Virgil Thomson Quotes

The thing with music education is that it is good at teaching technique, but not texture. You only learn about that from listening to music and experimenting on your own.

The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly... music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees.

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

I don't think you can have a calculated approach towards learning music.

I didn't have to apply my mind to the aspects of scales and playing, and instead, I focused on creativity. I wrote music, but I didn't 'practice' it. So yeah, you can always get better and improve your technique, but hopefully, that comes through being a musician and composing and being a creative individual.

That's what it is that you rehearse - the making of music, not the playing of notes as abstractions.

I'm an intuitive musician. I have no real technical skills. I can only play six chords on the guitar.

I'm a natural piano player. So all the practicing I do at this point is in my head. If I don't play for a year, my chops aren't going to get any worse. I've spent my time playing scales, and I don't necessarily want to play any faster than I play. So everything I do at this point is more philosophical.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

I can't play any instrument for the life of me, but I know what I want to hear.

Studying music involves a lot of mathematics and a lot of exercises of memory. Or you've got to be able to be like somebody, to play like somebody, to play Mozart's music the way he played it and how he intended it. You've got to make it perfect, and that's not what I want to do. Although it is beautiful.

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

I'm an interpreter of music.

I can't read music. That's not where I come from musically. I come strictly from feeling, and that feeling comes from rock & roll.

My thinking musically has always been more advanced - it is difficult to get it down onto paper sometimes, even now.

I play a musical instrument a little, but only for my own amazement.

My music is simple stuff. Anybody can sit down, look at a set of symbols and produce sounds the music represents.

I don't think I could have ever had a career as a pianist because I never ever wanted to play the notes the way they were written, I was too sloppy to learn them quite right.

You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.

I just happened to start playing music for the conceptual ideas.

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.

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.

Music is all about training in harmony, training to understand and use musical energy for our greater pleasure by attuning to the natural laws of the universe.

I've never known how to read music in my life.

I think when you're learning an instrument, you are restricted because much of it is the noise of individual theory and your ability to play the instrument.