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Music is an art form that involves
sounds and silence. Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic,
communicative, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes. The
definition of what constitutes music varies according to culture
and social context.
All aspects of musical practice may be disengaged, and
privileged, in order to give birth to new forms of variation:
variations on the relationships between the composer and the
performer, between the conductor and the performer, between the
performers, between the performer and the listener, variations upon
gestures, variations on silence that end in a mute music that is
still music because it preserves still something of the musical
totality of the tradition...all elements belonging to the total
musical fact may be seperated and taken as a strategic variable of
musical production. This autonomization serves as true musical
experimentation: little by little, the individual variables that
make up a total musical fact are brought to light. Any particular
music then appears as one that has made a choice among these
variables, and that has privileged a certain number of them. Under
these conditions, musical analysis would have to begin by
recognizing the strategic variables characteristic of a given
musical system: musical invention and musical analysis lend each
other mutual aid.
Jean Molino quoted in
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, Abbate, Carolyn (translator) (1987
(original), 1990 (translation)). Music and Discourse: Toward a
Semiology of Music. pp. 42–43. ISBN
0691027145.
Being in a band is really great when you're 20. When you're 30,
it's kind of 'Spinal Tap,' and when you're 40, it's just pathetic.
Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, quoted in "Make a Myth, Whip It
Good", New York Times, 2001-04-18.
The emphasis of study upon a particular aspect of music is in
itself ideological because it contains implications about the
music's value.
Green, Lucy (1999). "Ideology".
Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. ISBN
0631212639.
If we compel the composer to write in terms of what the
listener is able to hear, we flirt with the danger of
freezing the evolution of musical language, whose
progressive development comes about through transgressions
of a given era's perceptual habits."
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, Abbate, Carolyn (translator) (1987
(original), 1990 (translation)). Music and Discourse: Toward a
Semiology of Music. ISBN 0691027145.
In order for music to free itself, it will have to pass over to
the other side -— there where territories tremble, where the
structures collapse, where the ethoses get mixed up, where a
powerful song of the earth is unleashed, the great ritornelles that
transmutes all the airs it carries away and makes return.
Gilles
Deleuze, from his Essays Critical and Clinical, p.
104.
It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to
Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of 12-tone rows
just don't happen. They must be constructed. … To demonstrate any
formal idea in music, whether structure or stricture, is a matter
of construction, in which the methodology is the controlling
metaphor of the composition... Only by 'unfixing' the elements
traditionally used to construct a piece of music could the sounds
exist in themselves—not as symbols, or memories which were memories
of other music to begin with.
Morton
Feldman, quoted in
Kostelanetz, Richard (editor) and Joseph Darby (editor).
Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music. ISBN
0028645812.
Most people have music in the center of their lives. I believe
my work sheds light on how music affects us and why it is so
influential.
One day I said to myself that it would be better to get rid of
all that—melody, rhythm, harmony, etc. This was not a negative
thought and did not mean that it was necessary to avoid them, but
rather that, while doing something else, they would appear
spontaneously. We had to liberate ourselves from the direct and
peremptory consequence of intention and effect, because the
intention would always be our own and would be circumscribed, when
so many other forces are evidently in action in the final effect.
Christian
Wolff, quoted in
Kostelanetz, Richard (editor) and Joseph Darby (editor).
Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music. ISBN
0028645812.
Our musical alphabet is poor and illogical. Music, which should
pulsate with life, needs new means of expression, and science alone
can infuse it with youthful vigor. Why, Italian Futurists, have you
slavishly reproduced only what is commonplace and boring in the
bustle of our daily lives. I dream of instruments obedient to my
thought and which with their contribution of a whole new world of
unsuspected sounds, will lend themselves to the exigencies of my
inner rhythm.
Edgard Varese, quoted in
Kostelanetz, Richard (editor) and Joseph Darby (editor).
Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music. ISBN
0028645812.
The term 'chromatic' is understood by musicians to refer to
music which includes tones which are not members of the prevailing
scale, and also as a word descriptive of those individually
non-diatonic tones.
Shir-Cliff, J (1965). Chromatic
Harmony. New York: The Free Press. ISBN
0029286301.
We can no longer maintain any distinction between music and
discourse about music, between the supposed object of analysis and
the terms of analysis.
Horner, Bruce (1999). "Discourse".
Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture. ISBN
0631212639.
We must ask whether a cross-cultural musical universal is to be
found in the music itself (either its structure or function) or the
way in which music is made. By 'music-making,' I intend not only
actual performance but also how music is heard, understood, even
learned.
Dane Harwood (1976:522). "Universals in Music: A Perspective
from Cognitive Psychology", Ethnomusicology 20, no.
3:521-33
We're blues people. And blues never lets tragedy have the last
word.
This section attempts to define music played at raves,
in order to give police power to ban them. It was widely ridiculed
at the time and since (see, e.g., Marcel Berlins, "Writ Large",
The Guardian, February 1, 1994).
"But then there's a moment like tonight, a profound and
transcendent experience, the feeling as if a door has opened, and
it's all because of that instrument, that incredible, magical
instrument."
from the TV show Northern Exposure (episode 5x13,
Mite Makes Right)
"Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a
tune."
"I look at it this way, if the guitarist jumps ship, and we
can't replace him, i'll point my gun at my drummer, and he'll point
his at me, we'll count to three and end this madness."
Toast
"If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would
not bother trying to say it in music."
"If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like
developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical
and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience."
"In the beginning there was Jack, and Jack had a groove. And
from this groove came the grooves of all grooves. And while one day
visciously throwing down on his box, Jack boldly declared: "Let
there be house!" And housemusic was born. I am you see, I am the
creator, and this is my house, and in my house there is only
housemusic. But I am not so selfish, because once you're into my
house it then becomes our house and our housemusic. And you see, no
one man owns house, because housemusic is a universal language
spoken and understood by all. You see, house is a feeling, that no
one can understand really, unless you're deep into the vibe of
house. House is an uncontrolable desire to jack your body. And as I
told you before: This is our house and our housemusic. In every
house, you understand, there is a keeper and in this house the
keeper is Jack. Now, some of you might wonder "Who is Jack and what
is it that Jack does?" Jack is the one who gives you the power to
jack your body. Jack is the one who gives you the power to do the
snake. Jack is the one who gives you the key to the wiggly worm.
Jack is the one who learns you how to walk your body. Jack is the
one that can bring nations and nations of all jackers together
under one house. You may be black, you may be white, you may be Jew
or Gentile... It dont make a difference in our house. And this is
fresh."
Larry Heard (Mr Fingers)
"Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it,
everything is a blank slate."
Lexi Carter
"Playing the blues is like having to be black twice - Stevie
Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed."
B.B. King
"There is only one better thing than music - live music."
Jacek Bukowski
“Thanks to great singers, music has acquired a human voice.”
"…I think, fundamentally, music is something inherently people
love and need and relate to, and a lot of what's out right now
feels like McDonalds. It's quick-fix. You kind of have a
stomachache afterwards."
"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always
have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and
ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am
filled with music."
"It seems like people get afraid of a certain music if they
can't pigeonhole it to their satisfaction...Good music is good
music, and that should be enough for anybody."
Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or
sarcastic thing.
John Erskine
Music is what I love and it's what I feel and it's in me and to
know that I can do something that I enjoy and hopefully bring some
enjoyment to other people through is an incredible felling and I am
just really thankful for it.
Music, like religion, unconditionally brings in its train all
the moral virtues to the heart it enters, even though that heart is
not in the least worthy.
Jean Baptiste Montegut
Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on
one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.
My mother's idol among pianists was Paderewski. I knew that I
would never be a Paderewski, so I searched among the other great
pianists of the day, looking for a model, and I found one at last
who seemed to be just right for me. He was Vladimir de Pachmann.
His style was refined, and so was mine. He was distinguished for
the fact that especially in the works of Chopin he struck a great
number of wrong notes. It was here that I knew I could rival him,
and perhaps even excel him. You see, he struck his wrong notes in
extremely rapid passages; I worked at my technique until I was
certain that I could strike great numbers of wrong notes in
very slow passages.
Those who are affected by music can be divided into two
classes: those who hear the spiritual meaning, and those who hear
the material sound. There are good and evil results in each case.
Anonymous
When we are touched by a song, it is because the artist cannot
hide himself.
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, "Is
there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes." And "Can you
state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that
would be, "No."
"Look, I'm a pop star... I'm very busy. I do not have time to
learn how to play a musical instrument."
Phil Oakey of The Human League
The only thing to rely on is music, as it is the only thing
that will be there when you need it.
Music is everywhere from the sound of your alarm to the word
goodnight.
Stephen Conlan
Music is the human soul compressed into noise
Richard Leadbeater
"Never sound pompous. You always sound noble, noble. Absolute
character of music is nobility. Even popular music can be noble,
you see. If it's not noble, then it's not very good..Music is an
art of emotion, of nobility, of dignity, of greatness, of love, of
tenderness. All that must be brought out in music but never a show
of pompousness."
A musician is also someone who writes music, even if they write it for other people to play. People who write music are called composers. Usually that part is left out if they also play or sing the music they write, but they are still composers because they wrote the music.
Musicians can also make a group together to play songs. If the group has many people playing instruments together, like Beethoven's music, it is called an orchestra. If it is just many people singing, like in a church, it is called a choir. If it is only a few people together it is usually just called a band. Sometimes a band has the same name as the singer.
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