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Here's one that was in George Will's editorial today:

Paul Hindemith, while rehearsing one of his dissonant orchestral compositions, said to the musicians, "No, no gentlemen - even though it sounds wrong, it's still not right."

I'm surprised in all these years, I never heard that one.

John

lol John

"I couldn't warm up to him if I was cremated next to him."

-Keith Richards on Chuck Berry

"Rod and I have a love/hate relationship; Rod loves me and I hate him."

-Jeff Beck on his relationship with Rod Stewart

All by George Harrison:

After all we did for Britain, selling that corduroy and making it swing, all we got was a bit of tin on a piece of leather.


All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.


America has everything, why should they want us.


As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.


As long as you hate, there will be people to hate.


Gossip is the Devil's radio.

Hippies are so phoney and fake.


I wanted to be successful, not famous.


I'll give up this sort of touring madness certainly, but music-everything is based on music. No, I'll never stop my music.


I'll play what you want or I won't play at all.


The Beatles saved the world from boredom.


The Beatles will exist without us.


The Beatles will go on and on.


The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then is getting out of them.


The nicest thing is to open the newspapers and not to find yourself in them.


The world used us as an excuse to go mad.

I like what you played, I just don't like the way you played it
-Chet Atkins

That ain't no part of bluegrass, that ain't no part of nothing.
-Bill Monroe

Every note is for the glory of God.
-J.S. Bach

Make them want to dance.
-Sam Bush

How do you know when you get good on one of those things?
-said to accordionist Vic Willis

It's only music.
-niteshift

Creativity shouldn't be following radio; it should be the other way around - Herbie Hancock

Loud is Good -- Frank Loesser

"I'll play it first and tell you what it is later." ~ Miles Davis

If you can't play it well, play it loud. (me)

Said by one of Count Basie's band members: "Count don't do nothin'. But it sure sounds good."

I heard Count Basie when I was in high school. I was very surprised by the lack of flash. His style was very layed-back, with a scarcity of notes - but yes, it sounded great.

He was the perfect "band" pianist. Never added more than what was needed. Maybe I'll eventually learn this myself.

Best, John

Sinatra was at his best with Count Basie. I've been listening to them lately.

"These go to 11."

-Nigel Tufnel

Both from Thelonious Monk:

"Just because you're not a drummer doesn't mean you don't have to keep time"

"A genius is someone who is most like himself"

"Can you play it more like Paul would?" - John Daubert

Who could possibly forget this one?

"Bring all my mules out here and kick 'em one time"
Ronnie Van Zant

"If you're using more'n two chords, you're showing off."
--Woody Guthrie

Joe

"All music is good except the boring kind"

Robert Schumann

Funny one Joe! I guess I'm a show off.

John

So, apparently, was Woody. I only found one of his songs that used only two chords. Most had anywhere from three to five. He never talked about that.

joe

"he plays the most elemental passages with a tremendous degree of difficulty!" -- can't remember who said it and i'm probably paraphrasing!

"she had me at the Am7" -- me at a grace slick concert.

"do you play phase shifter?" -- some drunk said this to me back in the day

"i can play all the notes, just not in the right order!" -- ???

rock on,
r.

There was a Stonehenge monument onstage in danger of being trampled by a DWARF!--David St. Hubbins "This Is Spinal Tap"

Great producer Mitchell Froom when asked what he thought of the "home recording" boom:

"Well, it certainly helps the people who are good and does nothing for the people who aren't. One bad aspect of home studios is that records have become totally devalued because so many people can put out an album now. There are something like 300 records a week that get released, and a lot of stuff gets thrown out into the public before it really should be. Conversely, in the 1930s and 1940s, very few people actually recorded. Musicians would have to struggle in the clubs and be able to present themselves very powerfully before they could even think about recording. Today, you can do so much with mirrors and samplers that anybody can put out anything. And it's so fashionable now to leave things rough. You know, it's cool to have tracks that just fall apart at the end, or tracks that are extremely distorted, or whatever. But people tend to forget that for a track to he cool, it still has to be good. "

"You don't have to be GREAT...you just have to be great at what you do." - Will Rankin, bartender and a human music encyclopedia, on musicians.

"I don't write the songs. I just write 'em *down*."
--Bob Dylan

Joe

"I'm just a song and dance man"

-- Bob Dylan


Scott

"I couldn't stand Janis Joplin's voice... she was just a screaming little loudmouthed chick."

Arthur Lee (of the mighty 'Love')

"We know we're grown-up guys, and we have families and stuff, but we've taken that as a positive source of art, rather than as a detriment. You know, how we feel about the stuff that we've learned over the lives that we've had, and how we feel about our families. That's where we're writing from, and it's a good thing"

David Crosby (Byrds, CSNY etc)

I love Frank Zappa quotes:

Interviewer: "So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?"
FZ: "You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?"

Consider for a moment any beauty in the name Ralph.

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.

Don't mind your make-up, you'd better make your mind up.

Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny.

Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?

You have just destroyed one model XQJ-37 nuclear powered pansexual roto-plooker....and you're gonna have to pay for it.

"You sound just like Janis Joplin, and you even look like her too!" Said to me by some blind drunk person, lol.

"I learned more from a three minute record, than I've ever learned in school" - Bruce Springsteen

"I'm playing all the right notes — but not necessarily in the right order" - Eric Morcambe after Ande Previn accuses him of playing all the wrong notes in Grieg's Piano concerto.

"I'd never have the gall to do songs that I didn't write. If the only way to get the crowd up is by doing songs that are over five years old, then she needs to do something about her song set"

- drummer Gina Schock ( when she was touring with her band, House of Schock)on singer Belinda Carlisle doing Go-Go's songs on her solo tour in 1988.

Markus
www.cdbaby.com/markusspence3

"If You Send The People Home Happy...Then You Have Done Your Job"
And Remember This Also..."1% of the population entertain the other 99%"......Joseph Rytall,my old music teacher...a concert pianist from Poland,who fought with the Polish Resistance during the War against the Nazis,and ended up A p.o.w....but met a Scots lass and settled here afterwards...a genius of a man...

"I'm not really a bass player, I'm a guitar player." Shortly afterward the same dude but playing guitar at a different venue. "I'm not really a guitar player, I'm a bass player."

I read this somewhere recently and I knew exactly what they meant. The writer couldn't grasp the meaning of, "Tang da hump." To me it means to play the bell of a cymbal??

hey
i like sad songs.
“Love is patient; love is kind
and envies no one.
Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude;
never selfish, not quick to take offense.
There is nothing love cannot face;
there is no limit to its faith,
its hope, and endurance.
In a word, there are three things
that last forever: faith, hope, and love;
but the greatest of them all is love.”

harie

dui

Best I can recollect: "It's a shame to waste 4 moneymaking years on College"---Wayne Newton.

Read another one by Keith Richards that essentially went "It doesn't matter what you've done..it's What You're Doing Next".

Stan

"They're not particular if you are playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it"
Dizzie Gillsepie

Back in the early 60's, Ralph Emery was interviewing Roger Miller on WSM after his performance on the Grand Ole Opry. As many of you older folks probably know, Ralph almost always had on of the Opry performers on his radio show after the Opry was over.

Ralp: "Roger, now that you have become famous, do you now record mostly your own songs rather than the ones the label selcts for you?"

Roger: "Well Ralph, it's like this. I used to not to, but I do anymore."


I've remembered that line all these years. I still think it'4s funny as heck.

Alan

Here's another one I just remembered:

Shell Bowling, the band leader and lead singer for the band I played in Germnay for quite a few years, once made this comment when someone asked him how he defined good music:

"If it don't make ya wanna dance, it probably ain't very good music".

Alan

"Inspiration is a guest who doesn't like visiting lazy people" -
Tchaikovsky

"If the Bass & Drums ain't happenin',
we may as well all go home".

-James Brown

"If I'm me and I make this kind of music, it's wrong if I try to fashion my songs or my music to suit a market."

G. Harrison

I just read this little Dialogue from Chuck Templeton's Memoirs:

Just prior to his first Television Show, the Director asked to have a word with him:

"How many people do you think will be listening to you?"

"I'm told 2-3 million."

He shook his head. "No."

"A Million?"

"No."

"I give up...How Many?"

"One."

"One?"

"You're used to speaking to crowds", he said, "Television's an intimate medium. The audience may be in the millions, but nobody hears you as a crowd. Each person hears you as an individual. Talk to that one person."

I kinda think that translates to Singing, too.

Best Wishes,
Stan

"Many people think the Beatles were all about peace and love and changing the world. That was part of it. But we were about money. Many is the time John and I sat down and said "Let's write a swimming pool."

Sir Paul McCartney

"I was the same kind of father as I was a harpist - I played by ear" - Harpo Marx

I remember my piano instructor telling stories about Harpo. He took lessons from the same harp teacher (their lessons interlocked). I'm sure Harpo could read music as well. Most everyone could back in those days.

Best, John

I don't know anything about music,
you don't have to in my line..

Elvis Presley

"I think we'll probably give all this up in a year or two. Who wants to see some worn out 25 year old fart playing rock and roll."

Mick Jagger- 1967

Actually Joe, he did mention the reason for the extra chords. people always leave off the second half of that quote which goes something like this...."Unless here's a pretty girl in the audience, in which case I might throw in an extra chord or two."

Along a similar line, Charles Martin, old blues Dude, when asked how he kept going and going when the audience didn't seem to be into it..."I just pick out the prettiest gal in the room and sing every song to her"

And my favorite Keith Richards, when asked how do you create these songs...."I don't create. I leave creatin' to God."...I can't remember the rest of the quote, but it was along the lines of "I just try to capture whatever's already out there."

Midnite

And another Woody. When asked "How do you learn to play the guitar?"

"You take your guitar, plunk your ass up against a barn door and start pickin'. When folk stop to listen, then you've learned how to play."

Midnite

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.....
Bob Marley