110 Great Musician Quotes

Following is our list of great musician quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about great music.

Quick Jump To

Famous Great Musician Quotes

Being a musician is a noble profession. — Paul Weller

The great artist, whether he be musician, painter, or poet, is known for this absolute unexpectedness. — Loren Eiseley

The world is full of musicians who can play great, and you wouldn't cross the road to see them. It's people who have this indefinable attitude that are the good ones. — Nick Lowe

The good man is the only excellent musician, because he gives forth a perfect harmony not with a lyre or other instrument but with the whole of his life. — Plato

Ry Cooder for me is a master, a great master that has a wonderful feel for Cuban music. He's also paid tribute my talent a bit, even though I don't know half of what he knows. — Compay Segundo

Gordon Lightfoot has created some of the most beautiful and lasting music of our time. He is Bob Dylan's favorite singer/songwriter - high praise from the best of us, applauded by the rest of us. — Kris Kristofferson

The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest. — Erik Satie

The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen. — Duke Ellington

Great musicians accept everything that they hear and find something good. They take what they like and they throw away what they don't like — John Zorn

No celebrity bullshit,no self promotion,an amazingly gifted player who remained an unaffected human being — Roy Keane

Love, the supreme musician, is always playing in our souls — Rumi

When I'm dead, I want to be remembered as a musician of some worth and substance. — Freddie Mercury

Musicians should never forget that we're blessed. We have a special gift that people can enjoy through us. We've had the good fortune to receive this and pass it along to others. — Ed Thigpen

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. — Lao Tzu

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. — Lao Tzu

Short Great Musician Quotes

  • The drummer; he inspired me to play like no one else I have ever met. — Chet Baker
  • Music is enough for a lifetime - but a lifetime is not enough for music. — Sergei Rachmaninoff
  • Rock stars come and go. Musicians play until they die. — Eddie Van Halen
  • Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. — Ludwig van Beethoven
  • A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed. — Dmitri Shostakovich
  • Music is an outburst of the soul. — Frederick Delius
  • Music is my religion. — Jimi Hendrix
  • Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them. — Louis Armstrong
  • A life without music is an error. — Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Music can change the world. — Ludwig van Beethoven

Great Musician Image Quotes

Great musician quote Silence is a source of great strength.
Silence is a source of great strength.

Jazz Musician Quotes

I have no illusions about being a genius musician. I pride myself on being a soldier, a warrior for jazz. I trained a lot of young people, and I've learned my lessons well. I'd like to keep the flame burning. — Phil Woods

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls. — John Coltrane

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being. — John Coltrane

Great musician quote Make today so awesome, yesterday gets jealous.
Make today so awesome, yesterday gets jealous.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years. — Thelonious Monk

Marijuana is taken by musicians. And I'm not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type. — Harry J. Anslinger

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. — Duke Ellington

Great musician quote Great minds discuss ideas.Average minds discuss events.Small minds discuss people.
Great minds discuss ideas.Average minds discuss events.Small minds discuss people.

Well, I'm too old to pimp, and too young to die, so I'm just gonna keep playin' — Clark Terry

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it. — Louis Armstrong

I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case & throw in a piece of raw meat. — Wes Montgomery

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around. - Miles Davis

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around. — Miles Davis

Great Music Quotes

Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays. — George Balanchine

The virtuosos look to the students of the world to do their share in the education of the great musical public. Do not waste your time with music that is trite or ignoble. Life is too short to spend it wandering in the barren Saharas of musical trash. — Sergei Rachmaninoff

Music is good when it makes you dance. Music is great when it makes you who you are — Tom DeLonge

Great musician quote Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.

Live with your memories and keep them as memories and that’s great. Forget the bad times just remember the good ones and you know and hope tomorrow is a good day — Roger Meddows Taylor

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion. — Martha Graham

Our music has depth, and attempts philosophical thought and meaning with discussions of infinity, eternity and mortality. There is a line which people cross that turns it into some magical, mystical realm, for which I dont claim responsibility and dont hold any great truck with. — David Gilmour

Great musician quote Acknowledge all of your small victories. They will eventually add up to something great.
Acknowledge all of your small victories. They will eventually add up to something great.

The best music happens when you have a personal connection to it. That same philosophy can extend to the instrument you hold in your hands: if a guitar means something special, you're bound to do great things with it. — Frank Iero

Led Zeppelin is the greatest. Robert Plant is one of the most original vocalists of our time. As a rock band they deserve the kind of success they're getting. — Freddie Mercury

One day you pick up the guitar and you feel like a great master, and the next day you feel like a fool. It’s because we’re different every day, but the guitar is always the same…beautiful. — Tommy Emmanuel

Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of color may make it vague and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with lines, create great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value. — Rabindranath Tagore

Great Artist Quotes

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike. — Margot Fonteyn

A great artist has to be ready to fail. - Marina Abramovic

A great artist has to be ready to fail. — Marina Abramovic

The things of nature are the Lord's silent ministers, given to us to teach us spiritual truths. They speak to us of the love of God and declare the wisdom of the great Master Artist. — Ellen G. White

A great chef is an artist that I truly respect. - Robert Stack

A great chef is an artist that I truly respect. — Robert Stack

Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated. — Paul Rand

It is something that artists do all the time unconsciously, working in the style of someone they consider a great master. I just wanted to make that relationship literal. — Sherrie Levine

Great musician quote You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.
You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.

Artists who are able to continually create great works throughout their lives often manage to preserve these childlike qualities. Practicing a way of being that allows you to see the world through uncorrupted, innocent eyes can free you to act in concert with the universe’s timetable. — Rick Rubin

Any great warrior is also a scholar, and a poet, and an artist. - Steven Seagal

Any great warrior is also a scholar, and a poet, and an artist. — Steven Seagal

If you subtracted all of the great artists who never drank, who never went to excess, you wouldn't have any more art left. What kind of poem are you gonna get out of a glass of iced tea? — David Lee Roth

I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic, and a progressive religious experience. — Shelley Winters

Musician Love Quotes

People don't run out of dreams - people just run out of time. - Glenn Frey

People don't run out of dreams - people just run out of time. — Glenn Frey

I am a hard person to love but when I love, I love really hard. — Tupac Shakur

I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can. I will take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it. . . seek knowledge from those wiser and teach those who wish to learn from me. — Duane Allman

Great musician quote Failure is a great teacher, and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer.
Failure is a great teacher, and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer.

I want longevity; I love music, being a musician is the greatest gift in the world to me, and if I were to get signed to a label, my family and team around me are always gonna be there to make sure they want the very best for me. My fans are what it's all about. — Christina Grimmie

Jeff Beck is my idol .. sometimes he finds notes that I just do not have on my guitar. Frank Zappa's another one .. I loved Frank Zappa ... I do think Van Halen reinvented the guitar ... he's an excellent musician, a shrewd guitarist and as a person he's wonderful. — Ritchie Blackmore

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are — Kurt Cobain

Great musician quote To a great mind, nothing is little.
To a great mind, nothing is little.

Singing, it's like it's like loving somebody, it's a supreme emotional and physical experience. — Janis Joplin

The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border? There is a brotherhood among all men. This must be recognized if life is to remain. We must learn the love of man. — Pablo Casals

You have to be open to the energy. If you can open your heart to the energy, that great love energy, of this entire universe, good things will happen to you. BUT, you've gotta believe. You've gotta believe in the goodness. — Ray Manzarek

We all feel love, and that might sound kind of corny, but I really feel that's what joins musicians together around the world. — Enrique Iglesias

People Writing About Great Musician

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu
quotes on balance, life and leadership

1418 11725
Read quotes by Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven
quotes on music

146 4297
Read quotes by Paul Weller

Paul Weller
quotes on life, music and love

111 475
Read quotes by Loren Eiseley

Loren Eiseley
quotes on nature, love and friendship

85 1015
Read quotes by Nick Lowe

Nick Lowe
quotes on love, life and music

65 165
Read quotes by Plato

Plato
quotes on life, love and reality

945 13426

More Great Musician Quotes

Why do we idolise Christian singers and speakers? We go from glorifying musicians in the world to glorifying Christian musicians. It's all idolatry!Satan is getting a great victory as we seem to worship these ministers on tapes and records and clammer to get their autographs in churches and concert halls from coast to coast. — Keith Green

It might be argued that genuine spontaneity is not really possible or desirable so long as printed scores of great works exist. All modern musicians are, for better or worse, prisoners of Gutenberg. — Donal Henahan

Great musician quote Average people have great ideas. Legends have great executio
Average people have great ideas. Legends have great execution.

The people who make it to the top - whether they're musicians, or great chefs, or corporate honchos - are addicted to their calling ... [they] are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid. — Quincy Jones

If a man can tell if he's been successful in his life by having great friends, then I have been very successful. — Johnny Ramone

People sometimes forget that jazz was built not only in the minds of the great ones but on the backs of the ordinary ones — ordinary musicians. — Cab Calloway

When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known to be a great musician. When he heard me, he said 'Are you sure you're Ellis's son?' — Wynton Marsalis

Watch MTV and you can see what the music scene is like in England. The Spice Girls? Not a lot of creativity in the commercial area. There are still great musicians in England, but not a lot being heard that much. — Jimmy Carl Black

The Americans expect great things of me ... If the small Czech nation can have such musicians, they say, why could not they, too, when their country and people is so immense. — Antonin Dvorak

It was a great thrill just to know Roy Orbison, so to play, sing, write hit songs with him and have him in The Traveling Wilburys was beyond my wildest dreams! — Jeff Lynne

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time. — Ornette Coleman

One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport. — Jon Anderson

I think that what trips up a lot of great musicians is that they become involved with too many things that aren't where their strengths lie. — Will Oldham

It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do. — Marcus Miller

When kids look up to great scientists the way they do to great musicians and actors, civilization will jump to the next level — Brian Greene

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them. — Etta James

How great musicians demonstrate a mutual respect and trust on the bandstand can alter your outlook on the world and enrich every aspect of your life, understanding what it means to be a global citizen in the most modern sense. — Wynton Marsalis

They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art. — Charlie Parker

I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens. — Miles Davis

If you strive to become a good human being with the qualities of generosity, humility and having reverence for life...just maybe you'll become a great musician. — Charlie Haden

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. — Charlie Parker

No matter what culture you're from, everyone loves music. — Billy Joel

He led quite a great life, ... He was an Old Testament figure railing against the establishment - a Jewish guy from New York who became a Buddhist, a poet, a musician. — Tom Hayden

A great musician is just a thief who doesn't get caught — Buddy Rich

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. — Steve Jobs

Man, there's no boundary line to art! — Charlie Parker

Tim Price is one of the real ones ! A good friend and a great player ! — Phil Woods

It seems like bluegrass people have more great stories to tell than other musicians — Dan Fogelberg

These musicians, such as these Cubans in Havana, are a part of a scene that did produce great music and great musicians. They came from this tradition, so it's a good place to look. It's like prospecting: You gotta know where to look. — Ry Cooder

The world has lost a great musician who will always be an inspiration to me and those at OBEY GIANT. — Shepard Fairey

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. — Mark Twain

For about seven years. I really like it there. There are a lot of great musicians. The scene is very open. A lot of stuff going on. People's ears are really open, they are not closed. A lot of scenes here, people just get tunnel vision and are into one thing. — John Zorn

When I went off to college, I was expecting to be a concert musician. In music school I heard all of these kids who were just unbelievable. And I understand that you can be very, very good, but there's something that separates very, very good from great, and I knew that I wasn't great. — Condoleezza Rice

I've worked with some great orchestras and amazing classical musicians, but I don't like the conceptualization of classical music as an elitist form of art. — Serj Tankian

... The 'cleverness' syndrome has taken the place of melody. It's like everyone has come down with this terrible disease in jazz....you are always expected to do your own material, which is a strange thing to do if you're a poor composer but a great player. — Keith Jarrett

I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life. — Gustav Mahler

I am not a perfectionist, but still I seek perfection. I am not a great romantic, but yet I yearn 4 affection — Tupac Shakur

I can't say enough good things about my band. I feel very fortunate that I found them when I did, very early in my career. Not only are they just great, nice guys; they're some of the best musicians you're likely to find. They do everything from gangsta rap to polka music and every genre in between. It's amazing. — Al Yankovic

Dude, if you want to be a great musician, you have to try heroin. You'll see. It's like being back in the womb. — Dave Mustaine

In Conclusion

Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of great musician quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about great musician to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.

Citation

Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of great musician quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.

Embed HTML Link

Copy and paste this HTML code in your webpage