90 Music Arrangement Quotes

Following is our list of music arrangement quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about arranging.

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Famous Music Arrangement Quotes

Music is...the coordination between man and time. — Igor Stravinsky

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time. — Igor Stravinsky

I see music as fluid architecture. — Joni Mitchell

Music is a defining element of character. — Plato

Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light. — Claude Debussy

Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes. — Claude Debussy

Music is the soundtrack to life. It plays the melody of our being. - Michael Jackson

Music is the soundtrack to life. It plays the melody of our being. — Michael Jackson

Music is the reaching out towards the utmost realities by means of ordered sound. — Ralph Vaughan Williams

Music gives color to the air of the moment. — Karl Lagerfeld

Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord. — Plutarch

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading. — Igor Stravinsky

After all my years of doing instrumental music I still like just a simple instrumental song with a nice catchy melody and an opportunity to play a solo over a harmonic structure. — Stanley Clarke

Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting. — Gottfried Leibniz

The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing. — John Cage

I suppose subconsciously I was thinking in terms of having the scale of it matching the scale of the images. Hence the sort of string quartet, jazz band and electronic stuff. — Jonny Greenwood

Short Music Arrangement Quotes

  • Music is the soundtrack of your life. — Dick Clark
  • Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul. — Johann Sebastian Bach
  • Music at times is more like perfume than mathematics. — Gabriel Marcel
  • I call architecture frozen music. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Music can change the world. — Ludwig van Beethoven
  • My passion for music has always inspired my designs. — Tommy Hilfiger
  • Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul — Plato
  • I am but an architectural composer. — Alexander Jackson Davis
  • The architect must not only understand drawing, but music. — Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
  • Music should always be an adventure. — Coleman Hawkins

Music Arrangement Image Quotes

Music arrangement quote Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go
Life is like a piano, the white keys represent happiness and the black shows sadness, but as you go through life's journey, remember that the black keys also makes music.

Musical Composition Quotes

People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it's composition. — Dexter Gordon

I have never doubted the importance of melody. I like melody very much, and I consider it the most important element in music, and I labour many years on the improvement of its quality in my compositions. — Sergei Prokofiev

Music arrangement quote Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.
Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.

The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression, whether they are paintings, sculptures, tragedies, or musical compositions. — Paul Klee

Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket. — Henri Rabaud

Jazz music is a style, not compositions; any kind of music may be played in Jazz if one has the knowledge. — Jelly Roll Morton

Music arrangement quote The earth has music for those who listen.
The earth has music for those who listen.

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial. — Leonard Bernstein

Part of Michael's uniqueness, I think, comes from the fact that he worked with music. He had a tape which he gave me with many different compositions, really eclectic. These pieces of music were sources of inspiration. — Madeleine Stowe

Musical composition should bring happiness and joy to people and make them forget their troubles. — Horace Silver

Movies are pieces of film stuck together in a certain rhythm, an absolute beat, like a musical composition. The rhythm you create affects the audience. — John Carpenter

Arranging Quotes

There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution. — John Adams

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.....We must not.....assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Eight hours daily labour is enough for any human being, and under proper arrangements sufficient to afford an ample supply of food, raiment and shelter, or the necessaries and comforts of life, and for the remainder of his time, every person is entitled to education, recreation and sleep. — Robert Owen

Music arrangement quote A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.

That's all teaching is; arranging contingencies which bring changes in behavior. — B. F. Skinner

Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind-that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true. — Neville Goddard

How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one. — Richard Dawkins

Music arrangement quote Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.
Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations. — Alan Watts

But, I don't think any arranger should ever write a drum part for a drummer because if a drummer can't create his own Interpretation of the chart and he plays everything that's written, he becomes mechanical; he has no freedom. — Buddy Rich

The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes. — Bella Abzug

One essential object is to choose that arrangement which shall tend to reduce to a minimum the time necessary for completing the calculation. — Ada Lovelace

People Writing About Music Arrangement

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky
quotes on education, life and leadership

97 1172
Read quotes by Plato

Plato
quotes on life, love and reality

945 13426
Read quotes by Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

56 2296
Read quotes by Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell
quotes on love, life and art

226 1990
Read quotes by Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson
quotes on music, life and dance

496 3985
Read quotes by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams
quotes on music, life and love

23 158

More Music Arrangement Quotes

I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech with such art as to produce effects of light and shade, for I am no painter. Even by signs and gestures I cannot express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer. But I can do so by means of sounds, for I am a musician. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music. — Vincent Van Gogh

I never wrote music or arranged songs or lyrics when I was under the influence of anything but coffee. That's not gone away. — Chris Cornell

I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home. — Quincy Jones

The thing that I always notice that dates a record is the rhythm section. With a good arranger the music can be timeless. But, rhythm can change, because heaven knows, we didn't know rock was going to come in, did we? — Peggy Lee

Louie Bellson represents the epitome of musical talent. His ability to cover the whole musical spectrum from an elite percussionist to a very gifted composer and arranger never ceases to amaze me. I consider him one of the musical giants of our age. — Oscar Peterson

[I]f we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained, and ceased to strive for further improvements. — Edward Bellamy

My musical director, Mark Cherry, is the most wonderful person who ever lived on God's good green Earth. He's my director, he does the arrangements. Really, he does everything - including certain janitorial chores! — Brett Somers

Arranging is the way I put my stamp on my music as much as my guitar playing. — Lee Ritenour

Yes, but I view Frank's music as fully composed. In other words, the arrangements can work for any idiom such as a rock band or an orchestra. Frank was a brilliant arranger and could make his music work in any context. He proved that tour after tour and album after album. — Dweezil Zappa

I was a schooled musician. When I made 'Blue Velvet', I told everyone what to do. I was an arranger. I learned music in school I told the band to play this. I told the guitar to do that. — Bobby Vinton

When I started making music, I made music in a very commercial space and I didn't have room to really explore things on my own terms. It took me awhile to create a little bubble where I could explore other things, and new things. When I did that, my tools were songwriting and arranging. — Robyn

I love arranging my music, not in alphabetical order but by mood, creating playlists for when I have energy and want to work out or go-out party mixes and music to chill out to. — Natasha Bedingfield

I'm somebody who grew up listening to a lot of musical theater, so getting to finally write musical theater songs and songs that sound that way - the emphasis being on the storytelling, but the arrangements and the orchestrations can be really varied - I found that to be, actually, a really joyful discovery. — Sara Bareilles

All the new songs have been written since the re-issue of Diamond Day. With my first royalties I got a Mac and a little mixer and a keyboard, figured out the basics of a music program, and gradually started to write and record the songs and the arrangements. — Vashti Bunyan

Barney Kessel was 'Mr. Guitar,' the foremost jazz guitarist of his generation. He had an amazing imagination, his solos were incredible, he swung his tail off, he was a heck of an arranger and could out-read anybody. — Larry Coryell

A comma . . . catches the gentle drift of the mind in thought, turning in on itself and back on itself, reversing, redoubling, and returning along the course of its own sweet river music; while the semicolon brings clauses and thoughts together with all the silent discretion of a hostess arranging guests around her dinner table. — Pico Iyer

We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals. — Tommy Shaw

A nation creates music - the composer only arranges it. — Mikhail Glinka

With the Rhythm Kings, I can involve myself in arranging and producing the music as well as the choice of songs. — Bill Wyman

I did quite a lot of the arranging, fitting different sections together, tempo changes, all sorts of things like that. I actually acted as a bridge between Robert and Ian. Not so much composing, rather presenting musical ideas at each rehearsal. — Michael Giles

I wasn't writing the music. Ed would write a piece of music. I'd listen to it and come up with a melody and then we would arrange it. We'd put it together and I would write lyrics to my melodies. — Sammy Hagar

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear. — Erykah Badu

I started making hip-hop music when I was 11, and pretty much since then I've just been honing that craft, the craft of arranging a song and producing a beat. It's a task-heavy role, but at this point I really enjoy it and it allows me to convey exactly what I'm trying to get across in a song. — Alexander Spit

I wanted to make an album where every song is kind of interacting - where you can't tell what's the string arrangement and what's the song. I guess that came out of going to college, majoring in music, studying classical music, and even as a kid, being really drawn to classical music. — Rostam Batmanglij

I've written arrangements for choirs and strings in the past, but I usually write music with my voice or a keyboard and then I'll get someone who is good at writing scores to write it out. Or, if I have the luxury of time, I will go in a room and hear the people perform and then change it through what I hear, not on paper. I can read music OK, but I probably rebelled a little - music changes into something else when you read it. — Bjork

I've always been drawn to all kinds of music - to me, it's all the same. There's different arrangements and slightly different ways of writing, but if it's a good song, it's a good song - you can dress it up any way you like. — Anna Ternheim

I usually don't share the music with the musicians until right before they have to record their parts, because I hate discussing it and just intellectualizing it on any level. I just want to speak from the subconscious, which knows way more about me than my intellectual side will ever know. Once I start doing the arrangements - what I call the architecture of the song - that has a lot of thought put into it. — Omar Rodriguez-Lopez

The thing that interests me far more than anything is creating music, songwriting and arranging, and in that context drumming itself is a means to an end. I think it's really easy to forget that - I'd sooner play something musical than flash, and as I can't play anything flash, I try to be musical. Drums can set a mood, create an impression, as much as anything else. — Al Murray

Arranging is sort of the most exciting part of making music right now for me. I really enjoy the process of arranging because you're given all the time that you need to decide on every single note. — Jherek Bischoff

Each one of us in Café Tacvba is a composer and we come to the group with songs written out, musically and lyrically. Occasionally, there's a collaboration between us. But each song is almost always written by one of us, and then we all figure out the arrangements. Up until now there hasn't been a moment where the composer explains the song and says, "I want to say this or that." It's always open for interpretation. — Ruben Isaac Albarran Ortega

Opera contains music that reflects a culture of poetry and aesthetic. Spirituals are no different. What separates a spiritual for me is that I also happen to love Jesus. When I'm approaching these songs, I'm not approaching them like Mozart. I see my faith and the struggle of my ancestors and of a people seeking freedom beside what these songs are going to be in terms of their arrangement and delivery. — Measha Brueggergosman

I had a really nice association with Richie DeRosa, a great musician, a great drummer and composer and arranger. And I had a number of classes with him. — Jon Gordon

My books and records are arranged according to subject, and within each subject, they're alphabetical by author or artist. The music tapes are alphabetical and the performance tapes are in chronological order.I like to control my environment, because I feel if I have my physical space in order, then I'm free to dream. — George Carlin

If I want to be moved by the track, I don't want it to be sequenced, I want it to be somebody playing the guitar or piano or a horn arrangement where you can hear the breath. You can almost smell the studio while listening to the music. For me, that's what moves me emotionally, that's what I came from. I think that's always going to work best for me. — Eric Benet

I came upon Diana Krall's jazz arrangement of "A Case of You" several years back. I've always wanted to pay homage to both her version and Joni's, and by proxy, my mom. She's the one that introduced me to that music. — Cheyenne Jackson

On a musical level, I do find it rewarding. It's not like I want to blow my brains out while I'm playing these songs from so long ago. I am still surprised by the way the songs are constructed - note choices, the way the arrangements are made, the way these songs are assembled. I'm still amazed at times. — David Pajo

Even before I became a recording artist, I did other things in music. I was a teacher, I did studio work, and I was an arranger and a producer. — Jon Secada

You know when I started playing music as a young man I felt the need to be noticed and to prove myself. My motivation is much different now but what's still left is the love of music and the joy of entertaining people- the feeling that I make a difference, giving something back rather than just taking. Every year or two I come out with new music, or new arrangements of old music which keeps my show fresh. — Peter White

After moving to Los Angeles in the early '90s, I started looking into "music for picture" more seriously and in broader scope. My collaboration as a programmer and arranger with Graeme Revell exposed me for the first time to the full spectrum of film music, including the hectic demands of orchestral scoring and the power politics surrounding the finalization of any score for a major motion picture in Hollywood. — Paul Haslinger

There was a time when hip-hop was its own musical principle, aside from sampling. Like the entire Wild Style break is instrumental. Kurtis Blow's earliest stuff was studio musicians playing. Whodini had a real clear sound, things like "five minutes of funk," stuff that you could write really beautiful, lush string and horn arrangements around, stuff that was just music. — Mos Def

I get to listen to a lot of this music again doing my DJ work on Little Steven's Underground Garage. To hear Van [Morrison] on Them's version of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"- what a vocal, and what an arrangement. Also, I get to hear so many records that I missed the first time around - The Chocolate Watchband, Roky Erikson. It's an audio food fest, a total privilege, a second chance. — Andrew Loog Oldham

When we play music we describe the echo the tableau of natural forms, their shapes and arrangements, as uncovered by the composer's imagination, which yet must be filtered through our own. There is no other way. And in acknowledging this tableau, this revelation, we must "hesitate", we must doubt, as the composer doubted, for no valid creation can issue unscarred by doubt, by that vast flux of wonder which precedes the construction of being. — Russell Sherman

I grew up not really listening to guitar players. Especially when I was studying music, I was just interested in piano players and arrangers and composers; I came to playing in a band from the perspective of someone who never expected to play guitar in a band. — Daniel Rossen

I don't want any production credit. I think producers are overrated. They're for people who, first of all, don't know anything about music or arranging and have no ear for their own doings. They can't tell a good solo from a bad solo, stuff like that. — Tom Verlaine

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