100 Music Theory Quotes

Following is our list of music theory quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about what is music.

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Famous Music Theory Quotes

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

If you look at music, you see theme, variation, you see symmetry, asymmetry, you see structure, and these are related to skills in the real world. — Dave Van Ronk

The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature, how people agree and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion, the more one will see that it is all music. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them. - Nadia Boulanger

To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them. — Nadia Boulanger

Music at times is more like perfume than mathematics. - Gabriel Marcel

Music at times is more like perfume than mathematics. — Gabriel Marcel

Music is the space between the notes. - Claude Debussy

Music is the space between the notes. — Claude Debussy

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

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

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

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

The musical scale is a convention which circumscribes the area of potentiality and permits construction within those limits in its own particular symmetry. — Iannis Xenakis

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory. — Neil Diamond

Music is the shorthand of emotion. — Leo Tolstoy

music is not technique and melody, but the meaning of life itself, infinitely sorrowful and unbearably beautiful. — Pearl S. Buck

Music is the thousandth of a millisecond between one note and another; how you get from one to the other-that's where the music is. — Isaac Stern

Short Music Theory Quotes

  • The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing. — John Cage
  • Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul. — Johann Sebastian Bach
  • When you know the lyrics to a tune, you have some kind of insight as to it's composition. — Dexter Gordon
  • I see music as fluid architecture. — Joni Mitchell
  • I like to think of music as an emotional science. — George Gershwin
  • There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres. — Pythagoras
  • Music, to create harmony, must investigate discord. — Plutarch
  • Music then is simply the result of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony. — Plato
  • The architect must not only understand drawing, but music. — Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
  • The inner nature of man is the province of Music. — Confucius

Music Theory Image Quotes

Music theory 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.

Music Universe Quotes

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Improve the World Through Music. — Plato

In string theory, all particles are vibrations on a tiny rubber band; physics is the harmonies on the string; chemistry is the melodies we play on vibrating strings; the universe is a symphony of strings, and the "Mind of God" is cosmic music resonating in 11 dimensional hyperspace. — Michio Kaku

Music is the universal language ... it brings people closer together. — Ella Fitzgerald

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

What is the universe? The universe is a symphony of vibrating strings...we are nothing but melodies. We are nothing but cosmic music played out on vibrating strings and membranes. — Michio Kaku

Music is the universal language: it is the same anywhere you go in the world. — Anonymous

Nothing exists without music, for the universe itself is said to have been framed by a kind of harmony of sounds, and the heaven itself revolves under the tone of that harmony. — Isidore of Seville

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

In these days of political, personal and economic disintegration, music is not a luxury, it's a necessity; not simply because it is therapeutic, nor because it is the universal language, but because it is the persistent focus of our intelligence, aspiration and goodwill. — Robert Lawson Shaw

The enormity of the universe revealed by science cannot readily be grasped by the human brain, but the music of The Planets enables the mind to acquire some comprehension of the vastness of space where rational understanding fails. — Gustav Holst

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. - Maya Angelou

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. — Maya Angelou

Music is the universal language of mankind. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Music is the universal language of mankind. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What Is Music Quotes

It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness. — Jerry Garcia

I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be. — Chris Cornell

The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are. — Ludwig van Beethoven

Music theory 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.

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

The only music minister to whom the Lord will say, 'Well done, thy good and faithful servant,' is the one whose life proves what their lyrics are saying, and to whom music is the least important part of their life. Glorifying the only worthy One has to be a minister's most important goal! — Keith Green

Music theory 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.

Music is a beautiful thing to listen to. It is not a thing to preach to others about, it’s not a cause. It is what it is-and that’s a beautiful artform. — Synyster Gates

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

The winds that sometimes take something we love, are the same that bring us something we learn to love. Therefore we should not cry about something that was taken from us, but, yes, love what we have been given. Because what is really ours is never gone forever. — Bob Marley

Life isn’t a music player where you choose whats being played, it is a radio where you have to enjoy whats being played. — Zayn Malik

History Of Music Quotes

Safe sex, safe music, safe clothing, safe hair spray, safe ozone layer. Too late! Everything that's been achieved in the history of mankind has been achieved by not being safe. — Lemmy Kilmister

Architects should be educated, skillful with the pencil, instructed in geometry, know much history, have followed the philosophers with attention, understand music, have some knowledge of medicine, know the opinions of the jurists, and be acquainted with astronomy and the theory of the heavens — Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is. — David McCullough

Music theory quote A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

Music can be healing, and with my history and my knowledge of both sides of what looks like a gigantic divide in the world, I feel I can point a way forward to our common humanity again. — Cat Stevens

You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing. To be alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly: radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music. And with records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it. — Jerry Garcia

The arts are not just a nice thing to have or to do if there is free time or if one can afford it. Rather, paintings and poetry, music and fashion, design and dialogue, they all define who we are as a people and provide an account of our history for the next generation. — Michelle Obama

Music theory quote People are like Music, some speak the truth and other are just noise
People are like Music, some speak the truth and other are just noise

If we look at music history closely, it is not difficult to isolate certain elements of great potency which were to nourish the art of music for decades, if not centuries. — George Crumb

Believe me when I say that some of the most amazing music in history was made on equipment that's not as good as what you own right now. — Jol Dantzig

Music is there for us to explore. To intentionally limit yourself to one, two, or three genres is limitation at its worst. Music is huge; its a gigantic history lesson, and if you are true music fan or a musician, you should explore it. Its all right there in front of us. — Phil Anselmo

Today is a sad day in Country music. We have lost another piece of history. George Jones was not only a good singer, but was a good friend. He will be missed by many. — Hank Williams, Jr.

People Writing About Music Theory

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Read quotes by Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

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Read quotes by Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk
quotes on love, friendship and life

23 218
Read quotes by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Hazrat Inayat Khan

195 1705
Read quotes by Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger
quotes on education, art and love

35 501
Read quotes by Gabriel Marcel

Gabriel Marcel
quotes on hope

20 529
Read quotes by Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky
quotes on education, life and leadership

97 1172

More Music Theory Quotes

My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require. — Edward Elgar

I was a teacher for a long time. I taught at a community college: voice, theory, humanities. And nowadays, music education is a dying thing. Funding is being cut more and more and more. — Jon Secada

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

Music theory quote Music is the emotional life of most people.
Music is the emotional life of most people.

If we taught music the way we try to teach engineering, in an unbroken four year course, we could end up with all theory and no music. When we study music, we start to practice from the beginning, and we practice for the entire time. — Charles Kettering

In essence, String Theory describes space and time, matter and energy, gravity and light, indeed all of God's creation as music. — Roy H. Williams

We must see that music theory is not only about music, but about how people process it. To understand any art, we must look below its surface into the psychological details of its creation and absorption. — Marvin Minsky

It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception. — Albert Einstein

It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play. — Quincy Jones

I think my knowledge of music theory is rooted in jazz theory, and a lot of the writers of standards - Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin. — Zooey Deschanel

The beauty of string theory is the metaphor kind of really comes very close to the reality. The strings of string theory are vibrating the particles, vibrating the forces of nature into existence, those vibrations are sort of like musical notes. So string theory, if it's correct, would be playing out the score of the universe. — Brian Greene

You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God. — Quincy Jones

String theory is based on the simple idea that all the four forces of the universe: gravity, the electromagnetic force and the two nuclear forces, can be viewed, as music. — Michio Kaku

Playing music is not really susceptible to theory much. Circumstances affect it so much. — Derek Bailey

Rock stars are idiots. You know that! Remember this moron never went to music school, never learned music theory and can't read or write music. So why not be suspicious of everything this idiot says? — Gene Simmons

My own personal theory is that all popular music, in whatever form it is, to me, it all comes from Africa. Whether it's filtered through America or whatever - African-American. But I still think there's something in that roots music that's very, very African, and I think that's what unites people. — Paul Weller

The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. — Gottfried Leibniz

People have an affinity towards things, and you don't know where it comes from. Mozart wrote a symphony when he was four, so it's said; the theory is maybe because his father was a conductor, it happened in vitro, and he heard the music before he was born, and by the age of four he knew how to write music. — William Shatner

I began seriously concentrating on music study after I entered senior high school. I went to a class in the arts section at the YMCA and learned music theory and composition. Today, there are many classes like this available, but this was not so much the case in those days. — Isao Tomita

I'm steeped in aesthetic theory, so I tend to bring in my own amateurish way of baring a little bit - when, in practice, I'm not thinking about that when I'm working over the keyboard, or musing over musical ideas in my head. But when discussing it, we want to have some new thought about this new music. — John Maus

Because essentially Schoenberg was an extremely gifted man. And in spite of many of his theories and so on, when he really began to write music, he still was guided very much by his internal hearing, by what we call your internal ear. — Leo Ornstein

I've never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn't feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you've got to work as hard as them. — Taylor Swift

The theory that music has a depraving effect on morals has now been abandoned to the old women of both sexes. — George Bernard Shaw

Minimalism now is a reaction to what came before. It's absolutely of its time. Music moved into the set theory thing, and moved out of it. — Harrison Birtwistle

Sound is what drives my solos, not verbal concepts, I never think 'I'm going to use a Lydian Dominant scale and then go up a half-step', even though that might be exactly what I end up doing. — John Scofield

In music I do not look for logic. I am quite intuitive on the whole and know no theories. I never like a work if I cannot intuitively grasp its inner unity (architecture). — Albert Einstein

Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. — Gottfried Leibniz

There are tools that help sharpen freestyle skills like having a diverse vernacular, some sense of music theory, being outspoken, phrasing, spacing, cross word puzzles, thesauruses, the ability to expand on an issue and embellish that with more descriptive terminology. — Myka 9

I've never really been schooled in music theory. I'm a guitar player, and I attack the guitar in a certain way that it not fully unique to me, but it's more unique that some other people. — Wes Borland

We can teach about hip-hop history, we can teach about legends, hip-hop theory. It's been around so long that text books can be written about it. This is a perfect time to capitalize on and get kids excited about music education. — Kanye West

Comedy is like music; it builds on itself. Once someone comes up with a theory or a different way of doing things, people start to mimic it on some level. That's why you go back to the guys you loved in the 80s... and it just seems tired now, because it was all foundation. — Doug Stanhope

I don't know anything about music theory at all. Zero. But I don't really need to. — Amos Lee

Music is an attitude. It's a sensation to the average person, to the human being. And keep it simple, stupid. That's always been my theory. — Dick Dale

We are living in a period in which many people have changed their mind about what the use of music is or could be for them. Something that doesn't speak or talk like a human being, that doesn't know its definition in the dictionary or its theory in the schools, that expresses itself simply by the fact of its vibrations. People paying attention to vibratory activity, not in reaction to a fixed ideal performance, but each time attentively to how it happens to be this time, not necessarily two times the same. A music that transports the listener to the moment where he is. — John Milton Cage

There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law. I love music passionately. And because l love it, I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it. It is a free art gushing forth, an open-air art boundless as the elements, the wind, the sky, the sea. It must never be shut in and become an academic art. — Claude Debussy

See my father knew a lot about music, he played the piano and he would do theory and stuff like that, but I didn't learn anything from him, but I played that for him and he liked it a lot. — John Fahey

That's where I get my whole music theory from, my pops and my grandfather. — Travis Scott

My first ambition in life, I made up my mind I was going to become Miles Davis. I studied music, music theory. I played trumpet for nine years. One day, my mother explained, 'You can't be Miles Davis. There's one, and he's got that job.' — Chris Gardner

The thing is, when you're kind of creatively self-employed, your brain just kind of chooses the path of least resistance, so if you really exhausted and you've had a long day, then that's typically when you might respond to emails or if you're on a plane and have nothing else to do, then you might listen to music and write these satirical pieces trying to explain the charts with music theory. — Owen Pallett

Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of. — Nina Simone

I took music theory in high school and dropped out halfway through the semester because it was ruining music for me. — Blake Judd

Yes, anyone can log onto your "anonymous" band's MySpace page and hear the music. So, in theory you have gotten your music in front of 5 billion people. The other thing is that something has to cause them to go to those bands MySpace page, and it's that reliance on taste makers or radio, that is still very much a part of how music is sold and marketed. — Chris Cain

I'm hopeless at playing scales. Try and be instinctive first and analytic afterwords, although it's good to study the theory of music. — Brian May

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