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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And the invention of transformations of certain figures has become the most important in musical composition.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Music is my passion, singing, performing. I play piano and musical theater is my background.
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, 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.
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.
When you hear someone from the very north of Scotland speaking, I think its nice, very musical and harmonious.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’d love to do a film like ‘Chicago.’ Something musical because I’ve obviously come from that background.
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 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.
I grew up in a musical family, but nobody was a professional musician.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘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 had trouble fitting in, in a musical sense. A lot of drummers get sidetracked by the instrument. It can engulf you.
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.
‘Allegiance‘ is pretty much a book musical. You know, people talk and then they burst out into song.
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 don’t want to work on a musical if I’m not the lyricist.
I kind of go for the MGM version of every musical style.
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.
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.
Being in a different band always brings great musical experiences to be able to draw on.
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.
Education is more than Pisa. Particularly musical education. We also need education and training for more than reasons of usefulness and marketability.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
I’d love to do a musical. I have a little list of them in my head.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
I have absolutely no musical talent of my own!
Jazz vision is a wordless conversation between musical notes and visual expressions.
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.
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.
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 into musical theater.
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 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.
I really had to think and learn about musical intervals.
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.
The biggest musical influence on me was my mum. We were both enraptured by music.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I get a different kind of lyric from someone else that might make me go in a different musical direction.
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.
Bluegrass has a very, very strict musical form. Once you start to dilute it, it disappears.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 creator – a producer in the same vein as what Quincy Jones was, or Pharrell and Timbaland were.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m trying to bring a new generation into the musical theater and to create a new audience.
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.
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.
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.
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, which has never subsided to this day.
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.
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 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.
I was always super, super musical. So my parents recognized that and put me in choirs, piano lessons, and all that.
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.
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.
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 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.
I don’t just come from a musical family, but from a musical community.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
‘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.
I have found my heaven in musicals. When I watch a musical, it makes me believe life is still beautiful.
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.
I come from a place where there’s a lot of musical families.
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!
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.
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.
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 have a pretty wide range of musical tastes.
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.
Going through this musical experience really helped us to understand the core of the film.
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.
Very often I suspend my musical sensibilities to enjoy music as a fan.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
‘High School Musical’ is definitely the best thing that’s happened to my career and I walked away with great friends from it.
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.
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.
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.
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‘.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m just a musical prostitute, my dear.
I play a musical instrument a little, but only for my own amazement.
I love singing! I grew up in musical theater.
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, ‘nirvana‘ means 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’m a gigantic musical film fan.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 grew up in a very musical family, my father was a musician and a big band leader and made records.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have always taken things slow, I never wanted to run through my musical journey, I wanted to enjoy every step and challenge.
Harpo Marx looks like a musical comedy.
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.
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’ve learned a lot from being a chameleon, sort of adopting the musical personalities of who I was playing with.
I do like musical films more than big Hollywood films, especially those by Jacques Demi and Vincent Minelli.
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.
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.
Yeah, I’ve always considered myself a musical person.
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!’
I’m not musical myself.
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.
I’d love to do a musical on the lines of ‘Salangai Oli,’ ‘Sankarabharanam’ and ‘Sindhu Bhairavi.’
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.
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 have always been intrigued with singing and I actually started my career in musical comedies.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
I went to the University of Michigan and have a BFA in Musical Theatre.
‘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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
I come from a background of experimental music which mingled real sounds together with musical sounds.
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.
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.
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.
My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
People’s musical tastes are fickle, and music can be a fashion.
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.
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.
