A collection of good musical precepts

[hoangpianohcm]

usic 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


Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas.
George Gershwin


We have learned to express the more delicate nuances of feeling by penetrating more deeply into the mysteries of harmony.
Robert Schumann


Respectable people do not write music or make love as a career.
Alexander Borodin


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


Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz


The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.
Johann Sebastian Bach


People who make music together cannot be enemies, at least while the music lasts.
Paul Hindemith


It’s easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.
Johann Sebastian Bach


True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.
George Gershwin


In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.
Robert Schumann


Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.
Hecto Berlioz


If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. Therefore, respect every musician in his proper place.
Robert Schumann

Source: Vietnam guitar yamaha shop

 

[Albert]

Camille Saint-Seans as quoted in The American Organist, February 2017:
Playing the organ in church is like wetting your pants in a dark blue suit. It gives you a warm feeling, but no one really knows what you have done.

 

[bob32116]

One of my favourites is:

"the definition of a gentleman is a man who knows how to play the accordion... and doesn't."

 

[John Watt]

In the Holy Bible, after being disenfranchised from the Garden of Eden,
modern mankind is given three talents to help him survive life on earth.
Knowing the plants of the earth, for food and medicine.
Carpentry, for working with wood.
And music, for the raising of voices.
Jubal, named as our musical host, is the oldest named musician on earth.
Jubilation, I hope you feel it.

And if you think a tribe evolved as being phonetic with Jubals' name,
think Jew, the tribal name, and then think Baal, their first god, a golden calf.
Mormons, Jewish descendants who fled over the ocean to Central America,
have twelve bulls to support baptismal fonts for immersion,
and Utah, and bigger out-of-state centers, have life-size bulls covered in gold.
If not, the walkways, steps, fount and bulls, are all solid marble.
Fortunately, no accordions are involved.