Ralph Vaughan Williams Quotes

Whatever you are making, whether it's a song, an album, a painting, a film, you're connecting with a tradition, and I do feel connected to New York music.

I'm an American songwriter, and I write from a very American perspective, and so did the records I grew up listening to.

America can well expect to develop a goodly amount of composers for she has a goodly number of people.

I was raised around music.

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn't know how other people would take it.

I come from a place where there's a lot of musical families.

I listen to many forms of music. And I come from a very particular style and tradition of music, which has certain elements that are absolutely unique and, therefore, important to the world.

Imagine if you grew up in a place where your lineage was there for a hundred years, and part of the culture was to play music 50 percent of the time. You'd probably have a lot of musicians in your family too.

We always say that National songs have to have a heart, that we don't make cold songs.

I was raised with a lot of music around me at all times.

Everyone in my family, they do music, and they love music; it's all about the music.

I made the decision to play for Germany because this country gave me something and helped me during my youth.

A lot of people think that because I'm from Malaysia, I'm driven by Malaysian sound, but actually, it's mostly just my melodies.

England's a small nation, and the pop music industry is built on fashion.

We've never adopted Americanisms. We are a very British band from a very British cultural scene. We fly that flag and that is something I enjoy.

In a certain sense we can be proud to have introduced this hairstyle to Europe. 'Plica polonica' should be added to the list of our inventions, alongside crude oil, pierogi and vodka.

It's true that many of the best-known composers were German or Austrian, but we should remember how good the music tradition is in Britain, too, because it has an informality and a fluidity that should really be celebrated.

Puerto Rico's relationship with music is everything. It's an island full of talent and if you grow up there, you grow up living and breathing music.

As a Canadian, we are sort of inherently built with an unshakable humility that at times can work against you.

I think there's no way of avoiding the South African or African influence from coming into my music, just because I spent 19 years of my life there. Being a kid, my early musical experiences were there.

I'm definitely Australian and wouldn't have it any other way. I've been formed as an athlete in Australia.

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...

Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation knows about its own identity.

A nation that can't remember its dead will soon cease to be worth dying for.

Nationality is the aggregated individuality of the greatest men of the nation.