Character is the backbone of our human culture. Music is the flowering of character. — Confucius
Music is an essential part of everything we do. Like puppetry, music has an abstract quality which speaks to a worldwide audience in a wonderful way that nourishes the soul. — Jim Henson
African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West. — Miriam Makeba
Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward. — Dmitri Shostakovich
music is not technique and melody, but the meaning of life itself, infinitely sorrowful and unbearably beautiful. — Pearl S. Buck
Music is the medium for expressing emotion. Music kindles love and infuses hope. It has countless voices and instruments. Music is in the hearts of all men and women — Sivananda
Music is a more potent instrument than any other for education. — Plato
If you think of music as a universal language, it still has some very powerful dialects. — Jerry Garcia
Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes. — Claude Debussy
All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song. — Louis Armstrong
Short Traditional Music Quotes
Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized. — David Sanborn
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.
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
Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.
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
The earth has music for those who listen.
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
Old Time Music Quotes
My favorite musical? I don't. It changes all the time. I'm just a diehard, I'm totally old school, like I'll sit and watch, if they are re-doing Oklahoma in New York, I will be the first one there. — Trey Parker
There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent. — Michel de Montaigne
Call me a relic, call me what you will, say I'm old fashion, say I'm over the hill. Today's music ain't got the same soul, I like that old time rock and roll. — Bob Seger
A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune.
I believe if you ask any singer who was the greatest country music singer of all time, they would say 'George Jones'. He was without question and by far the BEST! I first met and worked with him when I was 13 years old; I am so very grateful that he was my friend. — Barbara Mandrell
The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with — nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life. — Rob Sheffield
A friend of mine, that I had known for some time, came up one day with an old guitar. I don't know where he got it, I don't know how long he'd had it, but he knew about two chords on it. He proceeded to teach them to me, and then we proceeded to go crazy over music. — Charlie Daniels
Art is how we decorate space; Music is how we decorate time.
I want to write for people that are trying to do some kind of quality music. What I mean by quality music is not so much the trend, what is hot right now. I don't write trendy, I write what feels good and something that feels good will never get old. Timeless music is what I try to shoot for. — Ne-Yo
I think folk music helps reinforce your sense of history. An old song makes you think of times gone by. — Pete Seeger
It was around that time, early 60s. There were like three kindred spirits in New Jersey. I had two friends who played folk music, old-time music and bluegrass and we started a little band called the Garret Mountain Boys. — David Grisman
When I listen to old music, that's one of the few times that I actually have a kind of love for humanity. — Robert Crumb
Folk Music Quotes
It's a folk singer's job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people — Woody Guthrie
Once over there [Balkans], I felt extremely patriotic. Here are these people, from 18-year-olds to military veterans, enduring real duress for the cause of peace. I don't ever want to play for a regular audience again, only military folks who are starving for music. — Sheryl Crow
If songs were lines in a conversation, the situation would be fine . . . — Nick Drake
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.
Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means. — Bela Bartok
Yeah, I always listen to both classic and newer folk-influenced music. Singer-songwriter, alternative music. I also listen to more experimental dance music. — Brad Delson
What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing. — Justin Townes Earle
People are like Music, some speak the truth and other are just noise
You have to open your mind. I like the ability to express myself in a deep way. It's the closest music to our humanity - it's like a folk music that rises up out of a culture. — Sonny Terry
Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music. — George Gershwin
Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm. It's the rhythm that gets to the kids – they're starved of music they can dance to, after all those years of crooners. — Alan Freed
My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues. — Mark Knopfler
Love Traditional Quotes
Put away the book, the description, the tradition, the authority, and take the journey of self-discovery. Love, and don't be caught in opinions and ideas about what love is or should be. When you love, everything will come right. Love has its own action. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
All major religious traditions carry basically the same message, that is love, compassion and forgiveness the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives. — Dalai Lama
Music is the emotional life of most people.
It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. It is only when you are constantly inquiring, constantly observing, constantly learning, that you find truth, God, or love. — Jiddu Krishnamurti
To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To you, respect. — Oren Arnold
I won't have a traditional marriage; I don't find the value in that anymore. But I am such a hopeless romantic and I really want love and I want a committed relationship, so I am going to reinvent marriage for myself. — Halle Berry
One good thing about music. When it hits you, you feel no pain.
It's a fun day, a day which kicks off the start of our tour, it's got great tradition - Australian cricketers just love tradition - and it's been a really pleasant day. — Matthew Hayden
Everybody knows in the business how I feel about country music. I'm an old traditionalist. Then they just call me an old man and stuck in my old ways, but with all the fans I've got out there, I can't be all that wrong. I do love traditional country music. I love the good stuff. — George Jones
Finding out what particular insights mean to people in other traditions enables us not only to respect but to love the wisdom of other religions. — Thomas Keating
The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice and the desire for personal independence -- these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my stars that I belong to it. — Albert Einstein
Irish Music Quotes
I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn't there before that. — Van Morrison
My dad's Irish music was such a huge influence. — Dido Armstrong
The light music of whiskey falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude. — James Joyce
Without music, life would be a mistake.
I'm a fanatic about Irish music. I love its moody, modal and timeless quality. I'm different from some other composers, because I don't look at this as just a job. I think of music as art. — James Horner
When's the last time you walked by a pub in Dublin and heard Irish music? When's the last time you ordered a coffee and heard an Irish accent? — Michael Flatley
I'm not so much a rock star, d'ya know what I mean? I play Irish music. There's really no age when you stop playing Irish music. Even if I retired from playing onstage, I'd still be singing in pubs. — Shane MacGowan
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain
The first time I started listening to Irish music, I had a very strong connection. Strangely enough, there's a great many Japanese melodies and vocal styles that sound very much like Hungarian music. You start seeing all these cross-references and comparative, independent musical cultures. — Tom Waits
I play Irish popular music, yeah? Calling it folk is like putting it in a box. It's a living tradition, you know? — Shane MacGowan
I started hitching about the country when I was 16 or 17 years old. I found the music that was played around the country - Irish music - had a particular resonance. — Brendan Gleeson
My influences are with Irish music, church music and classical music. — Enya
Celtic Music Quotes
Celtic music will always be around, even if with the mainstream crowds it dies out. — Natalie MacMaster
When I was younger, I was in love with everything about the British Isles, from British folklore to Celtic music. That was always where my passions were as a young girl, and so I studied folklore as a college student in England and Ireland. — Terri Windling
I have always loved Scottish music - all sorts of Celtic, Gaelic music. — Carter Burwell
And its very strange, but I think there is something very common - not only in Celtic music - but there is a factor or element in Celtic music that is similar in music that we find in Japan, the United States, Europe, and even China and other Asian countries. — Nobuo Uematsu
As you may know my use of Celtic music is extremely simple and short. However there is something about it that will remain in your mind for a long, long time. — Nobuo Uematsu
I have come to use the pan-Celtic history, which spans from 500 BC to the present, as a creative springboard. The music I am creating is a result of traveling down that road and picking up all manner of themes and influences, which may or may not be overtly Celtic in nature. — Loreena McKennitt
There's some familiarity in Celtic music, even if you've never heard that piece of music before. — Nobuo Uematsu
I like Celtic folk music, Native American music, and any kind of early music. There isn't a lot of music that I don't like... except for Show Tunes. — Terri Windling
Certainly my only interest is not in Celtic music. — Nobuo Uematsu
Cornwall has lots of folk and Celtic music and has that kind of surfer vibe as well. That was my kind of upbringing. — Sam Palladio
The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization. — Fredric Jameson
But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music. — Yo-Yo Ma
I tell my students, 'It's an important tradition and you have to go back and hear this music and learn its language all the way through. How are you going to know what's new to play, if you haven't listened to everything that's old?' — Jackie McLean
Here it is: our collaboration with Project Spark . Instead of a traditional music video for GUILTY ALL THE SAME (feat. Rakim), we are giving you this as a starting line for you guys to create and share. This is the first interactive, remixable game. We look forward to seeing what you make with it. — Joe
It seems all worlds of music - rock, blues, R&B, soul, hip-hop and others - are able to point to impromptu get-togethers as proud moments in their timelines, encounters that were recorded and created music of lasting impression. In the jazz tradition, there are a few, but none that has been revered for as long as Jazz at Massey Hall. — Ashley Kahn
When you're doing the traditional musicals, singing songs that are 40 and 50 years old, you realize there's a reason why those musicals are hits. These are amazing songs! — Tom Wopat
Country fans need to support country music by buying albums and concert tickets for traditional artists or the music will just fade away. And that would be really sad. — George Jones
As players of instruments, it is our duty to reach out and give light to those in the dark in whatever way that we can. All my actions are a fulfilment of all the African music genres - I'm only trying to maintain the culture and the tradition. I am a musician. — Sizzla
All the traditional models for doing things are collapsing; from music to publishing to film, and it's a wide open door for people who are creative to do what they need to do without having institutions block their art. — Ava DuVernay
Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music. — Jay-Z
I enjoy listening to classical music and heavy metal. I play basketball and try to go diving at least once a year. I don't really have hobbies in the traditional sense... I engage in too many activities already through the actions of my characters. — Alan Dean Foster
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
I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize. — Martin Seligman
The musical instuments may be western but my voice never wavers away from my own ragas. it is good to make experiments and I do a lot of them but my thoughts always round the centre and that centre is the tradition of my elders and it is classical music... — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Modern European composers...have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of musical technique which has helped them put into musical terms a little more clearly the thoughts that originated here. They can express themselves more glibly. — George Gershwin
Can you imagine that Cuba and Europe's youth, who had forgotten about traditional music, who only thought of rock music, are now looking back towards their grandparents? That is a phenomenon. — Compay Segundo
I have been influenced by the greatest artists in jazz, pop, reggae, traditional, ballards, pop, and all types of music, taking the best from each to represent my own personality. Whitney Houston, George Michaels, Sade, Phil Collins, and many others have influenced me. — Laura Pausini
In the tradition of the classic songwriter rooms like The Bluebird in Nashville, Strange Brew is a gift to the music community in Austin, for artists and audiences alike — Christopher Cross
I am a product of Indian cinema; I've grown up watching Indian films ever since I can remember. And song and dance is part of our lives, it's part of our culture we wake up to songs, we sleep to lullabies, you know, we celebrate every religious and traditional function with music. — Karan Johar
It's America's classical music ... this becomes our tradition ... the bottom line of any country in the world is what did we contribute to the world? ... we contributed Louis Armstrong — Louis Armstrong
Once again, Kirk Franklin takes the church beyond the traditional, transitioning his life's experiences into life lessons. Clearly there is more to this man than great music. You will feel the beat of his heart and faith. — T. D. Jakes
The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions. — Michael Tilson Thomas
There actually had been a tradition within English music of the '60s of people looking eastwards, maybe in quite a naïve way, but nonetheless, you had musicians like George Harrison or Bryan Jones recording the musicians of Joujouka in North Africa. — Justin Adams
There is a complexity and layering that goes on with this kind of thing, so the music is slightly repetitive and when I say repetitive it's in the same tradition as people like Steve Reich or Erik Satie or even WC. — DJ Spooky
Classic music will always come across better on the ice because skating has such a rich history, rooted in tradition. — Gracie Gold
A whole generation of young whites have involved themselves with traditional Negro music. — Archie Shepp
I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels. — PJ Harvey
Classical music is a wonderful 1200 year-old tradition that witnesses everything that it has meant and what it means right now to be human. — Michael Tilson Thomas
Because the blues is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It's a 12-bar form that's played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that's been used by rock n' roll. It's related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition. — Wynton Marsalis
Once you're in a particular country, and you're surrounded by musicians who are so adept at traditional music, you suddenly realize how much there is to explore and digest and learn and experience. — Evelyn Glennie
American movies and music deliver themes of freedom, innocence, and power that appeal to others - partly because America itself was put together out of a multiplicity of national traditions. — Todd Gitlin
Because I refuse to perform my music in a traditional sense of instrumentation, I don't have an amazing live stage spectacle to provide, and I don't want to go there. I don't see how the music would stay true to the spirit of the work. — Tim Hecker
I like for it to be mountain music or old-time country music or traditional bluegrass. Either one will fit me. It's traditional, basically. — Ralph Stanley
We need more math classes, we need more science. It's the art of math and the art of science that creates all the innovation, and we have a tradition of great arts, great music. — Wynton Marsalis
I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America. — Quincy Jones
The people in Japan love jazz music, man, and also in Europe, far more than they ever did here. And that always puzzled me until I went over there to really get into it for myself and find out what it is. It's their tradition and culture, man. We've gotten away from that in America, man. We live in a country of complete fantasy. — Milt Jackson
The Lounge Lizards were relating with a tradition and it was like I was playing within a musical context. The guitar playing stood out as being different in some way. That was a real education for me. — Arto Lindsay
They're great instrumentalists, singers and songwriters and they have this unique way of blending contemporary with traditional. The result is this beautiful mix of timeless music. — Cindy Cashdollar
Apart from Scottish traditional music, I wasn't really influenced by any kind of music. I just basically followed my own instincts. — Evelyn Glennie
There are some people, by the way, that associate a certain amount of visualization with the performance of music. Those are people that really are not centrally concerned only with music, the traditional things. — Leo Ornstein
I know there's some kind of history to mountain music-like it came from Ireland or England or Scotland and we kept up the tradition. — Loretta Lynn
First, it doesn't surprise me that traditional music has experienced a kind of exhaustion in the 20th century - not forgetting that many musicians started to look outside the traditional structures of tonality. — Pierre Schaeffer
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of traditional music quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about traditional music to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of traditional music quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
