Maurice Ravel Quotes

And I like to interpret music. So I think it's all interpretive.

It doesn't necessarily mean at all that the composer plays his own works best.

The song came out to be a gem, just came out to be a really, really interesting rendition of it.

Singers, like Frank Sinatra and myself, we interpret the songs that we like. Not unlike a Shakespearean actor that goes back to the greatest words ever written, we go back to the greatest songs and bring about my interpretation of them.

I just try to approach and serve the music in the way that I think is right for the band I'm in at the time.

Our idea is simply to play the songs and to emphasize our musicianship.

I've always felt that music is an art form that deserves to live the life of the artist.

I am so happy that I didn't go to school and I didn't have anyone to tell me how to position my fingers on the piano correctly. And what you do with music and what is the correct way to write it and what is not the correct way to write it.

Music is a performing art, as any Native American will tell you. It isn't there in the score.

I am an interpreter of music rather than a composer of it.

The hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of.

To say to the painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.

I can't even read music. All I know is whether I think it sounds good and if I like what I'm doing.

Music is a very physical experience, and I need to understand things physically to be able to create the narrative for them.

I can't play an instrument to save my life. But when I'm creating, and when I'm making music, I feel like I'm the head of the orchestra, and I'm just waving my wand, and something is created.

I always felt of myself as a composer, performer, improviser. I've never called myself a jazz man. I make art.

I have learned that music comes in all shapes and sizes.

I like working with sound; sound and rhythm. I like the abstract more than "What does that mean?" Nobody ever says to you, "Why did you use a harmonium?" Or "What is that ringing sound that occurs here?" The questions are always "What does that song mean?" or "What were you trying to say here?"

Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own.

I play music - I write my own music, but I play music, just background music really, and just let it happen.

All worthy work is open to interpretations the author did not intend. Art isn't your pet -- it's your kid. It grows up and talks back to you.

The work of art is to dominate the spectator: the spectator is not to dominate the work of art.

I'm a big proponent of letting songs tell me what they wanna sound like.

My experience of singing, as an actor, was that there's a different creative feeling of freedom. The acting thing is a bit more defined and cerebral. I can see why people would want to cross over. If you have so much freedom on stage then perhaps you want to be confined a bit, and vice versa.

Even if someone thinks there's a mistake I've made on the piano, to me it's not a mistake; it's how it's meant to be.