set, then go to the piano and pick out the tune that I just heard.
George Shearing
Every individual’s listening is as unique as his or her fingerprints because we all listen through filters that develop from our personal mix of culture, language, values, beliefs, attitudes, expectations and intentions. That is why one person’s musical taste is another person’s hideous noise.
I was a musical theatre kid, which meant you could always find me singing or dancing in the halls with at least four other people.
Josie Loren
There was a technique to making a musical. It took a long time for the studios to learn it, and it was very complicated.
I love hip-hop; I love Sleigh Bells. I also love classical music and musical theater.
I grew up in a very musical family, my father was a musician and a big band leader and made records.
My mother – who’s from Iowa – owns and runs her own day-care centre, while my father’s a developer. And my musical influences, I think, came from my father’s side of the family.
I loved performing in the ‘High School Musical’ movies – that didn’t seem like work – but the gym felt like torture!
Becoming interested in poetics got me interested in theater. Theater is supposed to be poetry, you know, before it’s anything else. It just doesn’t fly if it isn’t musical.
You know you’re getting older when – well, first off, when you read almost any story that begins ‘You know you’re getting older when.’ But you also know it when you not only never heard of the musical guest on a given ‘Saturday Night Live‘ but never heard of the host, either.
I’m a musical genius.
Timbaland
I wanted something that had the feel of a complete band and a variety of instrument. Apart from doing the album for musical satisfaction, I felt it was an important statement for other women – showing you don’t have to rely on other people to do things for you.
Danielle Dax
I don’t like to hurry. I’m not a conductor of the fast, fiery romantic type. I prefer Bruckner, with the sincerity of his musical language and the huge time spans in which his ideas develop, to Mahler, with his hysteria and self-indulgence.
Jeffrey Tate
How many chances to you get to make a musical about a serial killer? The minute Tim Burton approached me, I was in.
I told her it was a bigger than life musical, that all the actors were going to be about the same age, late twenties into thirties. It would be a style; a kind of surreal high school.
Randal Kleiser
I frequently compose out the entire metric structure of a piece in modified cyclic form, where each cyclic revolution undergoes some form of ‘variation‘ much as if measure lengths were concrete musical ‘material.’
I feel so much more comfortable when I’m working on material which makes other people scratch their heads and ask, ‘You’re going to make a musical out of that?’
Every year on my birthday, I start a new playlist titled after my current age so I can keep track of my favorite songs of the year as a sort of musical diary because I am a teenage girl.
I always wish life could be a musical. One person just says 5, 6, 7, 8.
Lucas Grabeel
Every few generations there are people who come along that change the way we look at the world, for musical enthusiasts Monk is one of these individuals.
No, I like being a role model because I know how much comfort my musical idols brought me.
Songs are out there – they’re waiting to be grabbed. I start with a phrase, musical and lyrical, words like ‘I don’t think so’ and a nice riff. It rolls from there.
I have always taken things slow, I never wanted to run through my musical journey, I wanted to enjoy every step and challenge.
The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions.
Paul Klee
I’ve been buying instruments and musical gear for a long time.
Harpo Marx looks like a musical comedy.
Walter Kerr
I can understand why guys wouldn’t be into ‘Glee.’ You know, that’s a pretty heavy musical show. That show does, like, six songs in an episode.
I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.
So, essentially my contribution was to introduce repeti

So, essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
Terry Riley
I always have plans to return to the stage. I leave myself very open. I think what would be more likely is if I did a limited run of something, whether it be a play or a musical.
My mother insisted that I pursue music. I rented out my father’s musical equipment and earned some money. As a child, I wasn’t sure about a career goal, but I was always fascinated by electronic gadgets, specially musical equipment.
Jazz is a racist musical form invented by whites to enslave blacks.
Lyndon LaRouche
You don’t go see Primus to see what kind of new clothing I’m wearing or what my new hairdo is. You come to see Primus for the musical experience and the visual experience. I think, anyways. Maybe I’m wrong!
I play a musical instrument a little, but only for my own amazement.
Sometimes words are just music themselves. Like ‘Chicago’ is a very musical sounding name.
I’m finishing building a house and setting up a shop to build custom electronical musical instruments.
Robert Moog
I’ve learned a lot from being a chameleon, sort of adopting the musical personalities of who I was playing with.
Jeremy Denk
I do like musical films more than big Hollywood films, especially those by Jacques Demi and Vincent Minelli.
Neil and I are most thrilled that we were able to bring musical theatre to the enormous audience that ‘The Sound of Music’ reached.
There’s something about uninterrupted singing that just doesn’t work for me, because at some point, I need my characters to talk. Without meaning to offend anyone, a musical like ‘Les Miserables’ would be the last thing I’d ever be interested in.
Trying to describe something musical is like dancing to architecture, it’s really difficult.
I don’t know why the guys with the big money don’t find five terrific young producers and give each of them enough to commission a musical and to live on for a year. You’d be likely to get at least one project with a future.
The Latin musical tradition is very rich and gives the singer a lot of freedom to explore a range of.
Ednita Nazario
What a thrill it was to play opposite Maurice Evans in this brilliant, dazzling musical, based on the life of two of the greatest personalities in stage history.
Dinah Sheridan
We live with incessant music, all the time. It’s like some weird musical purgatory, there is absolutely no rest for the ears, no space to absorb and reflect.
James Blake
But anyone who’s done a musical knows; whether you’re dancing or not, physically it’s the most difficult thing you can do.
I’m not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.
I think the singer/songwriter genre is going to be like bluegrass and jazz. You can make a living at it, but it’s not part of the musical mainstream anymore.
I think there are rock stars within every subgenre, and for people who are obsessed with musical theater Sutton Foster and Audra MacDonald are like Beyonce to them. I’m sure the a cappella world has their own version of that, and that exists in every geeky subculture.
Yeah, well I’ve always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that’s really where my training is. As an actor, that’s my training.
I’d like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to their souls.
My musical taste and image is going to change naturally. It’s not forced; I do what comes natural to me. Sometimes, I like to be dark… other times, I like to be really light and ladylike.
I began to think, now is the time. I found quite a lot of opposition in Hollywood about the idea of doing a film musical and we ended up having to buy the rights back. I’m glad we did because it meant John and I were able to make exactly the movie we wanted.
I grew up listening to Steve Martin and Robin Williams, so I didn’t ever intend to be a musical comedian. I sort of stumbled into it.
Yeah, I’ve always considered myself a musical person.
Charlie Day
It’s true that my mom loved it when I played Joanie Cunningham in the musical ‘Happy Days,’ but I think she finally realized I am never going to do ‘Oklahoma!’
Christine Lakin
I’m mostly a keep-to-myself kind of guy, but you slowly find yourself getting folded into the musical tapestry.
I’m not musical myself.
No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.
Frank Zappa
Mind you, I've always been musical... Mother used to si

Mind you, I’ve always been musical… Mother used to sit me on her knee and I’d whisper, ‘Mummy, Mummy, sing me a lullaby do,’ and she’d say: ‘Certainly my angel, my wee bundle of happiness, hold my beer while I fetch me banjo.’
Overall, Korean pop serves as the foundation of my musical upbringing. As a result, the melodies that I create just exude that type of vibe.
I would love to do a musical so hopefully I will be blessed with doing one.
Heather Matarazzo
I’d love to do a musical on the lines of ‘Salangai Oli,’ ‘Sankarabharanam’ and ‘Sindhu Bhairavi.’
D. Imman
It was my band. I organized the band and Dizzy was in the band. Dizzy was the first musical director with the band. Charlie Parker was in the band. But, no, no, that was my band.
I actually got to write with one of my musical heroes, a guy named Raine Maida from Our Lady Peace. I got to sit down and write some songs with him, and that was pretty heavy. I listened to Our Lady Peace growing up. It got me through the teenage angst.
David Cook
I am in musical theatre, but it isn’t necessarily what I listen to in my leisure time, do you know what I mean?
So what I’m trying to say is from a musical aspect for anybody to say that whatever they’re doing in Florida is not Hip Hop or whatever they’re doing in LA is not Hip Hop, who are these people to say that?
I wore goofy hats to school and did musical theater. Most people thought I was a dork. But if you have a sense of humor about it, no one can bring you down.
I think it’s his perception of knowing how to make a record build, keeping the integrity of the song in the music and really adding a lot of musical elements to compliment my voice and to compliment the song.
My earliest professional musical experiences were really as a session player, and every day was an adventure. Three sessions a day, every day, and you never knew who you would be working with until you arrived at the studio.
Atlanta‘s my musical home. It really was the place where I really came alive.
I collect musical theatre anthologies. I have a whole library of them.
Hearing that the same men who brought us ‘South Park‘ were mounting a musical to be called ‘The Book of Mormon,’ we were tempted to turn away, as from an inevitable massacre.
I’m an obsessive musical theatre person, so some of the most formative albums for me were, you know, the ‘Phantom Of The Opera’ soundtrack or ‘Into The Woods.’
I clearly had a career in musical theater ahead of me and somewhere took a left turn and started getting all dour and serious and doing emotionally broken dukes.
I have always been intrigued with singing and I actually started my career in musical comedies.
Janine Turner
I don’t ever balk at being considered a Motown person, because Motown is the greatest musical event that ever happened in the history of music.
We all have different musical instincts, and I think they’re precious and should be respected.
Tony Levin
I’m naturally going to react to that and he’ll bring out elements in my musical character that were lying dormant, because I’m relating what he’s playing.
You know, and it really doesn’t have a lot to do with the movie. That’s the trick to doing a good musical is that, if you take that music number out, there’s less to the movie there. You would miss it.
I have a musical called Goodbye and Good Luck, based on a Grace Paley short story. I also have King Island Christmas, and there are 20 different productions of it this year.
Glasgow‘s not a media center. When you’re there, when you’re hanging about, you feel quite detached from musical movements or fashions or anything like that. You do feel quite alone, in a good way.
I do think musical-theater actors can get a bad rap, and I see why. There is a certain slickness – there’s nothing better than an amazing musical, but an okay musical can be one of the worst times you’ve ever had.
I grew up in a family that was very musical, learned the blues and everything like that. And I became a little bit frustrated with the simplicity of rock n’ roll and blues. I started listening to a lot of classical music – mainly Bach, Vivaldi.
But I’m not adverse to the idea of Torch Song as a musical. It would just be different. Because the play will always be there exactly as it was, and in a musical you could tell a lot of the story through songs.
I’m just a consequence of the great musical momentum and the great changes we are going through in the world.
The closest place that I feel like I come to having religious moments is always musical.
I was immersed in popular songs of the time, of the ’30s and ’40s. I was writing songs, making fun of the attitudes of those songs, in the musical style of the songs themselves; love songs, folk songs, marches, football.
Perhaps two million years ago the creatures of a planet in some remote galaxy faced a musical crisis similar to that which we earthly composers face today.
George Crumb
Broadway has changed tremendously from the early days when the shows were referred to as musical comedies. Musical Theater is now a more expanded art form. Back then, singer/actors were not the norm. From the 60’s to now, it is necessary to do it all to be a consummate Broadway performer.
I had pretty much raised my kids and my first wife and

I had pretty much raised my kids and my first wife and I were divorced, so I began, in earnest, to start my musical career again. Going for the big record deal and all of that.
I can never say that I will never return to musical theatre. There may be a part in the future that I really want to do. I love plays as well. I am very open to ideas. I hope to do many things in the future.
Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.
I went to the University of Michigan and have a BFA in Musical Theatre.
I’m hoping to do more with my music. I did the stage musical ‘Spring Awakeningrecently and it reignited the love I have for singing.
Janel Parrish
‘9 to 5 the Musical’ is perfect for anyone that’s ever wanted to string up their boss, which is almost all of us.
When I first got to New York, all I did was musicals. After a few years I had to make a conscious choice to close the door on musicals, because I was getting pigeon-holed as a musical theater performer.
Hellhammer is the best drummer ever, and Euronymous is a musical genius.
Change is growth. For me it has been a very spiritual and musical rebirth.
Rock stardom and all that stuff like that was never like my main M.O., my main M.O. is musical growth, and if I become a rock star in the process, great!
Kip Winger
I think every artist subconsciously wants to evolve themselves. Sometimes they get stuck in ruts because of pop culture, peer pressure, stuff like that. But what excites me most is exploring my own musical insights and expanding upon them.
One of my insecurities was my looks. I was short, cute and chubby, and Dad used to call me his ‘little fat sausage.’ But I always knew I had musical talent.
I have musical ADD, so I like to switch things up.
Casey Abrams
Maybe I’ve got to admit that what I did here was enough. I can make some more films. Maybe I’ll direct a film. Maybe I’ll have my musical put on stage. But nothing, really, to be absolutely honest, competes with making a very successful pop band for 10 years of my life.
It’s always hard for me to put the pieces together when listening to a finished album that I was a part of writing and playing. There are so many memories wrapped up in each note and each song that it’s hard not to constantly flash back to what made that musical event happen while listening.
That creates the magic, and that’s the wonderment of the musical process and how precious that is.
When I think about the real pioneers of the psychedelic movement in a musical sense, not just the culture, everything had a handmade sort of vibe to it. We’re inventing our culture as we move along into this.
‘9 to 5 the Musical’ is perfect for anyone that’s ever wanted to string up their boss, which is almost all of us.
I mean, I sing. But I don’t think I’m a good enough singer to do any kind of musical.
And when I met Cecil Taylor it was a complete transformation of musical identities. All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the window.
Archie Shepp
There are millions and billions of atoms of memory of all kinds of musical themes in me.
There are right and wrong reasons for doing solo projects, and this album was done for the right reasons. At the time there was no Judas Priest and I certainly wasn’t going to hang my hat up on my musical career.
Glenn Tipton
Music has its own emotional embodiment. It carries an emotion with it. When you associate a lyric with the music, it’s much easier; but when you’re standing there completely dry in front of the camera with no musical background, just a fine-tuned, get-this-emotional-story across, it’s a very, very intense kind of focus.
I don’t think there’s a defined contemporary American musical, do you?
I’m very driven, and I always have been. So I’d like to release a successful album, continue in musical theatre, and be more involved in business.
I find that classical music helps put me in a place that is very calming and allows me to express emotion through my body. I played clarinet as a child, so I guess I have a bit of a musical ear.
If someone wants to say ‘I love you‘ in a straight play, they say it, and then it’s the other person’s turn to talk. But in a song, you can sing about it for another three minutes. The musical form has that unique opportunity to express at length what joy really feels like.
Marsha Norman
The sound of the orchestra is one of the most magnificent musical sounds that has ever existed.
My bedtime was 8 P.M. But on ‘Cosby’ nights, I got to stay up until 8:30. Real big deal. This is when they could afford to do a completely different title sequence in TV every year. I always looked forward to that. It was like a mini musical at the top of the show. My favorite was the Top Hat fancy version.
Christine Lakin
To do a musical takes a tremendous amount of energy because you have to act and sing at the same time. And everything has to be precise. Because you can’t forget the lyrics because the band keeps playing, you know, and you’re under a certain amount of pressure.
The spoken form is in fact a very restrained representation of what is possible in the musical language.
I come from a musical family as well as a culinary fami

I come from a musical family as well as a culinary family.
I think I’m more influenced, just in general, not by blues artists, but more by stuff from Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder is probably my biggest musical influence of all. And Donny Hathaway.
Jonny Lang
I know I have experience, having worked with the likes of legendary composers like Ilaiyaraaja. And, I’ve been long enough with my dear friend A. R. Rahman, and we’ve collaborated on several musical works. All this gives me confidence.
Sivamani
I mean, I think I liked every band I ever played in because each band was different, each band had a different concept, and each band leader was different… different personalities and musical tastes.
Most of my life, I feel I have been Unicycling at the Edge of the Abyss! If fact, this will be the name of my book if I ever write one, or a one man stand up routine. I have used it as the name of a collection of my musical compositions written during the ’90s. It fits the scary journey I feel I’ve been on.
Jon Polito
To me, Bill’s musical heart is in Earthworks, in the jazz they are playing, in the acoustic kit.
I come from a background of experimental music which mingled real sounds together with musical sounds.
It’s funny… musical theater is what paid my rent and kept me going for the longest time.
I know about lots of things that have nothing to do with being Asian, that you would never guess from looking at me. I know all about musical theater. I could go on ‘Jeopardy!’ and knock off the whole Broadway show tunes category. Also the whole Bible stories category.
I’ve always been a follower of silent movies. I see film as a visual medium with a musical accompaniment, and dialogue is a raft that goes on with it.
From day one, musical theater was my bread and butter.
Ben Platt
I met Prince William at a musical festival and he let me know he was a fan of my music. But the invitation to sing at his wedding reception came completely out of the blue. The fact that Kate and William knew the words to my songs was very touching.
When I was coming up in high school, if you wanted to be in the musical it was during the winter, so I had to choose between playing basketball or being in the musical. And I ended up playing basketball.
Ben Schwartz
I want to do a big Broadway musical, at some point. I would love to do that. To do something there would be super-cool.
We went to see all the shows. American musical theater and jazz were very big.
The reality is that people need to be coaxed toward a musical. They need to understand why it’s a musical.
Music is more of a hobby to me than my hobbies, if that makes sense. I love music; my dad and brother were very musical, and music just happens to be one of my hobbies that became my vocation.
Al Jardine
I like involved projects. I’m driven by the idea of characters and the song-cycle form is similar to a musical.
I really just followed my musical instincts every step of my life.
Boz Scaggs
My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.
Harrison Birtwistle
It was an amazing adventure, it was my dream to be in an American musical… I really hope you are going to love what you are going to see.
I like to originate new roles and characters for musical theater.
Ironically, that was quite a bit of the appeal of Rumours. It’s equally interesting on a musical level and as a soap opera.
I’d say that my musical influences are anywhere from pop-rock electronica, new age and classical. But I think that specifically, bands – I love Jem, I love Sigur Ross, I love David Gray, I love Elliot Smith… a lot of different people. But I don’t find lyrical inspiration from anybody.
I have a fantastic studio in my home, and it’s my biggest toy. I have about a half a million dollars worth of musical equipment in my house.
I think your teenage years define your musical roots forever. You’re always looking for a theme for your high school years.
I grew up in musical theatre and love to perform on stage.
A. J. McLean
I’m always working out; I did ice hockey in high school, but I’m not a dance person. I mean, this was horrible, but I had a dance double in my high-school musical.
I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the theater the minute I graduated from college having not pursued it! So I went back to school and got a degree in music and began working in musical theater.
Nancy Allen
One thing is certain: We can’t go back. The musical will never be the same as it was.
Progressive music probably wouldn’t even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.
I kind of date my musical discovery back to when I was

I kind of date my musical discovery back to when I was 13 years old, getting my iTunes account and using that as a major tool to discover new music.
I think some people just have an innate musical ability, and I’m lucky enough to be one of those people.
For me, Venezuela is very important, not just because it’s a place I go to conduct, but because my family is there – my wife, my parents and my musical family.
That was more or less coincidental in the sense that my parents wanted me to come back to New York because that’s the center of musical activity still to this day, more or less, and so I auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera.
Gunther Schuller
I think my style is quite grungy and punky. I love the ’90s and the music from that time, and I love punk music. I’m also a fan of mixing vintage with some high fashion, which links back to my musical taste because I tend to mix old music with newer songs.
Chelsea Leyland
The British ballads became a new kind of form in their hand. And out of them came the blues, a new kind of song of commentary and satire, a song form which, after all, has become the main musical form of the whole human species.
Alan Lomax
Earliest musical memory is probably being scared stiff with my family’s band as a youngster on stage playing the conga drums.
It’s not every day you get to create a band like the Sex Pistols, and what it changed, on a musical level. I love that we’ve done something that was important.
Looking back, I think I was always musical. My dad was very musical, and I think my mom was musical.
Jazz is a racist musical form invented by whites to enslave blacks.
Lyndon LaRouche
People in Britain always think of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ as a musical – it wasn’t.
New Orleans is like a big musical gumbo. The sound I have is from being in the city my whole life.
I felt like my favorite writers have almost musical hooks in their work, whether it’s poetry or a hook at the end of a chapter that makes you want to read the next one. And I think that my favorite writers definitely have something musical about what they do, in saying something so relatable and universal and so simple.
I’m like a bad musical cliche because I bring my guitar on the road and try to write songs in hotel rooms.
Even if you’re improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure.
John Cale
Tina Fey and I have 15 things in development: ‘Laverne and Shirley’, ‘Starsky and Hutch 3’, ‘Cagney and Lacey’, ‘Wonder Twins Activate From Two Hot Broads’, ‘Little House on the Prairie: The Musical: The Movie’.
People’s musical tastes are fickle, and music can be a fashion.
Hollywood producers aren’t going to say, ‘Get me that swearing, grey-haired, headless chicken. We need him for our new ‘High School Musical’ movie!’
I regard myself as a beautiful musical instrument, and my role is to contribute that instrument to scripts worthy of it.
I’d quite like to do a musical. I’d probably have to develop that myself.
I’ve dreamt of being in a movie musical for a long time. For some reason I never even thought ‘Les Mis’ would be possible.
Strangely enough, when the Sugababes’ ‘Freak Like Me’ went to number 1, which was built around my ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric‘ song, I had another song called ‘Rip’ go to number 1 in the Kerrang TV chart, so I was pulling new people in from very different areas of musical interest. That was quite an amazing week.
No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.
Frank Zappa
If a movie musical came along and the part was right and somebody wanted me to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Music would lose its charm were not dissonance interspersed at frequent intervals. The closer a composer can come to discord without actually entering it in the score, the more pleasing will be his composition when given life through musical instruments.