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[COMPILATION COPYRIGHT BELONGS TO REZA GANJAVI]



QUOTES ABOUT ART, MUSIC, GUITAR
QUOTES BY ARTISTS (also see quotes_beatles.html)

compiled by Reza Ganjavi

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"you know my love goes with you as your love stays with me" Leonard Cohen

One can come across endless harmonies, but just one happens to suit the kind and temperament of the melodies. Beethoven

In no other art did the Bach miracle occur. To strip human nature down to its divine core; to endow with spiritual fervour that is most universally human; to giv divine wings to the flight of the ethereal; to render the human divine, and the divine human; this is Bach: the highest, purest musical pinnacle of all time." Pablo Casals

It takes a long time to grow young. — Pablo Picasso, 20th-century Spanish artist

Emerson: "A poet is he who through the eyes of a man preserves the eyes of a child",

"It is the best of all trades, to make songs, and the second best to sing them." Hilaire Belloc

The aim and final reason of all music is none else but the glory of God. J.S. Bach

I can not eat with my gloves :) Angela Jaggi

I want to make of my life something that is straight and simple, like a hollow reed, so that god may fill it with music.
Mrs. Ida Presti (Genius guitarist - 1924-1967)

I am a worshipper of the note and the rhythm. If they accept my worship it is the benediction (meherbani) of  Allah. Something beautiful/magical happens. Otherwise singing is like playing with the wind. This is not in my control! Bade Ghulam Ali Khan

"A line comes into being. It goes out for a walk, so to speak, aimlessly for the sake of the walk". Paul Klee

"Color has taken hold of me. I don't have to try to capture it. It will possess me always. That is the meaning of this happy hour. I know it. Color and I are one. I am a painter. Paul Klee - 1914, age 35, upon return from Tunesia. (In 1939 he produced 1253 pieces.)

Music is a manifestation of love... If you are touched by music you are touched by love in a very pure way. Pepe Romero

Nothing is more beautiful than the sound of the guitar. F. Chopin

The guitar is a miniature orchestra in itself. L.V. Beethoven (after hearing Giuliani play)

I love guitar, it plays my heart strings. Carolyn Burns

"I was the enemy of the major studio. I believed in one man - one film.
I believed one man should make the film. And I believed the director should
be that one man. One man should do it - I didn't give a damn who. I just
couldn't accept art as a committee. I could only accept art as an extension
of an individual." Frank Capra - Film Director (1897- 1991):

The artists who the world has always recognized as the greatest are those with the widest sympathy. The greatness of the great artist depends precisely on the width and the intensity of his sympathy. Aldous Huxley

Life without music is only error, exhaustion, exile... Indeed, there is nothing that concerns me more than the fate of music. Friedrich Nietzsche

One cannot become a guitarist if he has not bathed in the fountain of culture. Agustin Barrios Mangore

=============================
Where someone sing stay, cause wicket people don’t know any songs – a German saying. (WO MAN SINGT, DA LASS DICH NIEDER, BOESE LEUTE KENNEN KEINE LIEDE    (Wo man singt da lass dich nieder, böse Leute kennen keine Lieder.

Where one sings, there settle down. Vicious people don't know any songs.

Where one sings, there make your home. Bad people don't know any songs.

=============================

"Mozart is too easy for beginners and too difficult for artists" -- Artur Schnabel

"I get the most joy out of my violin. I often think in music, I see my life in terms of music." Albert Einstein

Music doesn’t lie. If there’s something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music. Jimi Hendrix


After silence that which would come nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. Aldous Huxley

If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing. Zimbabwe Proverb

Only sick music makes money today. Nietzsche

And, as my father [Duke] used to tell me growing up, "Play it beautiful, play it beautiful."  He said, "I don’t care if you don’t hit all of the notes.  If you don’t move a person’s heart, it’s not music." Christopher Parkening

The duty of the artist was to bring light to the human spirit. Robert Schumann

somehow with a good piece of music you can do whatever you want if you do it good. (markus schmid speaking about Gould playing Goldberg fast young and much slower when he was older)

Sebastian said, "The sole object of all music should be the glory of God and pleasant recreation." His music gave God the glory and our family much pleasure.

The guitar's most special quality is its ability to shape the dying away of a sound into silence - John Williams

"I love the guitar for its harmony; it is my constant companion on all my travels." - Niccolo Paganini

Every musician should be able to dance the music he just played. Anonym

 "The harmonic effects produced unconsciously by our guitarists are one of the miracles of natural art." - Manuel de Falla

A good composer does not imitate; he steals. Igor Stravinsky

"the most important things are almost impossible to teach, unless they are already known" Eduardo Fernandez

It’s easy to forget - Don’t forget to ground – specially when there’s danger – have to grow roots else you fly like butterfly. Look down – ground is under your feet and head on spine. Oscar Ghiglia (in guitar class)

"It's important that when you finish something you use that end to start a new beginning" Oscar Ghiglia (in music academy)

(paraphrazing:) God did not give the gift of music to everyone. The ones who have that gift must use it to make others happy. Mstislav Rostropovich

Segovia once told Parkening that a piece should be played in concert for one year before you even think about recording it.

The guitar is a meditative tool to touch God and find love within yourself.  Look for the perfect truth in the pieces you play. Playing a piece too fast is betraying the truth to ourselves and the universe, producing more garbage sounds a littering the universe.  Nerves never attack a person in love. Pepe Romero Jul 5, 1998

Claude Debussy about the guitar: “The guitar is an expressive harpsichord.” It was after he listened to my playing that the great master was inspired to say this sentence. Many people are not aware of that, but I want to point it out with the legitimate pride of an artist.”  - Llobet

There's always been good and bad music. Many composers hide behind modern music in order to not make music. Pepe Romero

“The most basic communication that you can have with a listener comes through a firm beat. It’s like a cable.
If this cable is firm then you can transmit everything through that - if you break this, nothing else can come through.” Eduardo Fernandez

All you need is ears. - George Martin

 “For twelve years I studied and worked at them every day, and I was nearly 25 before I had the courage to play one of them in public. Before I did, no violinist or cellist had ever played a Suite in its entirety”. Pablo Casals re: Bach Cello Suites

Real music has nothing to do with the stuff of competitions, nothing at all. - David Leisner

The guitar, by its very nature, the nature of its sound, by the soft nuance of its powerful and ancient voice, by the magic of the tone, goes directly to the part of oneself where love is felt. When I hear the sound of the guitar, it goes to some part inside of me that opens the door that holds feelings of love and everything that is beautiful which lives inside of me. Pepe Romero

The guitar is your first wings. It's assigned and designed to unfold your vision and imagination. Carlos Santana

I was my own teacher and pupil, in a comradeship so firm and persevering that the most trying incidents of my life served only to strengthen the union... Andres Segovia

"Without music, Life would be a mistake"-Fredericke Nietszche

Leo Brower: I don't have any limits, or feel any limits in the guitar. I consider it a small orchestra, and almost perfect. People discover that the guitar has a very small sound. This could be a defect or a quality. I consider it a quality for intimacy. The guitar has all the colors, and the polyphony, and many, many things - except powerful sound. You can communicate completely. And there's a magic tone that you can get out of the guitar. In fact, the guitar is one of the few minor instruments, like harpsichord and recorder, which not only remains but develops and grows. The polyphony which has evolved with the guitar helps to include a modern language, along with the heritage form the Renaissance up to now. So we are millionaires in terms of repertoire, color and expressiveness! Other instruments have magic but not history. We have all!

"Too many students who are technically quite far advanced do not properly interpret the technically less difficult pieces they play, because they regard them as beneath serious consideration.  This is a fundamental error in musical taste and judgment."        --Leopold Auer

"can't play electronic drums - that's not right - gotto get acoustic drums - you can't do that" Phil Maynes talking about Angie

Like a boxer's punch, one good note is all it takes. Angel Romero

"You (artists) must learn to love the art in yourself rather than yourself in the art." - Constantin Stanislavsky

“Artists, whether they’re classical musicians or pop musicians, they have always been the reflection of society, and in many ways a healing part of whatever is wrong in society, and I think it’s important for us to continue to do that, and I don’t see enough of it today.” George Duke

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be,he must be. Abraham Maslow

"La guitarra es como una dama.. donde no cabe la escusa de mírame y no me toques" Gaspar Sanz. 1640 (The guitar is like a lady... there's no room for the excuse of "look at me, but don't touch me") ("TOCAR" means in Spanish two things: touch or play. So "play the guitar" is "TOCAR la guitarra",  and "touch a woman" is "TOCAR la mujer")


"A work of art is good if it has sprung from necessity." Rainer Maria Rilke

The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity. Glenn Gould

Art is not in some far-off place. A work of Art is the expression of a man's whole personality, sensibility and ability. Shinichi Suzuki

Technique is the ability to realise musical thoughts on your instrument - Peter Inglis 
(peter <at> thewholeguitarist <dot> com)

Stravinsky used to say, play what's written, don't worry.

Just like a prayer, your voice can take me there. Madonna Ciccone

"I belong to the scarce minority of artists who work in good faith, around whom the phenomenal world vanishes, as it happens to the mystics when they give themselves to prayer". Andres Segovia

Shadows have their boundaries at certain determinable points. He who is ignorant of these will produce work without relief; and the relief is the summit and the soul of painting. Leonardo

Black is only black when you have no light – Ruedi Staub

"It is always about discovering what, hidden, does not lie on the paper". Andres Segovia

The first thing I would take with me to an island is music. Sandra Lazzari

A man of position/money is respected for his position/money – but an artist is loved…. When god loves you he selects you and says I love you, go play music, it’s right. Homayoon Khorram

You should only play pieces that you're willing to marry. Pepe Romero

When you make music you do it for the right reason: love. Love is the desire of well being, desire to heal the wounded, the person in pain, the person who has problems - to touch the person who needs love. The love inside you manifests through sound, vibration and embraces everyone in the room. Pepe Romero

This is the fascination of this instrument (guitar) - it makes people happy. Sandra Papachristos

the artist must be acquainted with the method of persuading others. Picasso

 A painter should create that which he experiences. Picasso

it's not worth while for one to trouble oneself to fight the narrow-minded, because prevailing over them is of no value. Picasso

Music induces nightingales to sing, pug dogs to yelp." -Robert Schumann

Music is the pleasure of the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting. - Gottfried Leibniz  

I don't know, with a piano, in a sense you're stuck with the sound of the piano so you can only do things which use that sound. Anyway, I never cease to be amazed by what you can say with the guitar. John Williams

Ha, I'm just a schmuck who loves music and would love to see this society like me more as a musician than a programmer. Larry Deack.

Sound comes out of silence and goes back to silence. Sound comes out of nothing and goes back to nothing.

Superior musical neurology may manifest itself as an excruciating sensitivity to sound. - Robert Jourdain

Be a musician first and a guitarist second - Juan Mercadol

music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Beethoven.


The guitar is one of the most calming instruments. Birgit

Just pretend you're dancing in the living room when you're listening to the music you like - you move to what you like - pretend you're making the music yourself. - Camilla Noble-Warren.

"I work with many jazz artists as Miles Davis, Laughlin, etc.. One of the things all these artists had in common is that they had no fear." George Duke

To increase speed you must increase the amount of rest, peace, calmness that you can maintain. That is the secret to playing fast. Pepe Romero

What is the function of every single note? God is in the detail.

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes. I thought it was there for good so I never tried -- Leonard Cohen

Musicianship starts with listening, loving, and wanting to reproduce - Jerry  Bickford

"Music is endless... And even though I have heard a whole lot of it, and fallen in love with all kinds of it over the years. There is still something - I guess it`s just called freedom" Jeff Buckley (1966 - 1997)

"There is only one thing more beautiful than on guitar - Two guitars" Frederic Chopin

I think Townshend is the father of the electric guitar. Vivienne McLaughlin

Life without music is horrible! Alkis Yannakopoulos

The pleasure of playing a fine guitar will long outlive the pain of the initial price. Ray Fair

When we reached the top everyone was dying: Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Hanis Joplin... There were 2 alternatives: Heroin or spiritual meditation. Carlos Santana

Life without music is very bad - very sad. Muriel Laterali

She'll come back. Women always do. From Emmanuelle

Frank Zappa: "The quality of some tracks on this album may not be as good as some of the others, but what the fuck!"

Music takes you to a place where time doesn't exist and gravity doesn't exist and fear doesn't exist.... Carlos Santana

"Practicing something fast rarely leads to perfection, but working on accuracy always leads to the ability to play faster."  - Jody Fischer - from "Beginning Jazz Guitar"

Music is spiritual orgasm. Miles Davis

A guitarist is as good as his/her vibrato. Francisco Herrera.

Charles Ives: "Time will throw its vices away and weld its virtues into the fabric of our music."

Louis Armstrong: "All music is folk music, Ain't never heard no horse sing a song!"

The co-star of every picture is the light. Goran Gaspar

"For you TG, music is a competition and you are obsessed with measuring everything then putting people in their proper place on your spectrum of musicians. THAT is a significantly unmusical deficiency that really gets your way, in more ways than one." Larry Deack

He never gave up until he got whe he wanted. Sometimes he didn't know how to get it, but he knew always what he didn't want and there'd be no compromises. [an actress about the great director, David Lynn ]

She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends -- from Hotel California by Eagles.

"This music is forever for me. It's the stage thing, that rush moment that you live for. It never lasts, but that's what you live for."
--Bruce Springsteen

"I don't play the clarinet. I speak music." Giora Feidman (clarinetist with Israel Philharmonic)

"Oceans are an acoustic environment, and the species that live there have an acute acoustic sense. If we interfere with these critical behaviors, we may be affecting not just individual animals, but entire populations." Frederick O'Regan

Roger Daltry:
‘Pete is almost stone deaf,’ he says sadly. ‘He deafened himself in the recording studio, and when we last performed he had to stand right next to the speakers to hear anything.'    ‘People ask how I feel about singing the same songs I’ve been singing for 40-odd years but they don’t understand that when I’m singing it that night, it is like I will be singing it for the first time.’    ‘We tend to think of age only in time, but I don’t think it has much to do with time at all; there’s a whole load of other things,’ he says. ‘I’ve met 16-year-olds who are old and 90-year-olds who are young.

"Dear Will, perhaps your mediocrity is due to your unwillingness to seek out links between aesthetics and politics.  I urge you do so. Pablo"

"....... i once heard an expert on the music of Azerbaijan state, in all seriousness, that the ills of the modern world are caused by equal temperment." Mark Delpriora

If you really sing with your heart then there's nothing closer to your soul than your voice. Franziska Hegi.

"I don't want to be a film star. I don't even want to be a pop star. I just want to live in peace.'' - Former Beatle George
 Harrison.

If you follow nature you will not be able to vanquish the tragic in any real degree in your art... We must free ourselves from our attachment to the external, for only then do we transcend the tragic, and are enabled consciously to contemplate the repose which is within all things." Piet Mondrian

Guitar is the most beautiful instrument. Elizabeth L.

"The best part really is once I'm up on the stage."  Harry Wayne Casey, of KC and The Sunshine Band,

Music is a miracle (Ilana)

What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this, they don't make girls like you no more. And I like to get to know you on closer terms terms than this, but I guess you've heard it all before. Entwhistle (The Who: Trick of the light)


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Yehudi Menuhin - 1916-1999

Our life must have an aim, but we must also ensure that the direction we take is a good one. Yehudi Menuhin

Everyone should in some way be creative, irrespective of the quality of that which he creates. Yehudi Menuhin

The ultimate aim in life should be to fulfill to the utmost all that within our ability and to share that which is good and beautiful. Yehudi Menuhin

Life is not a finished product, it is only what we make of it, and if we make nothing of it, someone else will, and we will be his slave. Yehudi Menuhin

A road to a world with no borders, no boundaries, no flags, no countries, Where the heart is the only passport you carry. - Carlos Santana

You can never say if a colour is nice - it depends on where you place it. Frau Schmid
A society without its dreamers can never be free. Yehudi Menuhin

Searching and the route we take are more important than making a find. Yehudi Menuhin

In reality, infinity is merely the distance to the heart of a stranger. Eternity is the moment of cognition. Yehudi Menuhin

... They will bring their music to the people of the Saanenland, to their churches, schools, hospitals, clubs and old age homes and then to the concert platforms of Europe and the wider world. Yehudi Menuhin

A way of life which excludes the realm of the unknown and the mysterious is simply not in harmony with life itself. Yehudi Menuhin

===============================

Plato: Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

Albert Einstein: If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music.

Henry David Thoreau: When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest.

Plato: The gods who have been appointed to be our companions in the dance, have given us the pleasurable sense of harmony and rhythm; and so they stir us to life, and we follow them, joining together in dances and songs.

John Adams: I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
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CELEDONIO ROMERO

"La Guitara". Celedonio Romero's last words.

Life is a vacation God gives to you! - Celedonio Romero

The Andalucían race is very strong. Another mystery-- it has the most jealous people in the world, both men and women! - Celedonio Romero

Music is the most spiritual language for the human being. - Celedonio Romero

When it is possible that people don't understand my English, I take my guitar and speak with my music! - Celedonio Romero

I never used too much discipline; the great discipline is love. What is my secret? It's a great secret: all the time love, all the time
love. Never violence. That doesn't work; that will ruin them completely. The only, only way is love, love, love! Did I ever have to tell them to practice? No, no, no, no, no. It was easy. I just set the example. I would say, "Well, now I need to practice," and my sons would follow me. It was very easy.

Age is not important, because the heart is the same all the time. Time is infinite. It's not important. The secret is to be careful with the body.  Don't smoke, don't drink alcohol.   (the only meat he ate was fish).

> It is a little known fact that one of the earliest known examples of a
> guitar is one made out of stone, found in an old Neanderthal cave in
> Europe. Tests indicate that it dates from about 70,000 BC.   As such it
> was the first rock guitar.


================================================================================================================

He wanted me to make that beautiful Segovia sound and spent a lot of  time on hand position and being relaxed. He also wanted no unnecessary hand movement. He taught about control of tone color and that technique is not about speed, but is for control of dynamics. (John Willims about his father)

Stay away from trouble when you can. Kenny Rogers (?)

I don't play the guitar, I play with the guitar.... No guitar can be perfectly tuned. Jacques Vincenti

Every child has innate musical capacity. If we're not tapping in and finding ways to develop that ability, w're not doing our job" Dr. Linda P. Nelly

The guitar is my favorite instrument. I like piano and violin too but guitar is something else. Arash Alavi

What's a nice girl like you, doing in a place like this? They don't make girls like you no more...and I like to get to know you in closer terms than this, but I guess you've heard it all before..... (From The Who's "Trick of the light" by John Entwhistle

"Everything comes in due time: when you can handle it." Sayrah Garrison

"The only reason to play the guitar is that we can have different (colors) sounds. Which is the other reason? We don’t have volume, we have more polyphony than flute but less than piano, the range of the sound is limited. No other reason than the color, quality of the sound." Luigi Biscaldi
The only reason we play the guitar is that we can have different sounds. What are the other reasons to the play the guitar? Not for volume, not for polyphony (more than flute but less than piano), not for range of sound, but for the color, the quality of the sound. Luigi Biscaldi

Good music also needs fine interpreters who strive to keep the flame of art burning. Able Carlevaro 15/1/92

I don't have amazing lyrical ability I just know how to speak on what I been through and where I came from," he said. Slim Dunkin

"A big talent steals, a small talent borrows". Anthony Quinn (re: arts)

"I love, love, love women". Anthony Quinn

Wanna start learning how to play the guitar as well. Must be the most beautiful thing you can do in life. Brigitte G.

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all. --Michelangelo Buonarroti (Caprese, near Arezzo 1475 - Rome 1564)

Tony Blair said the Beatles were "the background to out lives."

"I always really enjoyed our early days, before we got too famous. We used to play clubs and that kind of stuff all the time.  And it was fun. It was good because you get to play and get quite good at the instrument. But then we got famous, and it spoiled all that, because we'd just go round and round the world singing the same 10 dopey tunes." George Harrison

"Although I have guitars all around and I pick themm up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics amd I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me." George Harrison

"Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait"  ... "Love one another"... George Harrison

Art is the lie that helps us see the truth. Pablo Picasso

I don't have a computer. I have an electric typewriter and a piano. Between the typewriter, the piano, and the phone, that's all I need. Marie Pooler

Theories of art carry the seeds of their own destruction. Steven Pinker

Bach put his whole heart into his organ music. Linda Rickli (organist)

If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing. African saying relayed by C. Wellen

I always thought you could use music of JSBach to illustrate anything. Julie Archer

"You got 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from". Pink Floyd

A man who can laugh at himself delivers all men from the burden of their vanity. (x about chaplin)

"I committed this act for attention... to, in a sense, steal John Lennon's fame and put it on myself." Mark Chapman.


================================================================================================================

Animals don't hate, and we're supposed to be better than them. — Elvis Presley

If you let your head get too big, it'll break your neck.' — Elvis Presley
“Happiness is knowin' you've done a good job, whether it's professional of for another person.” - Elvis Presley

Sharing money is what gives it its value. — Elvis Presley

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. — Elvis Presley

Values are like fingerprints. Nobody's are the same, but you leave 'em all over everything you do.' — Elvis Presley

---------------
Elvis’s brother:

“John Lennon and and Brian Epstein knocked on the door - Lennon was shaking: Is elvis home?” ‘That’s when I knew Elvis presley is hot.’

“I never picked up a guitar until I heard Elvis Presley”. John Lennon
‘After hearing this I started paying attention to Elvis’
‘He loved to give – to give to people.’

Zeppelin members walked out of the plane - they were speechless. Elvis said, nice plane where did you buy it from? They said we lease it from Cezar’s – Elvis said: I own mine.

Elvis always said:  “When it ceases to be fun, quit”

--------------

================================================================================================================

Joe Strummer of the Clash died in (Born John Graham Mellors) [ankara 21 aug 1952 – Somerset 22 dec 2002]

It was the great London Calling that sealed their reputation. Voted best record of the Seventies and Eighties (because of different release dates on each side of the pond), this extraordinary LP threw blues, rockabilly, reggae, ska, rock and soul into a glorious blend.

They virtually gave their music away: London Calling sold for four quid, Sandinista! For a mere six.

Bono (U2’s frontman): The Clash was the greatest rock band. They wrote the rulebook for U2”.

“To meet Joe was to meet a man with a teenager’s passion and an old blues singer’s pain”. James Brown.

I wish we were still together today. It was a god band but the trouble was we fell to ego.

[in concert: ] No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones… But John Lennon rules OK?

Ringo Starr says his first love will always be playing for audiences. “Sometimes it’s the most spiritual plane that you ever get to. On certain nights there is nothing better. So I am blessed as long as I can hold the sticks.

================================================================================================================


Carlos  Santana -- from interview in year 2000

I love people to say, 'You know, I've heard you play that song a thousand
times, but the way you played it tonight, you made it personal for me,"'
Carlos Santana beams.

"You have to be able to pull the audience from their worries and problems and their rent. We exist by God's grace and the rent will be taken care of," Carlos explains with a voice filled with compassion and comfort. "Music is a healing balm. If you don't get contact with the audience, you need to find another job."

"I was born with a certain mechanism in my body that I needed the blues," Santana explains. "You can make Hebrews, Japanese or Mexicans feel the exact same way with just one note."


“in spain it's well respect - the guitar doesnt have to fight for a place like it has to in many other countries. it's nice that it's not an odd thing to be a guitarist.” David Russell

"I teach my children that there are a lot of people in the world with their finger on the trigger, ready to kill or commit  suicide. Music is a gift of God to disarm those people. By playing a note that makes them laugh, cry and dance, they throw the damn gun away and they see possibilities. Music reminds us that we have a choice. Music is meant to heal the world."

Do not expect, whether you are an amateur or a professional, to find any profound intention in these compositions, but rather an ingenious jesting with art by means of which you may attain freedom in harpsichord playing. It was not self-interest or ambition which led me to publish them, but obedience. Perhaps they may please you, in which case I may more willingly obey further commands to gratify you in a simpler and more varied style. D.Scarlatti


“You look in her eyes; the music begins to play; Hopeless romantics, here we go again” The Eagles
==================================================

"I love music, I feel it: my studies of harmony and counterpoint have
acquainted me with the movement of the nature of the chords and their
inversions, with the way of passing from the melody to the bass or to some
of the internal parts..."

Fernando Sor


"Their [the bad guitarists] astonishment [for Sor's music] comes only from
the way they conceive the guitar: with maintaining that such an instrument
is mainly devoted to accompaniement, they begin to treat it as an instrument
for melody...with using the faculties of their left hand for the melody..."

Fernando Sor

==================================================

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN WILLIAMS:
selected quotes:

But you can't change the fact that it all began with Segovia and his sound. We wouldn't be
here now if it weren't for him.

So in summary, guitarists are bad technicians, bad sight-readers, bad at playing ensemble,
bad listeners and don't know their instrument as well as they should.

I don't like or approve of competitions on any instrument. I don't think music can be evaluated like a race - I know that's an obvious thing to say and that
there are many ifs and buts involved, because they do help some artists and concentrate the public's attention on music. But I particularly don't like the way many guitar competitions are run, the confusing way points are awarded differently in each round of a competition, and especially the over-exploitation of the "Big Winner" and the competitive values that puts on players and the activity of guitar playing itself. Winning is a matter of taste in most cases, and there are often many other equally deserving competitors other than just the First Prize recipient. I feel it would be fairer to have a select group of finalists, each of whom receives the same award and status.

I have served on juries in the past, but these days I refuse to take part, and I feel it is important to take that stand otherwise your reservations have no meaning.

Guitarists are among the worst sight-readers I've come across. Julian Bream and I are both dead average sight-readers by orchestral standards,
but among guitarists, we are outstanding! This is an area of the guitar that has been poorly taught up until recently.

"...all the arts aspire to the condition of music, which is pure form. Music, states of happiness, mythology, faces scored by time, certain twilights, certain places, all want to tell us something, or told us something, we should not have missed, or are about to tell us something. This imminence of a revelation that does not take place is, perhaps, the esthetic fact."

Jorge Luis Borges "The Wall and the Books"

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From: The Effects of Different Music Instruments Used for Accompaniment on Participation for Persons Diagnosed with Probable Alzheimer's Disease - by Mary Lou Fitzgerald-Cloutier

Of the instruments, the guitar produced the most positive responses in the persons involved in this investigation

The unaccompanied singing sessions consistently yielded the most positive responses.

The piano appeared to encourage the lowest frequency of positive responses in the group.

"How about the Dixie Chicks and the whack they took (for criticizing Bush)? They're not backing down," he added. "None of these artists are putting their career above their own sense of morality and obligation."
 

The stamina required to play some of the big works is considerable. Someone calculated that it takes the equivalent energy of shovelling three tons of coal just to move the keys in Rachmaninov’s Third Concerto - and this does not take into account the emotional and intellectual energy used! [unknown]

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"Music is the birthright of the people. The great composers whose music is timeless have a message for all who will hear it. Music is not the property of a small group of inititates or a priveleged few to whom its secrets are alone vouchsafed.    It exists for our enjoyment, physically, mentally and spiritually..." - Eugene Goossens - Former director of the N.S.W. Conservatorium of Music.

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PETE TOWNSHEND

“I’m an air-conditioned gypsy” Pete Townshend

Beach is a place where a man can feel he's the only soul in the world that's real - Pete Townshend

Any fool can hide, few can play - Pete Townshend

What's a nice girl like you, doing in a place like this, they don't make girls like you no more, and I'd like to get to know you , on closer terms than this, but I guess you've heard it all before." Pete Townshend

Townshend : "I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal components deaf,"
 "Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired. If you use an iPod or anything like it, or your child uses one, you MAY be OK ... But my intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead."
"The downside may be that on our computers — for privacy, for respect to family and co-workers, and for convenience — we use earphones at almost every stage of interaction with sound."...


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Rick Rubin:

When I'm listening, I'm looking for a balance that you could see in anything. Whether it's a great painting or a building or a sunset. There's just a natural human element to a great song that feels immediately satisfying. I like the song to create a mood."

"I never really liked the Stones," he said. "Although, I loved the Monkees — they had all the best songwriters." Through his passion for the Beatles, he became fascinated by the seductive, addictive power of songs.

Rubin works slowly — it can take him years to finish an album. "A lot of that is because of the songs," Rubin explained. "I try to get the artist to feel like they are writing songs for the ages rather than songs for an album.

"most people will write 10 songs and think, That's enough for a record, I'm done. When they play the songs for me, invariably the last two songs they've written are the best. I'll then say, 'You have two songs, go back and write eight more.' "

There was a time when if you had something that wasn't so good, through muscle and lack of other choices, you could push that not very good product through those channels. And that's how the music business functioned for 50 years. Well, the world has changed. And the industry has not."

"You feel the rhythm of the planet more keenly. I am never this aware of sunrise and sunset when I'm in town. The daily changes of nature at the beach can be deeply affecting."

 





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